Gamespot’s Modern Warfare 2 Review is More Honest That Most
Hey did you hear? Gamespot (who are evil sell-outs) gave Modern Warfare 2 an 8.5 then were paid to give it a 9.0! Quick, let’s tell everybody! Or better: report the fact this is fictional nonsense, but bask in the drama and add sentences like “but is this the truth!?”, “it’s obvious this is not even remotely dodgy, but is it?” or even “now, I’m not saying Gamespot did 9/11, but why is nobody else?”.
The truth is that Gamespot gave the PC version an 8.5 and the console versions a 9.0. Their reviews came out a day later than most, which will be explained in a bit. Morons on the internet can’t comprehend this much complexity so started posting (in a variety of forums I’ll not link to) that the review score was ZOMG-bias changed. It wasn’t. I have no idea how much pressure Gamespot were under to give the game a positive review, if any. Considering they weren’t even given a free copy of the game (see the quote below), I’m going to assume not much. Thankfully this story has yet to be copied up into the larger publications, and hopefully it never will.
GamerLimit, using the powers of asking questions, spoke to Gamespot who explained the situation in no uncertain terms, and actually garnered some respect from me with their explanation of why their review was “late”.
The main reason that our review was posted later than those of other major sites is that we have a strict policy of not attending review events. The only way to get a review done ‘œon time’ for Modern Warfare 2 would’ve been for us to go and spend a couple of days in a fancy LA hotel with representatives from Activision and Infinity Ward hovering around. All multiplayer testing would, I suspect, have been done on a LAN in optimal conditions, and I don’t even know for sure if the code being used at the event was retail. Upon refusing to attend the event, we were told that we wouldn’t get code from Activision until the day of release, but we stuck to our guns. Ultimately we managed to get retail copies a little early, but certainly not as early as we’d like.
Our reasons for not wishing to attend review events are, in our eyes, just common sense for the most part. When reviewing a game, any game, our goal is for the reviewer to have as close an experience as possible to the one that our readers will have. For that reason, our reviewers are given a retail copy of the game, the accompanying instruction manual, and nothing more. They don’t get ‘œreview guidelines’ written by PR people, they don’t get to pose any questions they might have to developers, and they most certainly don’t get to stay at a hotel paid for by the game’s publisher.
So, if Gamespot didn’t go to one of these review events, who did? Who knows; the reviewers got the game early, the publications got the traffic and the readers only look at the score. Let’s all suck Activision’s cock and go home happy. 9/10.
If you know somebody who reviewed the game at a review event like this and didn’t tell their readers in the review, call them a dishonest dumb-ass from me. Roll on FTC guidelines.
Interestingly, Joystiq had a footnote on their review saying that they never go to those sort of things (or accept gifts etc etc) but in this case they had to make an exception because it was MW2!OMFG! Obviously they didn’t argue hard enough though. Go Gamespot! Never thought I’d say that…
The double standards (in Joystiq’s and other’s cases) are symptomatic of the mass hysteria and hype around the game. It’s hugely offputting, if they said ‘yes it’s good, it’s not perfect but it is fun’ that for me would be a way more potent CTA than spurious 10/10 scores. I’ve played some of the campaign, it’s not bad. The Rio bits suck though, the levels are badly designed, generic and highly forgettable.
I can’t comment on the Multi but in terms of SP it’s not as good as the first one, and obviously nowhere near the Far Cry 2 gold standard.
Mhm, Far Cry 2. Now I know what I’d doing later.
Respect to Gamespot for sticking to their policy. I have to say however, that attending a review event shouldn’t skew a decent reviewer’s score, it’s not like theyre giving out blowjobs and cars. Sites should be open with their readership and state under what circumstances they reviewed a game but this honesty shouldn’t be forced by the FTC. Good sites will be open, bad sites won’t… and their credibility will vairy accordingly.
I never thought I’d be applauding Gamespot for something like this, but respect to them for reviewing MW2 like any other game.
Whilst I can understand people’s cynicism regarding Gamespot, the explanation is completely plausible and given what people expect from a PC shooter vs a multiplayer one, dropping the score by half a point seems reasonable for that version.