Earlier this month, The RAM Raider claimed that Eidos was attempting to attain a high review score for their upcoming game, Batman: Arkham Asylum, in a less than honourable fashion.

According to the blog, several magazines have review code for the game but aren’t allowed to publish their reviews until an embargo expires at the end of the month. But, if one of these magazines were to dedicate their cover to the game and award it at least a 90% then Eidos would allow them to publish their review early.

Eidos has, of course, denied the whole thing. However, Games Master now has an exclusive review with Batman all over the cover. The review is completely positive, awarding the game a 96%, with the only negative aspects being “that it has to end” and “waiting for the inevitable sequel”.

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There is a small blog, it’s called The RAM Raider and it was hated by most PR folk and really fun to read. Written by an apparent industry insider, the site was basically filled with the inside scoop and many not-so-subtle digs at various industry folk. Lots of allegations and the like have been thrown around over who writes it, or if they just make up news, but that’s not really fun is it? Sadly, no sooner had I found the place, but it closed down last January.

Ha! Like that was going to last. The site has since been sporadically updated and this morning offered up a rather interesting post. Regarding Eidos’ big summer release, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mr. Raider claims print mags were offered a deal on the review embargo;

If you dedicate the cover of your mag to Arkham Asylum and guarantee a score of at least 90%, Eidos will allow you to run the review early.

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Big scary Japanese game publisher Square Enix have officially completed their takeover of the British publisher. Responsible for the little known Tomb Raider series or the massively successful Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (har har), Eidos will continue to be based in Wimbledon.

The JRPG excreting giant’s takeover of Eidos is nothing for fans of the publisher to be concerned about as they will continue to work independently of their new parent company.

The company will be de-listed as an independent publisher and the shareholders will receive 32 pence (46 cents) per share held.

This is a good thing really. Not that Eidos has ever been a struggling company, but the kind of budget that Square Enix can supply should enable them to publish some quality titles. Lets just hope that Lara doesn’t end up with even bigger breasts, spiky blue hair and a sword as big as her as a result . I can’t help but feel a slightly lessened sense of national pride to have technically lost such a well known British publisher to the Japanese.

Via: MCVUK

In a move that I can only hope will result in people referring to Square Enix as Squeenixdos, it looks like the venerable JRPG developer/angst ridden teen production plant will indeed be buying up Eidos. According to MCV, the transition will happen in the next few weeks and Eidos will be left as an independent development house, which implies that jobs on the Eidos side are more or less safe.

Having said that, there is definitely a difference between the implication that everyone will keep bringing home the bacon, and actually following through. Takeovers, even non-hostile ones, can be messy sometimes. But hopefully those crazy Brits living in the house that Lara built will be alright.

Now on the surface this may not seem like terribly important news. It’s not like they’ve announced that Eidos will be relocated to Japan or anything crazy. Basically all this means is that the people working at Eidos will now get their pay cheques from the other side of the planet and will have to commit seppuku if they let any game assets leak early.

However, wouldn’t it be awesome if they did some crazy-ass crossover project? Like, Hitman meets Star Ocean, meets Parasite Eve? Except it’s like, set in the past? And there’s like, this dinosaur scientist that’s trying to take over the world using Chocobos, and Aya Brea needs to team up with Agent 47 to use technology given to them by Claude Kenni (Original Star Ocean) to fight him?

Oh, and they could throw lady Crofts boobs in there somewhere.

Awesome.

Let’s face it, all you Lara lovers. Ms. Croft is aging.

Perhaps more gracefully than most, but nevertheless, the fearless raider of tombs has been doing her thang in eight different games since 1996. It seems like just yesterday that I was strafing awkwardly and tumbling out of windows to avoid ferocious canines, all the while battling ridiculous camera angles. Nope. It’s been twelve years. Feeling old yet? I am.

The fine gentlemen at Eidos believe that Lara’s design has rapidly become stale to most gamers, and that’s contributing to how poorly recent titles have sold (couldn’t possibly be because they’re just shitty games, amirite?). This obviously calls for a complete overhaul of the character. Quite possibly, a move to make her more FEMALE-FRIENDLY! HOLY SHIT!

Via the Times of London, Robert Brent had this to say:

“We need to look at everything, as we develop the next game. Look at how Batman changed succesfully, from the rather sad character of the Michael Keaton era to the noir style of The Dark Knight.’”

Except people care 99% more about Batman, because he’s the goddamned Batman. This is Lara Croft. It’s going to take a lot more than revamping a digital fucking avatar to jumpstart Tomb Raider sales.

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[Cameron Sampson has been working as a producer and journalist within the videogame industry for more than 6 years. He's written for both online and print media and more recently has become fed up with the whole thing after trying to start his own magazine. In this guest article, he talks about his experiences with the world of gaming journalism and its accompanying PR machine - Ed]

This past year, or few years for that matter has been telling for video game journalism. One thing is clear; we are not journalists.

On the totem pole of credibility, video game journalists are the bottom feeders, since the never-ending cycle revolves around pleasing publishers. Those that dare to oppose the cycle are either “burned” or blacklisted. However, perhaps a few have made a better situation out of it.

Jeff Gerstmann got the pink slip from CNET for Eidos pulling ads in response to his negative review on Kane and Lynch. Gerstmann gained his own audience from that incident and created Giant Bomb.

Dan Hsu caught Tecmo’s attention when an executive referred to the former EGM editor as a “stinky shoe” in response to his report on Tecmo’s practice with inviting press to hostess bars. While silly, it doesn’t seem so bad right? Well, there’s that rumor of Tecmo issuing a permanent ban on Hsu still open. Hsu, already the vocal advocate for journalism ethics, is instant ratings (or hits) for the gaming blogs. He seems to be doing well post-EGM, with his freelance and E3 correspondent gig with G4.

Let us not forget the all-time classic, Kotaku versus Sony fiasco, where Kotaku exposed their ban to the public, leaving Sony to promptly patch things up. I still say that Crecente or Bashcraft owe Sony one of their standard notes full of thank yous. That incident clearly put them over the top amongst the gaming blogosphere.

While there are other incidents, allow me to divulge my own experiences. I requested a Q&A for a Square Enix game, only to have one of their PR edit my interview questions for “better terminology.” I guess they didn’t fancy my writing style. However, Square Enix will have to settle for consolation while Sega went for the prize of ultimate screw job.

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