Overwritten.net
Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: gpw11 on Thursday, November 29, 2007, 11:59:33 PM
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That gamespot guy may or may not have been fired:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/gamespot-editor-fired-over-kane--lynch-review-328244.php
It's from one of those fake news site blogs, but that's the story.
If true, I can't say I agree with the reason, but I'm not sad about the action. That guy sucked at his very simple job. It's like he's there to appeal to this weird type of 'gamer' that is basically the anti-thesis of most people. Morons...that's the market segment he represents.
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Those can't be the reasons... can they?
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That'd be a shame. I've always liked the guy.
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http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26072485
Apparently they are locking topics left and right...
Also if the reasons behind his firing are true, they won't just be a 'shame'. They'd play into the worst fears of gamers.
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I just meant it's a shame he may not be around any longer. As far as the reasons being true, well that's a whole other tier of significance.
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Yea.
Looks like they were locked because there was already a 46 page topic on the off topic board:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26072117
(http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20071129.jpg)
Well then. That just confirms my feelings about Penny Arcade. I hope they get sued into hell over that comic.
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I assume the comic was in response to his firing...?
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I don't get why you're mad about the comic, Pug.
Anyway, I always hated him. He was kind of a gasbag, and I didn't care for his sense of style or what he considered cool. I often disagreed with his reviews. Still, these circumstances would be troubling if true. Somehow I doubt they are, though.
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Same boat as Que here. Not a fan, but if they're dropping people because of this, well... that's not good.
And yeah, why would that comic upset you so much Pug?
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OK the guy was fired, fine. But where do they get off saying he was fired because of pressure from advertisers? They are just spreading rumors only to make themselves look more legit. Basically they take every opportunity to tell the world they are the only honest ones, and they are the only ones not swayed by pressure from the publishers.
There has been no confirmation that that was why he was let go. And in all probability that wasn't why he was let go. It would be suicide for gamespot to firm him for that reason.
Yet Penny Arcade have taken the opportunity to beat their own drum.
edit:
The Kane & Lynch forums, and the Eidos forums have started getting attacked. Every thread has pics of mutilation or porn heh. At first they were locking topics etc., but now have given up and just left :P
http://forums.eidosgames.com/forumdisplay.php?s=a2c0ed5ee33af79a7babffef74a279dc&f=72
http://forums.eidosgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=220
edit 2:
Yea, that comic really bothers me. It is slander, and I honestly hope they get sued. You are basically questioning the journalistic integrity of an entire website, just so that you will look good by comparison.
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I thought it was just a funny comic poking fun at the situation.
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Yeah, I think that's just looking into it a bit too much. Penny Arcade does comics. Often they're blunt or crass. This fits their mold pretty well. It's far from the worst thing they've done.
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Yeah Pug, I think that's overreacting a bit. These guys create comics, generally comics that make fun of stuff. I don't think they're at all purporting the situation to be true, but the situation arose, so true or not they're going to make something out of it for the fun of making something out of it. I laughed... so mission accomplished. Honestly, I have a lot of respect for the PA guys. I didn't used to like them much, but I think they've done some interesting and cool things in their time, including generous donations to several charities. I don't always agree with them, but still, I don't think this comic was spreading rumors or trying to do anything to their own image. This is just what they do.
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Wow, the whole situation is an absolute shitshow.
Anyway, I don't know if we'll ever find out why he was canned. I can't imagine GS doing that for an unfavorable review of even their biggest advertiser.
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I'd like to see him tell the story of what happened. It would probably be ass-covering bullshit, but that's easy to spot. There's a chance he could come out and point fingers.
Pug, parody is specifically protected free speech. Lawsuits would go nowhere.
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Well we'll see.
But check this out:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26072117
It has spawned over 50 pages of hate.
Pug, parody is specifically protected free speech. Lawsuits would go nowhere.
I wish we had free speech here. Currently speaking against the president means you are 3 years in jail.
But isn't slander not protected under free speech? I guess it is how you look at this.
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Try 287 pages.
Also, dude, that isn't slander. It's a comic. It doesn't need to be true or claim to be true or false. It's a joke. It is what it is, and truth has nothing to do with it.
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I wish we had free speech here. Currently speaking against the president means you are 3 years in jail.
But isn't slander not protected under free speech? I guess it is how you look at this.
Parody is untouchable, even if the target is the president. (http://www.jibjab.com/originals/this_land) Slander does not enter the picture. I'm sorry your freedoms are so curtailed there.
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The whole scenario seems a bit unrealistic. First, it would require someone in charge of firing Gerstmann actually saying that they were firing him for that reason, possibly opening them up to a wrongful dismissal lawsuit since the reason he was fired most likely would be in contradiction with his job description as well as the goal of the business in general. All that aside, it just wouldn't be good PR, and as such no one would make it known that that was why he was let go. For the average employee there are a dozen reasons you can make up to let them go....for this guy there are like 3 dozen.
Chances are someone heard a rumor that he's been fired, went to gamespot, saw the ads, and 'put two and two together'. That's my take on it anyways. That said, his review of Gears of War for the PC was total bullshit and I'd have no problem if he was fired over how he handled that. I watched it and knew nothing about the game after except for the fact that 'it has an extra chapter but that doesn't really fit in". Ok, thanks. Maybe I'm watching this because I don't already fucking own the xbox version and I'd like to know if this would be a good investment. No, it's cool...I'll just go and check out one of the dozens of other sites out there.
Speaking of which, it's not like the guy provided any sort of invaluable commodity (http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/934403.asp?q=kane). I'm sure by the time the next guy comes up that can pull an arbitrary number from 6-10 out of a hat people will forget about this.
But sometimes you have to stir the pot (http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=934403&topic=39866564). Sadly, I'm too tired to be witty.
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Well said. And nice post on GameFAQs. It amused me. I hope it continues to as people respond (doubtless).
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I didn't know you 2 posted over there. I've been a member for a while, though I seldom post. Yes, that was funny.
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I don't really. It's a good place to have an account to ask questions about specific games you may be having problems with or whatever, but I"d estimate I might make 5-10 posts there a year. I do usually browse the forums before buying games and such though. The best part is that it's as much of an intellectual cesspool as ign used to be.
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I agree with you GPW, well said.
Right Cobra, parody. But I don't think Freedom of Speech protects slander. You can mock the president all you want for having sex with an internet, because he did. You can mock the president for not finding weapons of mass destruction, because he didn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
Liability.
In law, defamation is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.
The common law origins of defamation lie in the torts of slander (harmful statement in a transitory form, especially speech) and libel (harmful statement in a fixed medium, especially writing but also a picture, sign, or electronic broadcast), each of which gives a common law right of action.
Again, I am not knowledgeable on the subject. But to me, it appears that the comic implies corruption.
I know you guys are thinking that I am overreacting, which I probably am. :P
I didn't know you 2 posted over there. I've been a member for a while, though I seldom post. Yes, that was funny.
I think they are going to ban me. :(
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Pug, the Penny Arcade comic is probably in response to all of the rumors that have been going on and shouldn't be viewed as seriously as you are looking at it. They have done several comics like this where they have gone along with rumors in gaming news and exaggerated them to poke fun at the fanboys and the situation itself sometimes. Usually in their newspost for the comics(the newspost for this comic hasn't been posted yet) they elaborate their true feelings. I pretty much agree with GPW on the whole situation of Gerstmann getting fired though.
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http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/137943.html
There's the review there. It doesn't show it, but he gives it a 6.0. Honestly, if that's the quality of all his work (the only other one I can specifically think of is the GoW one), then good. The guy spends 5 min. bashing the game. He literally doesn't say anything good about it except "The multiplayer is a good idea....but it's ruined by the fact that the game fucking sucks". And then he picks the number of 6.0 to attach to it? I understand that it's just an abstract number summing up how one person feels about something, but you can't go off for 5 mni. on bad qualities, not give any good qualities, and then say the game is closer to perfect than perfectly awful.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidos_Interactive
Kane & Lynch Controversy
On November 29, 2007, a Penny-Arcade comic accused website GameSpot of firing long-time employee and editor-in-chief Jeff Gerstmann from the staff. CNET, the parent company, is believed responsible, under pressure from Eidos due to their advertising campaign on the site. Jeff's video review has already been pulled from the site, and a mass departure of members, moderators, and administrators is already underway.
Gaming sites Neogaf and Kotaku have both broken the story, and a large industry backlash is believed to be underway.
That didn't take long at all now.
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Even if advertiser pressure wasn't the reason he was fired, it doesn't change the fact that big advertisers attempt to and most likely succeed in "buying" favorable reviews. It's not really different in any other industry supported by advertising. I'd say, even if there isn't a whole lot of direct evidence, that idea is well known, and just makes business sense.
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Why the heck haven't Gamespot released an official statement yet? They are insane to let this cook.
Edit:
Some guy named Tim Tracy has resigned from his position at Cnet apparently:
http://www.gamespot.com/users/TimT/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25233420&page=1
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So, when will this game hit Bargain Bin so I can see if Gertsmann is spot-on or not??
Yes, he namely punched the game in the face for basically nasty AI issues (which iare not a good idea for a squad based game), inaccurate shooting issues when firing, duck and cover tactics don't work too well in a game based around it, and the game having some half-baked ideas.
The reviews for Kane and Lynch, in general, have been all over the place -- period.
At least when Gertsmann reviewed Kane & Lynch, he complained about the game and scored it to what he feels it is according to its numerous issues he cited. It's surely not say like Kasavin's Doom 3 review, when he bitched about the game majorly and really said nothing too good about it -- yet, I was still baffled that he somehow found a way to score it in the mid-8's.
Yes, I do prefer Kasavin as a reviewer over Gertsmann most of the time, but that one time, Kas really dropped the ball on the D3 Review.
If G-Spot dropped Gerts because of this review not confirming w/ Eidos' ads on their G-Spot page and not w/ a score Eidos was looking for, that is the absolutely pathetic.
Regardless, I think Kane and Lynch might sell better, since everyone might see what the fuss is all about -- just to see if they agree w/ Gertsman.
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Anyway looks like there was truth to the comic, and it wasn't speculation or whatever:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=42776
Check out posts #18 and #28. So it looks like they had some inside scoop. I'll take that foot out of my mouth right about now.
What the hell does this mean for the industry? Now that I know they had some inside info on the matter, I feel far worse.
I sent this message to Sirean a few weeks ago:
What do you think of the reviews and stuff for these games? I don't know, I find something extremely odd, yet I can't put my finger on it. I know how this is going to sound, but when I find the review positive, I find the praise too high. On the flip side when the review is negative, I find myself thinking it is a bit too critical.
Meh.. its probably nothing.
He replied with:
I was actually thinking of starting a topic on this earlier today. Pretty much all reviews out there have been suspect lately. I sort think that most reviews out there have always been pretty lousy, but we don't have anyone great to fall back or trust in right now. Of course, I'm talking specifically about Kasavin. Even when he wasn't reviewing something, it felt like he had a part in nearly everything publish by Gamespot because the drop in quality has been pretty noticeable since he left.
I feel like he sorta did the industry a disservice by going for his dream and, the way I've seen it, himself too. He had way more influence on how gaming was growing at Gamespot than he'll ever have as a designer. Even if he becomes the head of a AAA studio, the way gaming works he'll never add much to the industry as a whole. As chief editor at GS, he was shaping how games were see on the whole and no one out there in the gaming journalism is anywhere near his level... well, it's his dream. Who am I to knock him for pursing it.
There just needs to be some sort of leadership again in the whole gaming journalism. I don't know where they'll come from, but I feel like something's brewing with all the cynicism brewing within boards and even some of the bigger names out there (see Zero Punctuation for an example). We're just stuck in this annoying period of in between stuff.
Anyway... I guess whatever was brewing boiled over.
This is quite insane, isn't it.
No D, it won't sell better. They've shut down the Eidos and Kane & Lynch forums, because of a massive attack. Go around the net for a little while.
edit:
Watched the video review on YT:
I didn't mind the review, though like GPW said, the score doesn't fit the negatives. I guess he had only 4 minutes so he ran out of time for the positives.
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I've been talking about my complete lack of faith in gaming journalism for a while now. Most people probably wished I'd shut up about it, even. If this is true, then apparently everything I'd feared is actually coming to pass and this is what we've really become. I suppose that I shouldn't entirely be surprised, but even with my cynicism I was hoping that it was just a phase and somehow we'd get beyond it. I guess not. Welcome to commercial hell, everybody.
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They updated the main page.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/
Can't say that I find that 100% convincing, but the damage has been done.
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Hmm, I guess this could have been the result of making someone who's not into the genre review something he'd hate even if it was decent.
I've noticed that Gerstmann's RPG and strategy reviews were more intuitive than any of his action game reviews. His action reviews all seem way more subjective than objective (whether he likes the game or not). They should have just let Van Ord review K&L hehe
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Bob Colayco, who left Gspot in 2006 to join Blizzard, posted some strong words on his Gspot Blog!
http://www.gamespot.com/users/BobC/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25233563&page=1#post_comment
Unbelievable.
This is what happens when inmates run the asylum.
I'm disgusted and broken-hearted all at the same time. For whatever it's worth, much love to my old comrades, the rank and file at GS. Drinks are on me, next time I see any of you.
edit:
It isn't like Gamespot have put their integrity on the line before. I remember this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameSpot
the original review for Shenmue was taken down from the site after GameSpot received many user complaints about the low score, and was re-scored, though the text review remained the same
Edit:
Some of you might find this interesting:
http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&message.id=488045
Jeff's been overseeing GameSpot's reviews for over a decade, and publisher complaints (of which there have been many -- I would know, I worked there years ago) never affected policy.
October 27th, the guy who launched such fine publications as Stuff and Maxim takes over GameSpot (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071025/20071025006333.html).
You figure it out.
Also some guy on the gamespot forums said the following, that makes sense:
What, exactly, did Edios do? Can you or someone else explain specifically what the did wrong? Based on what I understand from the information we have at this point, it's just common sense for Eidos or any other company to pull ads on sites that gave their game a low review score. Having an add here probably wasn't going to be worth the cost of admission as the ads would probably have been rendered ineffective at getting more people to buy the game, since the review was so damming. Why waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on banner ads that will yield little fruit?
You don't. Right? So what else did they do wrong?
This whole saga makes me realize something. God I love the internet.
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IT is worth noting, check out the discussion on Page 12 about David Smith (formerly of IGN) scoring Deus Ex for the PS2 low -- in which this DX PS2 game was published by Eidos. (http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=games&thread.id=487026&view=by_date_ascending&page=12)
And yep -- not too long after Smith's DX PS2 review was up, his PS2 review was pulled by IGN, he was fired, and then Cory Lewis's review was thrown up by IGN. (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/358/358322p1.html)
Hmmmmm....
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Well maybe if Eidos didn't release crappy games they wouldn't be getting low reviews to bitch about. I mean seriously, other than the original Deus Ex, have they ever released a game that is any good?
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They updated the main page.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/
Can't say that I find that 100% convincing, but the damage has been done.
Huh? That's not a retraction. That's a full-fledged broadside assault. If anything, they've cemented the journalistic horror story with further anecdotal evidence (which unreliable though it may be, looks pretty damning to me). More damage has been willingly inflicted.
Edit: In all seriousness, after Kasavin's departure, the recent lack of review reliability, and now this, does anyone here still trust Gamespot at all?
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Well maybe if Eidos didn't release crappy games they wouldn't be getting low reviews to bitch about. I mean seriously, other than the original Deus Ex, have they ever released a game that is any good?
For one, Thief: Dark Project.
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Edit: In all seriousness, after Kasavin's departure, the recent lack of review reliability, and now this, does anyone here still trust Gamespot at all?
It's not that I don't trust them anymore; it's that I now consider them just another review site. Before that, with Kasavin (and yes, I liked Gerstmann), they seemed more professional somehow. That appears to be no longer the case. It's when they changed their scoring scheme, however, that I lost most of my respect.
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Well, it certainly seems I was wrong about that. It seems evidence is adding up that perhaps he was fired for the reasons people claim. Yet, when it's all said and done I can confidently say I don't give a shit. At all.
I'm of the opinion that the guy sucked. Yes, I'm basing this off of two reviews of his and that might be a bit unfair, but it should be noted that when I think of the reviews of his I've read or watched, these two are the only ones that I remember or stand out. I'm sure I've read or watched others of his before, but didn't check the name or whatever, I'm not about to go and check. It's a non-issue.
I seriously think people are making a much bigger deal out of this then it actually needs to be. This isn't some conspiracy, this isn't some big scandal. Worst case scenario: a guy reviews games for a living, and his reviews were threatening to hurt the bottom line of the company he works for. He got canned. Can't trust gamespot anymore? There are thousands of other people just dying to tell you their subjective opinions about games and they can even provide arbitrary numbers as well. (http://www.gamerankings.com/)
It's not like this guy, or anyone else who does this professionally, is any more qualified to analyze a game then any other jackass. You could even argue that they'd be less qualified because of the chances they'd get so jaded. Yes, it's shitty that gamespot is aparently now owned by the guy who runs Maxim and Stuff, but it's not like it was some beacon of journalistic integrity before. It was an entertainment website. That's fucking it.
The problem is that this bullshit gamer culture puts these people and their completely subjective opinions on pedestals when in reality it makes little sense to do so. I'd argue that the entire professional review system is no less flawed now that I'm aware that people can be fired for not 'toeing the party line' then it was 3 weeks ago. I wouldn't go so far as to say the entire profession is a joke: we need people to do research on games, conduct interviews, and let us know how they're coming along. Big sites and 'professionals' provide that. It's also good to have people play these games before us and tell us roughly how they turned out, but you're a moron if you think that some guy at gamespot is any more qualified to do that then any of the 10,000 other idiots that are dying to tell you how they feel about something.
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Hmmmm....I remember when last year, gamers and Atari were not too happy w/ Matt Peckham's review on 1Up for NWN2 -- which he gave a 5.0.
It was a pretty vicious review from Peckham, but at least Gertsmann explained his reasons for such a score. (http://www.overwritten.net/forum/index.php?topic=677.0) Gertsmann cited a lot of nasty technical issues in his Kane & Lynch review, while Peckham really didn't cite any technical issues in his NWN2 review (which many other NWN2 reviews dissected).
Even when Jeff Green put up his 1Up Review of NWN2 which scored a 6.0, (it didn't score much better than Peckham's review) (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3155234), he at least cited some major flaws in the game to reflect his score -- namely, that the game needed serious patching to fix its interface issues, performance issues, and some bugs.
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My feelings on Gerstmann are decidedly mixed, but he's been a part of that site for a very long time and I hate to see him canned.
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gpw speaks truth here, at least to a degree. Like anything else, people that are seriously into something can look a bit deeper into it than people who aren't, but with games... does it matter? The further we seem to go down this road, the more I'm inclined to agree that no, it doesn't. It certainly doesn't affecting my purchasing decisions in any way (I'm loving the IGN-lambasted Assassin's Creed right now, I also thoroughly enjoyed the ultra-hated Dawn of Mana and Clive Barker's Jericho, and while I'm enjoying The Witcher, which has done well with critics, I was planning on buying that one before it was even released. And after reading a lot of glowing Mass Effect reviews, I'm still not quite sure it's the RPG for me right now.
So... yeah. I think it totally sucks to have someone fired for stating their opinion when that's essentially their job, but gpw is probably closer to the truth here than the rest of us. Everything has sort of always been this way, and the downslide of one particular site doesn't really reflect anything other than that said site is on a downslide. And considering they lost a guy who was more or less at the helm (Kas), who for all the simplicities of his job, was really a visionary in terms of... well, just being an example of exactly what game journalism should be, it shouldn't come as much surprise to see that bad things are happening there now.
Eh. Whatever. I have much bigger problems in my life right now.
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gpw speaks truth here, at least to a degree. Like anything else, people that are seriously into something can look a bit deeper into it than people who aren't, but with games... does it matter? The further we seem to go down this road, the more I'm inclined to agree that no, it doesn't. It certainly doesn't affecting my purchasing decisions in any way (I'm loving the IGN-lambasted Assassin's Creed right now
GameSpot loved it. :P
(http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/assassinscreed/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review)I also thoroughly enjoyed the ultra-hated Dawn of Mana and Clive Barker's Jericho
Despite Jericho getting panned bt most critics, I dunno -- I still want to play it, when it gets that nice price drop.
...and while I'm enjoying The Witcher, which has done well with critics, I was planning on buying that one before it was even released.
Witcher was great.
Loved the game.
And the ending is quite thought-provoking....
And after reading a lot of glowing Mass Effect reviews, I'm still not quite sure it's the RPG for me right now.
The Witcher is easily my PC RPG of The Year for me.
So... yeah. I think it totally sucks to have someone fired for stating their opinion when that's essentially their job
Exactly.
but gpw is probably closer to the truth here than the rest of us. Everything has sort of always been this way, and the downslide of one particular site doesn't really reflect anything other than that said site is on a downslide.
The thing is though, if Eidos complains about a review on GameSpot and Eidos gets their way, what will stop them from going to IGN? And then the next site???
Then, say if Eidos succeeds, what if another publisher decides to follow suit??? What won't stop say EA complaining from G4 slam-dunking their HG: London game in their review to try and get the game re-reviewed at a higher score (http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/reviews/1669/Hellgate_London.html)? Or from EA giving a magazine so much coverage and advertisement, that it influences the PC Gamer to score a high 89%???
Hmmm....you know, Que might've been onto something when he said he didn't like games being branded w/ a score, grade, etc....
And considering they lost a guy who was more or less at the helm (Kas), who for all the simplicities of his job, was really a visionary in terms of... well, just being an example of exactly what game journalism should be, it shouldn't come as much surprise to see that bad things are happening there now.
Yes, it has went downhill since Kas left.
And yes, it looks like w/ Gerstmann gone, it'll probably only get worse there. I was never on the side of thinking he was a great reviewer -- though, nor did I think he was horrible, either. He was somewhere in-between. He was often very blunt in his reviews and I always thought his reviews always were entertaining. I didn't always agree w/ him -- but hey, you're not going to agree w/ everyone; but I thought most times, he sited his reasons for his score often quite well.
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Huh? That's not a retraction. That's a full-fledged broadside assault. If anything, they've cemented the journalistic horror story with further anecdotal evidence (which unreliable though it may be, looks pretty damning to me). More damage has been willingly inflicted.
Edit: In all seriousness, after Kasavin's departure, the recent lack of review reliability, and now this, does anyone here still trust Gamespot at all?
I didn't say it was a retraction. I can actually see how it was read like that. Poorly written on my part.
It's not that I don't trust them anymore; it's that I now consider them just another review site. Before that, with Kasavin (and yes, I liked Gerstmann), they seemed more professional somehow. That appears to be no longer the case. It's when they changed their scoring scheme, however, that I lost most of my respect.
Exactly. That's pretty much when things got too fishy for me. It seemed like such a move to appease the masses.
If you think about it... a game scored 8.7 and a game scored 9.2 are going to be rounded down to the same number. It was just something to avoid controversy, but it showed the lack of testicles.
Yes, it's shitty that gamespot is aparently now owned by the guy who runs Maxim and Stuff, but it's not like it was some beacon of journalistic integrity before.
A couple of years ago, it was the only the website that got as close to journalistic integrity as it got in the game industry. I see what you are saying though.
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Greg Kasavin writes his first article on gamespot since January:
http://www.gamespot.com/users/GregK/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25235127
Gerstmann Goes Off
Jeff Gerstmann and I got to work together at GameSpot for 10 years. It seems he didn't get a chance to properly say goodbye here this week. This is simply the opinion of a longtime fan of this site: As the longest-tenured GameSpot editor, Jeff Gerstmann deserved a respectful send-off.
My last day at GameSpot was pretty good. It was on a Tuesday early this year. I had already packed up my stuff, had already told my team I was leaving and where I was going and what I was going to do next, and that I believed in them. What I really wanted to do was put in one last day's work at the site. I shot a video review, submitted and prepared a few pieces of content including a final review of mine, met with my closest colleagues, made my rounds with some of the others I'd always wished I got to talk to more, and tied up what seemed like a last few loose ends. I had a brief exit interview as well. It was an oddly liberating experience. As great as it was to work at GameSpot, I rarely felt a sense of closure at the job, because there was always lots more work to be done and more I could have been doing. The game industry never stops, and there are always more games I could be playing. It occurred to me that most of the closure I'd been feeling over the past decade came from finishing games.
I shouldn't lump myself into the same category as Jeff because we're pretty different people in spite of us having the same feelings about games and similar perspectives on a lot of subjects related to games. But I think guys like him and me see closure as a nice-to-have. We'd rather be moving on to our next assignment. So I said my goodbyes here in January not to provoke and get off on the generous flattery provided by a subset of people who took the time to respond, but to provide what I considered to be a basic, human courtesy to all those people who were familiar with my work over time. Some of those people hated my guts for all I knew--they had a right to know I was leaving same as anyone else. So then, to those of you familiar with Jeff's work: You should rest assured he'd take the opportunity to do what I did, not because we presume to think it's the"right" thing to do, but because we saw eye to eye on a lot of things and basically trust our instincts. It's not hard to imagine him saying something just like what I did, in his own way. And I have every faith that we'll be hearing from him again soon. I look forward to that moment.
As for the rest of the team that makes GameSpot's content: What you do next is more important than what you've done already. Every day you should be reminding yourselves that, because of the magic of the Internet, someone could just flip a switch that causes everything you've ever done here to just vanish. But the influence of your actions never disappears, and whatever integrity or credibility this site has gathered over the years is due to your hard work. I have no right to telling you what to do. But as a user of this site, I've come to expect a lot, and I know you listen.
Master Chief says it best: "We'll be fine."
And that's all I wanted to say here and I don't have anything more to add.
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Former GameSpot staff members Adam Bunchen (http://www.gamespot.com/users/Adam_B/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25234203) and also Bob Calyco (http://www.gamespot.com/users/BobC/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25234465) -- also Bob just recently got one his blog posts REMOVED by GameSpot -- sound off on their respective blogs on the entire ordeal.
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The Worst Part of All of this
Sure, I got a blog deleted, that was all in good fun. I'd imagine the mods are just as on edge as everyone else. Nope, that didn't bug me. Deleting the blog post can't uncancel all those subscriptions.
This is a crazy time. It's the biggest controversy to hit the games journalism industry in a long time, and rightfully so. But you know what bothers me? What really, really bugs me?
How all of a sudden so many people are saying "Aha! See, we caught it this time!" They're suggesting that the selling of reviews is commonplace. I can't speak for other publications, but that's NEVER, EVER before been the modus operandi of GameSpot's editorial department. If it was, then why would Jeff be so freaking obstinant about it? You'd have to imagine that people would be getting fired left and right! But no, they don't.
I know Jeff and Alex and Brad and Ryan and Kevin. These guys are hardcore into their job. They play the rules by the book, and then some. They never take any of the free crap that publishers are giving out. None of them got the HDTV when Microsoft was givng those out. Hell, they don't even keep their review copies of games. Those games go into the library. I remember Greg telling me that he thought that was important so editors had to actually buy the games they wanted to have -- if they got it for free, their sense of value could be altered.
In this industry, there are always conflicts between sales and editorial. It's just a fact of life. It's hard to keep a a contract with a client whose games you continually trash. It'd be real easy to give them a break once in awhile. But that didn't happen. Not only was editorial separated from that group in terms of tasks and mission, but they were actually physically separated in different parts of the building. The Chief Editor sometimes had to deal with the unhappy sales people whose deal just fell through when a review went live or something. But editorial never made compromises on reviews. It probably would be possible to get away with it once or twice or a few times, but compromising integrity is obviously a slippery slope; and maybe more cynically, if you get caught, you get in big trouble. The epic catastrophic scandal. Sales knew better than to try pushing too much. A site that lacks credibility will hurt sales in the long run because readership would probably go down. It was always a delicate balance.
And yet here we have it, the incident, the anomaly, the straw that broke the camel's back. Someone decided the balance wasn't adequate and thought it'd be really profitable to... readjust a few extra "unprofessional" words here and there. (Where "unprofessional" is a range of negative words, scope directly proportional to the publisher's advertising budget). If your editor won't oblige, you pull a Richard Nixon-esqeu Saturday Night Massacre and keep firing editors until you find an agreeable one. You can get away with firing them by saying they have an unprofessional tone, which is code for "negative tone." It's okay to say "OMG, this game is AWESOME!!" Not professional, but also not negative. The sponsor will love it and run it as a pullquote on all their ads. And someone thought this would work without it blowing up in their face.
Wow.
I bet whoever made that decision makes a lot more money than I do. Can I be a person who decides what a BAD FREAKING IDEA something like that is? I'll do it for half of whatever the current guy is getting paid. Oh, and I won't fail at it. Additionally, I won't expose a casual indifference to concepts like editorial integrity or respect for the reader. I'd have my engineering department focus on building stuff that the users actually ask for. Just because Duracell wants to create a promotional flash game called "Which battery do I use?" and will pay us a bunch for it, I'd say no, because it'd be lame for our users and a waste of our resouces. And sure, it's nice to get instant revenue, but it'd dilute our vision and purpose.
Armchair logic and armchair integrity do not shareholders please, though! Well, again, I'm pretty sure that I could do as well as anynoe else, and I wouldn't even get involved in an options scandal.
And from Bob Calyco:
I really need to stop...
...reading comments from readers on the various news stories reporting on this disasterbacle. I'm losing IQ points as I do so, and I don't have that many to begin with.
1. The schadenfreude of Nintendrones screaming about 8.8. Are you kidding me? A year later and you're all still bitter about that? What sad, pathetic lives you lead. If you haven't accepted by now that 8.8 might've actually been too HIGH for that game, then please, pass whatever you're smoking. Regardless of what you think about that score or review, chuckling over someone losing his livelihood because of your petty fanboyism says a lot more about you than it does about the person you're laughing at.
2. The money-hat conspiracy theorists screaming "I KNEW IT" at the top of their lungs. Pleeze. Buy a clue. One, you don't know even the first thing about what goes on or how things go down in this business. If money hats were common or even existed, I'd be driving a lot better than an 9-year old Accord with 130,000 miles on it and paint peeling off the top panels. No one goes into this line of work thinking about bling and ice. You do it for the love because that's really all you get back out of it. And as Adam said, why do you think there's so much drama and hand-wringing over this? Because it's so far OFF the norm!
3. Those waxing pseudo-intellectually about the supposed crime of advertising-supported editorial. I guarantee you these same, self-righteous zealots don't think twice about all the car ads in the issues of Motor Trend, or all the movie ads in their Entertainment Weekly, or all the clothing/gadget/dating service ads in their Maxim. Get the picture? If you're not all up in arms about that stuff, but you are about ads in gaming mags or websites, then why the disparity?
4. "I never liked his opinions anyway, he deserved to get fired." Right. Nobody likes your sass when you man the drive-through either. Maybe Mickey Ds should kick you to the curb for that ;p
5, 5, 5 for my lonely
6, 6, 6 for my sorrow
7, 7, n-n-n no tomorrow
8, 8 I forget what 8 was for...
I found that Calyco blog hilarious.
So there is absolutely no doubt now, the reviewer was fired for being overly negative.
What pisses me off is the whole "I knew they sold out because they gave Crysis/Bioshock/Witcher/Halo 3 etc a good score." The funny thing is that whenever someone makes a ridiculous comment like that, someone always responds with something like,"Hey of those you mentioned, XYZ was a good game, but you are right, ABC and EFG were way overrated, and surely because of the reviewers accepting bribes."
And then some other genius will respond with,"HEY YOU KNOW WHAT? ABC WAS A GOOD GAME! But you guys are right, XYZ and EFG actually sucked and the reviewer definitely was on the publisher's payroll.
This will go on, until you realize that all these conspiracy theory nut jobs are unable to agree on the scores themselves. Yet they won't even consider that, and the only thing that will make sense to them is any review that they differ with, is naturally written by someone on the payroll. These guys really need to wake up.
For every moron who thinks Bioshock bought its way into the high scores, there is a guy who loved that game, but instead thinks it was Halo 3 that got a good score because of bribes, and vice versa.
My point is that it is human to have a different opinion. I just don't understand that why it is OK for their fellow posters to differ greatly in opinions, yet isn't for reviewers. Why is it that any time some reviewer has a different opinion, it is because of the worst possible reason. Most of these so called writers may write with an ability that makes a fourth grade teacher cry (stares at IGN), but I bet most of these very "writers" take pride in their honesty.
Just take a look at what happens when their bosses try to bend the rules. Gerstmann has been fired, and two of his coworkers have apparently resigned with him. His ex co workers are rallying around him, and making their disapproval known.
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I'm sick of these reviewers complaining about what they drive and how much they get paid. You shouldn't get paid a lot of money, if you want to get paid real money, get a real job...obviously you're all expendable.
They act like they have it so bad, all they do is sit on their asses and either play or write about video games. When they're not on their asses, they're traveling all over the world still playing and writing about video games. They act like they're sacrificing themselves for us, they don't even work on the weekends and they get to leave at 5pm.
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I was just about to post Adam B's blog, fearing it won't last where it is. You beat me to it Pug. If even the insiders are on board with the scandal, what else is there to say, really? He says this has not been the status quo at GS, and about halfway through, I thought his post was meant as a defense of the publication. Oh no. There's what was, and there's what is. He's saying they're very different, which agrees with my sentiments over the past month, at least.
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I agree with you on one thing Nicklone. If I were a reviewer, I'd take it as a part time blessing, and something to do along a full time job. I know that's probably tough to do, with these guys having to rush through titles.
Anyway you've gotta read this, though it isn't verified to be true. (http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/alleged-gamespot-employee-spills-guts-on-valleywag-328797.php)
I have to say that normally, I'd be skeptical about those blogs, but they seem to add in with all the other stuff I've read.
I found at a couple of sources that he was indeed locked out of his office, and that too with little warning. Furthermore if you read Kasavin's blog that I posted earlier, you will note that similar sentiments are echoed, so I am more inclined to believe this than not.
The main problem here is that no one in the entire editorial team was aware that this was about to occur, least of all Gerstmann. We're very clear in our review policies that all reviews are vetted by the entire team before they go live - everything that goes up is the product of an entire team's output. Our freelancers are especially guilty of making snide comments, but those are always yanked before the review goes live, because everyone in the office reads these reviews and makes sure they're up to our standards before they get put up.
If there was a problem with his reviews, then it would've been a problem with the entire team. Firing him without telling anyone implies that anyone else on this team can be fired at the drop of a hat as well, because none of us are writing any differently or meaner or less professionally than we were two years ago before the management changed. I'm sure management wants to spin this as the G-Man being unprofessional to take away from the egg on their face that results after a ten-year employee gets locked out of his office and told to leave the premises and then no one communicates anything to us about it until the next day.
Also, despite the fact that this occured two weeks ago, there was no way they were going to fire him then; the last big games didn't come out until just before Thanksgiving, and there was no doubt that management knew that the rest of the reviewers would refuse to write any reviews after his termination, which is indeed what is happening. After thanksgiving nothing major comes out in games; everything is either before thanksgiving or comes out in January. They waited to fire him until they knew that any strike or walkout by the rest of the staff wouldn't have much of an effect.
Also, keep in mind that these salespeople do have axes to grind with editorial. I know a lot of people busted their asses to get not only this large deal with Eidos done, but also other huge ad deals. The salespeople and the marketers are the ones who have to deal with the publishers when a heavily-advertised game gets a bad review, so obviously they like it if every game that comes out is peachy keen and gets a 9.0 or above. If a salesperson knows anything about unprofessional review practices, then that says a lot about the management team that we have in place because not a single other member of the editorial team had heard word one about this until Jeff was fired. Surely site management would want to let us know about their concerns before firing the most senior staff member and one of the most respected game critics in the industry? If they're sharing their concerns with the salespeople and not with us then that says a lot about their priorities.
No one wants to be named because no one wants to get fucking fired! This management team has shown what they're willing to do. Jeff had ten years in and was fucking locked out of his office and told to leave the building.
What you might not be aware of is that GS is well known for appealing mostly to hardcore gamers. The mucky-mucks have been doing a lot of "brand research" over the last year or so and indicating that they want to reach out to more casual gamers. Our last executive editor, Greg Kasavin, left to go to EA, and he was replaced by a suit, Josh Larson, who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things. Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.
I was in the meeting where Josh Larson was trying to explain this firing and the guy had absolutely no response to any of the criticisms we were sending his way. He kept dodging the question, saying that there were "multiple instances of tone" in the reviews that he hadn't been happy about, but that wasn't Jeff's problem since we all vet every review. He also implied that "AAA" titles deserved more attention when they were being reviewed, which sounded to all of us that he was implying that they should get higher scores, especially since those titles are usually more highly advertised on our site.
I know that it's all about the money, and hey, I like money. I like advertising because it pays my salary. Unfortunately after Kasavin left the church-and-state separation between the sales teams and the editorial team has cracked, and with Jeff's firing I think it's clear that the management now has no interest at all in integrity and are instead looking for an editorial team that will be nicer to the advertisors.
When companies make games as downright contemptible as Kane and Lynch, they deserve to be called on it. I guess you'll have to go to Onion or a smaller site for objective reviews now, because everyone at GS now thinks that if they give a low score to a high-profile game, they'll be shitcanned. Everyone's fucking scared and we're all hoping to get Josh Larson removed from his position because no one trusts him anymore. If that doesn't happen then look for every game to be Game of the Year material at GameSpot.
This is like a huge car wreck. I can't stop watching...
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Over the last year there has been an increasing amount of pressure to allow the advertising teams to have more of a say in the editorial process; we've started having to give our sales team heads-ups when a game is getting a low score, for instance, so that they can let the advertisers know that before a review goes up. Other publishers have started giving us notes involving when our reviews can go up; if a game's getting a 9 or above, it can go up early; if not, it'll have to wait until after the game is on the shelves.
I'll repeat my earlier question. Does anyone here still trust Gamespot at all? Other publications may be suspect in similar shenanigans, but we don't really know. This one is all but convicted.
Edit:
Please note that this post is tagged "rumor" for a reason. We have no way to confirm that commenter "gamespot" is actually employed at Gamespot or CNet or has access to information about the current situation.
My post assumes that the source is credible, so I'll throw in this caveat.
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Well after taking down the video review, gamespot have apparently gone ahead and changed the review to be a little softer:
Original review:
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has a lot of promise, but nothing in this game works out nearly as well as you'd hope.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is an ugly game, and we're not necessarily talking about the graphics. This criminal tale is packed with a collection of completely unlikable characters with no redeeming value whatsoever. It's impossible to even root for them as antiheroes. Once you get past the messy, meaningless story, things don't get too much better because you're saddled with clunky artificial intelligence on the part of your allies and your enemies, as well as a core shooting mechanic that simply doesn't satisfy. The unfortunate part is that the game does have a few bright points and feels like it had a lot of potential that just didn't come together as well as anyone must have hoped.
The story mode opens with you in the role of Kane, a death row inmate on his way to his execution, apparently convicted of being a very savage criminal as part of a notorious gang called The7. You're on your last ride with a quirky guy named Lynch who tells you to cover your head. After an explosion, you're both busted out and on the run. That might sound great, but it's a fate worse than death. The surviving members of The7 have busted you out to force you to recover something they think you stole from them. They consider you a traitor and will kill Kane's family if he doesn't comply. Lynch is sent along for the ride to watch over Kane and report in if anything weird happens. Circumstances change over time and the back half plays out like a revenge tale, but it's a revenge tale where you don't actually care if anyone actually gets their revenge. Every single person you play as or encounter is despicable and wholly abrasive; thus, it's extremely difficult to care about anything that's happening to them. You can play through this story alone or with a friend in co-op mode, though this mode is only available locally and takes place on a vertically split screen that makes it difficult to follow the action, even on a widescreen TV.
The core gameplay in Kane & Lynch is your standard third-person shooter with cover elements and a light dusting of squad tactics. You can fire from the hip, but it's somewhat more accurate to fire while aiming. Unfortunately, even when you're aiming, hitting your targets is more difficult than it should be because your automatic fire has a wide spread on it. Kane is supposedly a badass arch-criminal; he should be able to hit his targets with short, controlled bursts. You're able to get behind cover and either blindfire or pop out for aimed shots, but there's no easy way to stick to walls. You don't press a button or anything; instead you sort of get up against a wall and turn sideways. Then after jiggling the controls back and forth a bit, you'll eventually snap into place to get behind cover. It's such a pain that you'll rarely want to use it, and it seems like you're always snapping into cover behind something at the most inopportune times, making the game quite frustrating. There's no health meter, but if you go down, you don't die immediately either. You can be revived by one of your teammates with an adrenaline shot. If you get that shot too frequently, you'll overdose and die. If your teammates don't reach you in time, you'll die too. Also, if one of the guys on your crew gets dropped, you have to make sure he gets revived. If he dies, the game ends. Between your poor accuracy, the enemy's sharp accuracy, and the boneheaded AI from your squadmates, this all adds up to you keeping your squad on a very short leash.
When you've got a team with you, you can order team members around individually or order the team all at once by telling it to regroup to your location, move to a specific spot, or attack specific targets. Telling team members to move to locations is the most effective move because you can keep them close and revive them when they get shot down. Sending them after targets results in your squad running around aimlessly and trying to get too close to targets. That leads to them getting dropped in the line of fire, where you probably won't be able to rescue them. So whether you're doing the shooting yourself or hanging back and letting your men do the dirty work, the game is a real letdown.
There's only one multiplayer mode in Kane & Lynch, but it's a great idea. It's called Fragile Alliance and puts up to eight players in one team of criminals. Then, it sets the team off to steal money, cocaine, and jewels from various locations seen in the single-player game. So you might start out in front of a bank, run in, collect a bunch of cash, and then escape from in a van out back. The catch is the way the money is split up among teammates. If you all work together, the money is split evenly. But at any point, a player can go rogue and gun down one of his teammates. This brands you a traitor; thus, any money you collect and escape with is yours to keep. Of course, this also means that other players who are still part of the team will try to waste you before you escape with their hard-stolen loot. So every round is a tentative affair where you always expect the worst--you're just never sure when someone's going to finally turn on you. When you die, whether it's from the AI that opposes you or another player, you respawn on the other side of the heist. Now you need to stop the heist by eliminating the other players and you earn money by collecting it before the criminals collect.
It's a great idea that's mucked up by a few different things. First, you're still playing Kane & Lynch, so all of the inaccurate firing issues and poor cover tactics from the single-player still apply. But another problem is that you can see the names of the other players over their heads from a distance and through walls, even if they're on the other side. While you can run while crouched to make your name disappear, it's pretty stupid that you can see the names of the police team members as they head your way. There's no element of surprise. Also, there are only a handful of different scenarios for this, and they play out the same way every single time. The security guards are always in the same positions in the bank and the cops are always waiting for you right outside, so it gets old fast.
Technically, Kane & Lynch has some good-looking player models, with Kane and Lynch both looking appropriate as over-the-hill criminals. And even though their faces don't animate much, they still look good. Most of the animation isn't so hot, though, and you'll see a few ugly textures here and there too. Some of it looks a bit unfinished, like the way you see guys go through the motion of hitting you with an adrenaline shot, but their hands are actually empty.
The soundtrack is probably the best part of the whole game, delivering some tense music when the game calls for it. There's a lot of voice acting in the game. The voices are appropriate for the characters, but the dialogue is hokey and filled with lazy cursing. The good ol' F word is certainly appropriate, given the nature of what these guys are doing, but when it's every third word out of every character's mouth, it comes across as a crutch that drags down the rest of the game a bit. Lynch frequently responds to your squad orders by just shouting "F*** you!" That's just lame.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a premise with promise, but the gameplay isn't sound while the story and characters go nowhere. And it's got enough random AI-based glitches to make you want to scream. Considering the nearly ridiculous number of extremely high-quality shooters available recently, there's not much room for something like Kane & Lynch. But the multiplayer is a really great idea that's worth seeing, even if playing it makes you wish that it was used in another, better game.
Friendlier version:
Io Interactive is best known for its stealth-focused Hitman series, but there's nothing quiet and sneaky about its latest release, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. This time around, the developer put together a crime-themed shooter that starts out with a couple of simple, heist-like objectives and then rapidly spins out of control until, without much warning, you're gunning down soldiers in the middle of a foreign revolution. While the journey sounds interesting at first, and has a few bright points, it's weighed down by bad storytelling, a real lack of character development, and a host of gameplay-related issues. The end result is a game that squanders much of its potential and just doesn't come together as well as it probably should have.
The story mode opens with you in the role of Kane, a death row inmate on his way to his execution, apparently convicted of being a very savage criminal as part of a notorious gang called The7. You're on your last ride with a quirky guy named Lynch who tells you to cover your head. After an explosion, you're both busted out and on the run. That might sound great, but it's a fate worse than death. The surviving members of The7 have busted you out to force you to recover something they think you stole from them. They consider you a traitor and will kill Kane's family if he doesn't comply. Lynch is sent along for the ride to watch over Kane and report in if anything weird happens. Circumstances change over time and the back half plays out like a revenge tale, but it's a revenge tale where you don't actually care if anyone actually gets their revenge.
Every single person you play as or encounter is despicable and wholly abrasive; thus, it'll probably be tough for you to find anyone to latch onto and care about, even if you typically go for this sort of crime drama on TV or in movies. You can play through this story alone or with a friend in co-op mode, though this mode is only available locally and takes place on a vertically split screen that makes it difficult to follow the action, even on a widescreen TV.
The core gameplay in Kane & Lynch is your standard third-person shooter with cover elements and a light dusting of squad tactics. You can fire from the hip, but it's somewhat more accurate to fire while aiming. Unfortunately, even when you're aiming, hitting your targets is more difficult than it should be because your automatic fire has a wide spread on it. Kane is supposedly a badass arch-criminal; he should be able to hit his targets with short, controlled bursts. You're able to get behind cover and either blindfire or pop out for aimed shots, but there's no easy way to stick to walls. You don't press a button or anything; instead you sort of get up against a wall and turn sideways. Then after jiggling the controls back and forth a bit, you'll eventually snap into place to get behind cover. It's such a pain that you'll rarely want to use it, and it seems like you're always snapping into cover behind something at the most inopportune times, making the game quite frustrating. There's no health meter, but if you go down, you don't die immediately either. You can be revived by one of your teammates with an adrenaline shot. If you get that shot too frequently, you'll overdose and die. If your teammates don't reach you in time, you'll die too. Also, if one of the guys on your crew gets dropped, you have to make sure he gets revived. If he dies, the game ends. Between your poor accuracy, the enemy's sharp accuracy, and the boneheaded AI from your squadmates, this all adds up to you keeping your squad on a very short leash.
When you've got a team with you, you can order team members around individually or order the team all at once by telling it to regroup to your location, move to a specific spot, or attack specific targets. Telling team members to move to locations is the most effective move because you can keep them close and revive them when they get shot down. Sending them after targets results in your squad running around aimlessly and trying to get too close to targets. That leads to them getting dropped in the line of fire, where you probably won't be able to rescue them. So whether you're doing the shooting yourself or hanging back and letting your men do the dirty work, the game is a real disappointment, especially when you consider how well this same sort of stuff worked in the developer's previous squad-based game, Freedom Fighters.
There's only one multiplayer mode in Kane & Lynch, and it's a great idea. Unfortunately, the idea doesn't translate into a great or long-lasting experience. It's called Fragile Alliance and puts up to eight players in one team of criminals. Then, it sets the team off to steal money, cocaine, and jewels from various locations seen in the single-player game. So you might start out in front of a bank, run in, collect a bunch of cash, and then escape from in a van out back. The catch is the way the money is split up among teammates. If you all work together, the money is split evenly. But at any point, a player can go rogue and gun down one of his teammates. This brands you a traitor; thus, any money you collect and escape with is yours to keep. Of course, this also means that other players who are still part of the team will try to waste you before you escape with their hard-stolen loot. So every round is a tentative affair where you always expect the worst--you're just never sure when someone's going to finally turn on you. When you die, whether it's from the AI that opposes you or another player, you respawn on the other side of the heist. Now you need to stop the heist by eliminating the other players and you earn money by collecting it before the criminals collect.
It's a bummer that the multiplayer is mucked up by a few different things. First, you're still playing Kane & Lynch, so all of the inaccurate firing issues and poor cover tactics from the single-player still apply. But another problem is that you can see the names of the other players over their heads from a distance and through walls, even if they're on the other side. While you can run while crouched to make your name disappear, it's pretty weak that you can see the names of the police team members as they head your way. There's no element of surprise. Also, there are only a handful of different scenarios for this, and they play out the same way every single time. The security guards are always in the same positions in the bank and the cops are always waiting for you right outside, so it gets old fast.
While it might seem like a basic heist game, Kane & Lynch does a good job of moving the action around, and you'll see a variety of different environments and situations, ranging from banks, to prison breaks, to full-scale conflicts in the middle of illicit poppy fields. It also has some good-looking player models, with Kane and Lynch both looking appropriate as over-the-hill criminals. And even though their faces don't animate much in-game, they still look good. Most of the animation isn't so hot, though, and you'll see a few ugly textures here and there too. Some of it looks a bit unfinished, like the way you see guys go through the motion of hitting you with an adrenaline shot, but their hands are actually empty.
The soundtrack is probably the best part of the whole game, delivering some tense music when the game calls for it. There's a lot of voice acting in the game. The voices are appropriate for the characters, but the dialogue is hokey and filled with gratuitous cursing. The good ol' F word is certainly appropriate, given the nature of what these guys are doing, but when it's every third word out of every character's mouth, it comes across as a crutch that drags down the rest of the game a bit. Lynch frequently responds to your squad-orders by just shouting "F*** you!" Things like that just make the game feel purposely abrasive, and not in a "gritty" or "cool" sort of way.
The game is available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as of this writing, and the differences between the two versions are minimal. Both games have occasional frame rate issues and the control issues with finding cover and hitting targets are noticeable in both. The only real difference is that the PlayStation 3 version doesn't seem to have voice chat support. The multiplayer mode only really clicks when you can talk things out with other players and try to convince them that you're not going to turn traitor--only to turn traitor on them and then laugh about it. Without that, the whole experience feels a little dry. The Xbox 360 version also has the standard set of 1,000 achievement points, a few of which reward you for specific moments in co-op, like having the player controlling Lynch put a few cops out of their misery, rather than leaving them to writhe on the ground.
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a premise with promise, and if you've been waiting patiently for a game to really dive into the whole "crew-based heist tale" concept, you might be able to look past some of the story flaws. But when you consider the nearly ridiculous number of extremely high-quality shooters available recently, there's not much room for something like Kane & Lynch, even taking into account the somewhat unique nature of its story. That said, the multiplayer is a smart idea that's worth seeing, even if playing it makes you wish that it was used in another, better game.
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You sure?
The video review was a little bit different -- more vicious, outright, and blunt and whatnot -- than the written review was. The written review was a lot more detailed than his video review.
The written review looks the same as it was, except for the addition of the comparisons b/t the X360 and PS3 versions.
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Part of the video review can still be seen here (http://valleywag.com/tech/jeff-gerstmann/cnet-stands-behind-content-hides-behind-statements-328811.php).
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I've never trusted Gamespot, they like to nitpick the games way too much. I know a lot of people praised them for that, but I've always thought it was just petty. I trust IGN more than I do GS.
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I can't say I ever really "trusted" any one site in particular anyway. There were certain reviewers I felt that generally liked the same kind of stuff I did, so I'd listen to them, but that's about where it stopped. GSpot just seemed like it had more general integrity, but that's changed for the worse recently in terms of... well, a lot of things. I just don't like the way the site is being handled now, period. Not the ads, the editorials, the changes in focus... nothing. IGN I've always hated and still do, because they're pretty much what GSpot is slowly becoming, plus all the people who work there are idiots who wouldn't write their way out of a fucking grade school essay.
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Excellent editorial which puts forth of a somewhat less harsh view of the 'games journalism industry' than my own (http://www.gamestooge.com/2007/12/01/editorial-rip-journalistic-integrity/)
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I can't say I ever really "trusted" any one site in particular anyway.
There's always Overwritten...
...well, as long as Maxim's owner or any other bloated conglomerate company don't buy us out and begin putting ! :P
There were certain reviewers I felt that generally liked the same kind of stuff I did, so I'd listen to them, but that's about where it stopped. GSpot just seemed like it had more general integrity, but that's changed for the worse recently in terms of... well, a lot of things. I just don't like the way the site is being handled now, period. Not the ads, the editorials, the changes in focus... nothing. IGN I've always hated and still do, because they're pretty much what GSpot is slowly becoming, plus all the people who work there are idiots who wouldn't write their way out of a fucking grade school essay.
Been lots of change, over the years, once big companies bought little ones.
Like when IGN got bought, they suddenly boards began to be "pay-to-post."
IGN took over GameSpy, 5 stars system replaced the old 100% system.
No half-stars, at first.
Though, that changed, in due time -- thankfully.
Now w/ ads all over GameSpot, scoring system changed a bit -- 10.0 system now has only either a full interval (i.e 9.0) or half (i.e 9.5).
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Honestly, the scoring systems are so dumb anyways, it doesn't really matter.
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Excellent editorial which puts forth of a somewhat less harsh view of the 'games journalism industry' than my own (http://www.gamestooge.com/2007/12/01/editorial-rip-journalistic-integrity/)
I have a different view of that editorial. For one thing, he can't write very well. That by itself won't invalidate what he says, but it doesn't help either. For another, he's dismissing a lot of smoke here, and concluding that it's unfair to suspect that there's fire. Correlations are not causality. But correlations do require investigation, particularly from journalists.
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Gerstmann interview w/ Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/12/03/exclusive-gertsmann-speaks-about-kandl-review-future/)
Exclusive: Gertsmann speaks about K&L review, future
74 Comments by Kyle Orland Dec 3rd 2007 4:00AM
Filed under: Culture, Hacks
"Losing a job you've held for over 11 years in an abrupt manner is shocking, yes."
While the above quote should perhaps win Jeff Gerstmann the 'understatement of the year' award, the former Gamespot editorial director is still staying silent about the specifics surrounding his recent firing (citing the previously mentioned "legal reasons," among others). He has, however, told Joystiq that he still stands behind his controversial review of Kane & Lynch.
"I stand behind my work, regardless of where I do it," Gerstmann told Joystiq in an e-mail. "If there was content that I felt I couldn't support, it wouldn't see the light of day." Gerstmann did not comment specifically on the edits made to his text review of Kane & Lynch, or the site's removal of the video review, but he did support the editing process in general. "If factual errors are made, I have no problem owning up to that error, correcting it, noting that a correction has been made, and feeling like an idiot for making the mistake in the first place," he said.
Gerstmann also directly addressed the somewhat pernicious rumor that he did not complete Kane & Lynch before he finished his review. "A reviewer's Xbox Live Gamercard is rarely a good place to look for answers about how much that reviewer has (or hasn't) played a game," he said. "For the record, I saw both endings in Kane & Lynch before writing about it."
As for his future plans, Gerstmann seems to be keeping his options open. "I'm not really sure what I want to do next," he said. "This whole situation has left me with a lot to think about. While this sort of clean break would be an acceptable time to think about trying game development, I feel like I still have more to say and do on the editorial side of the fence, too."
Surprisingly, the experience doesn't seem to have soured Gerstmann on video game journalism as a whole. "Despite the number of people who are taking these rumors ... to mean that game writing is ethically bankrupt, I don't feel that's the case," he said. "Either way, I'm currently keeping my options open and have been in contact with interesting people on both sides."
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And that's exactly how a terminated employee needs to react. Your former employer is fabulous, the best place in the world to work. Later in life, when you are independently wealthy, and don't need a career to survive, you may write in your memoirs what bastards they were.
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I wonder if they agreed that they gave him the option to either be fired w/out sev-pay or if he'd resign he could collect sev' pay...
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The way it works never changes much when both parties act in a responsible manner. The employer wants no badmouthing or lawsuits. The employee wants severance and a future in the same career. They mutually agree to keep unpleasantries covered up. They clam up or lie their asses off when asked if things got ugly.
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I have a different view of that editorial. For one thing, he can't write very well. That by itself won't invalidate what he says, but it doesn't help either. For another, he's dismissing a lot of smoke here, and concluding that it's unfair to suspect that there's fire. Correlations are not causality. But correlations do require investigation, particularly from journalists.
Oh, I don't think he's really dismissing all the smoke here. I don't actually really think he's making a stand on the actual issue at all, but rather analyzing the immediate reaction. Correlations require investigation by all means, but not lynch mobs.
I think what it comes down to is whether or not you can expect integrity without accountability.
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Some "spin" from Eidos' K&L site (http://bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=83165)
Kane & Lynch Review Spin [December 03, 2007, 10:25 am ET] - Viewing Comments
Here's a little more controversy about Kane & Lynch reviews, already the subject of a firestorm over the GameSpot situation that surfaced last week (story). GameBump points out the Flash introduction on the Kane & Lynch: Dead Men features some finessed review quotes and scores that do not reflect the actual reception for IO Interactive's new action game.
The intro lists the following blurbs, each preceded by five prominent stars: "'…it's the best emulation of being in the midst of a Michael Mann movie we've ever seen.' GameSpy," and 'A mercenary, a psychopath & a bundle of cash… what could go wrong? Game Informer'." The trouble is GameSpy gave the game three stars and Game Informer scored the game seven out of ten, and neither related quote is from the reviews, the GameSpy quote is from a E3 preview of the game, and it's not clear where the GameInformer quote/marketing blurb is from (presumably the print magazine).
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Yeah, while it is borderline unethical, It's not like this is isolated or even new. Shady marketing tactics for games, movies, cds, and pretty much every other not heavily regulated industry are pretty common.
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This is true, but I say nail them for it anyway. I fucking hate that.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm in no way defending the practice or the publisher, but at the same time think it's a bit ridiculous to pick and choose who should get lambasted for it because of some anti-Kane and Lynch trend on the internet. Well, that's not even true. If anything I find it funny how people ignore shit most of the time like it's no big deal, and then treat it like a crime against nature when it suits whatever fad or trend is going on at the moment.
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Because you're only going to nail them for it when there's crowd momentum. You'll never get enough shit flying out of nowhere, you have to wait until everyone's paying attention because they have nothing better to do. That makes it the perfect time to strike. Of course, all that really does is send the message that it's okay to do it as much as you want as long as you keep a low profile and don't do something stupid to get your bullshit noticed, but... whatever. I just like watching corporations go up in smoke, and it happens so rarely. At least rarely in fun ways that you get advance notice of like this.
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GameSpot responds to the backlash of Gerstmann Ordeal.
Oh, Tribute to Jeff this week on GameSpot, on their On The Spot portion this week (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183603.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6183603)
Gerstmann, GameSpot part ways
After nearly 11 years of news, reviews, and previews, editorial director's tenure ends; GameSpot editors address controversy surrounding his departure.
By Staff, GameSpot
Posted Dec 3, 2007 5:06 pm PT
The past week marked the end of an era at GameSpot. After over a decade in a variety of editorial roles, Jeff Gerstmann's tenure as editorial director has ended.
"Jeff was a central figure in the creation and evolution of GameSpot, having written hundreds of previews and reviews, and anchoring much of our multimedia content," said Ricardo Torres, editorial director of previews and events. "The award-winning editorial team he leaves behind wish him nothing but good luck in his future endeavors."
Due to legal constraints and the company policy of GameSpot parent CNET Networks, details of Gerstmann's departure cannot be disclosed publicly. However, contrary to widespread and unproven reports, his exit was not a result of pressure from an advertiser.
"Neither CNET Networks nor GameSpot has ever allowed its advertising business to affect its editorial content," said Greg Brannan, CNET Networks Entertainment's vice president of programming. "The accusations in the media that it has done so are unsubstantiated and untrue. Jeff's departure stemmed from internal reasons unrelated to any buyer of advertising on GameSpot."
"Though he will be missed by his colleagues, Jeff's leaving does not affect GameSpot's core mission of delivering the most timely news, video content, in-depth previews, and unbiased reviews in games journalism," said Ryan MacDonald, executive producer of GameSpot Live. "GameSpot is an institution, and its code of ethics and duty to its users remains unchanged."
Tune in later in the week to hear editors' tributes to Gerstmann on the HotSpot podcast and GameSpot's weekly Webcast, On the Spot.
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I wonder if GameSpot's reviewers will keep giving out 6.0's, purposely now! :P
Heh, that'd be funny... :P
I hope CDV doesn't bitch to GameSpot about...
6.0 on Escape from Paradise City from G-Spot reviewer Brett Todd (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/paradisecity/review.html?sid=6183536&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;reviews;story;1)
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Gamespot's response is BS. If that were the case then why was the video review deleted and the content of the text review changed? I didn't really expect them to come out and say they were a bunch of sellouts, but do they really expect people to buy that load of crap?
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Yeah, GameSpot's response is...well, basically telling us unfortunately nothing...
I wouldn't be surprised if GameSpot gets the most hits ever b/c of "Gerstmann-gate" and everyone will watch the tributes to him on the Podcast and OnTheSpot later this week -- and then suddenly, the site never gets many hits anymore ever again...
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I think what they're trying to say is, "Nobody at Eidos was pressuring us. We just let our sales staff pressure the editorial staff. That's all."
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Let's all never forget the great response to the Josie Miran FMV in his NFS: Most Wanted video review... (http://www.gamespot.com/video/927139/6140059/need-for-speed-most-wanted-video-review)
It's just hilarious...heh.
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Yeah, that's a pretty bad example of damage control.
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it's a bit ridiculous to pick and choose who should get lambasted for it because of some anti-Kane and Lynch trend on the internet.
Absolutely agree with that.
It seems to me that any dubious marketing tactic which is standard among publishers, is now being used as a tool for anti Eidos stuff. Yea screw Eidos, still I find it funny.
I just like watching corporations go up in smoke, and it happens so rarely. At least rarely in fun ways that you get advance notice of like this.
I have to say, I feel a little sorry for Eidos. While K&L may not have been a great game, they don't deserve this. From all accounts, it seems they didn't pressure anyone to get fired. They just pulled advertising, which was the logical thing to do.
They are unfairly getting the brunt of the stick.
Yeah, that's a pretty bad example of damage control.
Yup, the horse has kinda bolted.
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Hey, I don't blame Eidos one bit. If they can manipulate the market into thinking their product is wonderful--isn't that exactly what their ad department is supposed to do? The alleged problem is that Gamespot caved in to financial pressure and sold out its editorial integrity. This is very different from Eidos wanting to present K&L in the best possible light. Everyone expects the company line to be rosy. No one will accept the game press if they look like parrots snagging crackers thrown by advertisers.
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Well that is the function of every ad department. To make their product look as good as possible. And it would have been silly for them to put advertising on a website that officially didn't like its product.
If there is anyone to blame, it is Gamespot's parent company.
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Y'know, maybe what a publishing company should do w/ these games, is say AFTER a game gets a glowing review from a company like GameSpot, start the advertising campaign all over their site.
It'd make logical sense, instead of doing the ad campaign before the game's actually reviewed.
I understand publishers wanna advertise their game over editorial sites like GameSpot BEFORE-hand to spread the word of the game, but really -- shouldn't they be plastering their before-hand ad campaigns over sites that will ONLY JUST SELL their game (and not review it) ? Like say Amazon? Gogamer??? EBGAMES? Wouldn't that be a better move, logically???
I'm sure Amazon gets WAY more hits than say GameSpot.
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You market a hot product before release, not after. I don't think Eidos did anything wrong by advertising on Gamespot, or removing that advertising.
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You're right, Pug. The problem with Eidos isn't their actions in this case, it's that they exist at all. They are a horrible, horrible publisher that had one gem, a few shiny pebbles, and lots and lots of slurry.
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Y'know, maybe what a publishing company should do w/ these games, is say AFTER a game gets a glowing review from a company like GameSpot, start the advertising campaign all over their site.
It'd make logical sense, instead of doing the ad campaign before the game's actually reviewed.
I understand publishers wanna advertise their game over editorial sites like GameSpot BEFORE-hand to spread the word of the game, but really -- shouldn't they be plastering their before-hand ad campaigns over sites that will ONLY JUST SELL their game (and not review it) ? Like say Amazon? Gogamer??? EBGAMES? Wouldn't that be a better move, logically???
I'm sure Amazon gets WAY more hits than say GameSpot.
Except that doesn't really make sense for anyone involved except the reader of the site. Your game doesn't get a glowing review, but gets a 7.0, do you advertise nowhere at all? It doesn't ease the pressure on reviewers or garuntee non-biased reviews at all, since there's now a direct pressure to rate a game higher so you'll get the advertising. If anything it'll only make things work.
As for advertising on places like Amazon and Go gamer, sure some of the commerce sites get more hits, but in no way does that reflect the numbers of hits they get from the target market. There's a reason large marketing pushes occur before a release of anything, and that's because the initial buzz and illusion of anticipation is something that drives a buyer. It doesn't make business sense for anyone to change the way it works now.
Beyond that, it's not like publishers and developers don't have other ways to extort good reviews if they want. The big sites are only big sites because of the relationships they've fostered and maintained with key players in the business. Take that away and all you're left with are a collections of blogs...something that the video game industry is already over saturated with anyways. Advertising is a necessity for these sites to exist. The only other feasible option on a large scale is a completely subscriber driven system, but one with enough subscribers in order to ensure that the site maintains enough of a user base to stay relevant in the overall scheme of things so they can still get the scoops.
I've seen a lot of people basically dreaming of a world where advertising doesn't exist on these sites in response to this story, and it's kind of stupid. If you're going to have completely unrealistic utopian dreams, why not wish for something bigger?
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Man, Y'know, I've been noticing a shitstorm of bad reviews lately, too...
Ocampo on Soldier of Fortune: Payback... (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/soldieroffortunepayback/review.html?sid=6183462&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;7) and Brett Todd on Escape From Paradise Island (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/paradisecity/review.html?sid=6183536&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;reviews;title;4)...
But wait -- there's plenty more!!! :)
Dawn of Magic for the PC gets a 3.0 from Brett Todd (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dawnofmagic/review.html?sid=6183644&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;reviews;title;1)
4.5 for Next Life on the PC (adventure game) from also Brett Todd. (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/nextlife/review.html?sid=6183602&om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;3)
Darkness Within on the PC got a 3.5 from Brett Todd (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/darknesswithininpursuitofloathnolder/review.html?sid=6183415)
1.5 from Brett Todd for You Are Empty on the PC (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/youareempty/review.html?sid=6183122)
Joe Dodson w/ a 5.0 for Beowulf on the PC (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/beowulfubisoft/review.html?sid=6183296)
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This just in: Brett Todd apparently has the worst job in the entire universe.
You Are Empty looks so awful and worthless that I really want to try it. That makes no sense, but it's the truth.
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I think his job might be fun for a short time. A friend an I used to have "Bad Movie Night Sundays." We would go to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster and just find the worst piece of crap looking movie we could and then watch it. Sometimes we'd watch two. You haven't lived until you've seen Defcon 5 and Killjoy. That last sentence was a lie.
Anyway, it was fun for about two months and about at that point we just felt like we were wasting money and torturing ourselves. Through this though, we did get to see Peter Jackson's first film: Bad Taste. It was laughably bad, but in an on-purpose, fun way.
I read the review for You Are Empty too. I liked the quote of the raving lunatic in the game.
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Read the GSpot forums there. It gets even funnier.
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This just in: Brett Todd apparently has the worst job in the entire universe.
ROFLMAO!
Brett Todd's probably saying, "Why couldn't I get something at least half-way decent like Van Ord (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/tabularasa/review.html?sid=6183608&tag=topslot;title;1) just got?" heh.
You Are Empty looks so awful and worthless that I really want to try it. That makes no sense, but it's the truth.
It makes sense. It's the whole "This train wreck is so bad, I want to see it" thing!
You know you should look away -- but dammit, it's a train wreck! You got to watch anyways!
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My mom said I can only pick 1 game for Christmas this year. I was thinking of this one since my cousin said i would like it. I did not read any reviews b/c I did not want spoilers so
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Also plz no spoilers thanks.
You are empty, I wouldn't really recommend getting it. Chances are that you'll hate it. It depends on how tolerant you are. It's not like it's totally hideous and/or unplayable. But it's on the borderline.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
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GameSpy's review of You Are Empty is pretty vicious, too... (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/you-are-empty/837100p1.html)
Pros
It's sort of cheap at $29.99; you can expect that price to drop soon.
ROFL!
Cons
Lame enemies; slowest walking ever; horrifyingly bad graphics.
Ouch.
You Are Empty is symptomatic of the reasons why Atari is barely a game company anymore. Within minutes of booting this game up, we were asking ourselves the kinds of questions reserved only for the most heinous of gaming tragedies: when was this thing developed, 1973?
...
Flashy Animation
One good thing (and it's likely that this is the only good thing) about You Are Empty is the quality of the cut-scenes, which are rendered in an intriguing sort of Flash animation. Of course, these cutscenes are largely unintelligible and don't really explain much of what is supposed to be going on in the game, but they are beautiful in their stark use of black and white.
...
So now, we are left wondering what the point is of You Are Empty, because it certainly doesn't even rate as a modern game. Bereft of any sort of challenging AI and sporting a handful of weapons that all seem to have been dredged from some imaginary WWII shooter from the eighties, this game is the kind of thing you can expect to get for Christmas from a grandma that knows nothing about video games and relies on a shifty game store employee looking to move the non-sellers.
I got nothing.
I'll let the quotes speak for themselves...
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If this game were a Manson cult member, it would have "old-fashioned shooter" carved into its forehead.
Ok, there's a reason this guy gets stuck with the shit games.
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IGN just zings at You Are Empty (http://pc.ign.com/articles/831/831573p1.html)
You Are Empty Review
We wish the game box had been empty.
by Charles Onyett
And, another one liner....from the score portion...
1.0 -- Lasting Appeal
Not so much.
LOL @ no explanation needed for that.
From Worthplaying's review... (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=47542&mode=thread&order=0)
Here, even with the characters flailing wildly with plenty of emotion, the lines sound as if the actors were simply phoning in their work. I haven't heard voice acting this bad since Resident Evil on the PS1, which at least had the cheese factor going for its dialogue. At one point, an NPC shot himself in the head ... while the actor was still talking.
ROFL!!!
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Those IGN quotes are pretty good.
I read the Gamespot review for Beowulf. It's pretty funny too.
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Those IGN quotes are pretty good.
I read the Gamespot review for Beowulf. It's pretty funny too.
The Good
Your thanes love you
LOL. That has to be the oddest "Good" from GameSpot I've ever heard....
Except for one thing, or rather, thane. You see, any time you do anything remotely awesome, your thanes (your Norse entourage) will cheer you on with shouts of "Wow, did you see that?", "Whoa, look at Beowulf, he is so awesome!" and "My hero, look at him go! I am inspired!" Those aren't their exact words, but the sentiments are the same. Likewise, every one of them will whoop and holler every time you kick butt, and you average at least a butt kicked per second. As a result, combat is a matter of you chopping people up and stomping on them in glorious slow motion, while buckets of blood fly all over the screen, to an unending chorus of awe, affection, and gratitude. There are definitely worse experiences in video games.
....
And even though your thanes aren't particularly capable, they're still oddly entertaining.
Sounds like Beowulf's got an odd cheerleading squad w/ him....
I remember in Fable: TLC, it was always entertaining when people are just traveling along and say some of your fans watch you do stuff, they like worship and cheer you on sometimes; hehe.
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I think his job might be fun for a short time. A friend an I used to have "Bad Movie Night Sundays." We would go to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster and just find the worst piece of crap looking movie we could and then watch it. Sometimes we'd watch two. You haven't lived until you've seen Defcon 5 and Killjoy. That last sentence was a lie.
Anyway, it was fun for about two months and about at that point we just felt like we were wasting money and torturing ourselves. Through this though, we did get to see Peter Jackson's first film: Bad Taste. It was laughably bad, but in an on-purpose, fun way.
I read the review for You Are Empty too. I liked the quote of the raving lunatic in the game.
Ok, so I was in scouts and venturers. From what I can tell, this isn't like it was on tv at all considering I don't know how to tie a knot, don't even think a badge program was in place, and basically was of the opinion that it was a group that subsidized young teens camping trips so they could get drunk and stoned in the woods for two weeks at a time. Anyways, we'd have one of these nights every few months, and it was always money.
Please tell me you've seen classics like Chopping Mall and Killer Clowns from Outer-Space.
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I've seen the latter. That was good times.
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The HotSpot from (Who's Left At) GameSpot about Jeff
From The HotSpot, the GameSpot editors and people talk about Jeff Gerstmann and what they "can" tell us.
Right near the end, they play a bunch of voice messages from people who say some things about Jeff. (http://www.gamespot.com/pages/features/hotspot/index.php)
Q&A here on Jeff
Click here for the Q&A (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6183666.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=multimodule&tag=multimodule;picks;title;2)
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Here's my question: why does that guy look so weird.
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The one thing that always came to mind when watching a video review by Jeff Gerstmann is how homely the man is. He must not be aware of how stupid his hair looks.
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haha I know. He looks like Chris Farley doing a skit, except Farley wasn't trying to look serious.
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The most recent GFW Radio (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/CGW/120507.mp3) is really worth a listen.
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The most recent GFW Radio (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/CGW/120507.mp3) is really worth a listen.
Word up to GFW for puttin' that shit down fo' real, son!
(the song)
EDIT:
I've listened to a good portion of the podcast -- wow, there is some really interesting and good stuff in there, too...
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I am glad I continued listening after the rap song. That is definitely worth a listen.
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I just finished... damn that was awesome. They even took a shot at PCG and their Hellgate London review, which was funny.
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I just finished... damn that was awesome. They even took a shot at PCG and their Hellgate London review, which was funny.
I'm sure Hellgate: London will be fine once it basically comes out of its Retail Alpha and Retail Beta stages... :P
Y'know, like some 10 months from now... :P
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I'm listening to the MP3 right now. These guys have their shit together.
Rap? I skipped that in a hurry. That slider moves, you know.
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I'm listening to the MP3 right now. These guys have their shit together.
They do.
And we need to get our shit together -- and do another podcast!!!
That slider moves, you know.
Darn tootin'.
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Yeah, Shawn likes to do raps every once in a while. And he usually does a "Heroes of the Web" where he reads some insane forum post in a funny voice. It was kinda funny, but now its just old and played out. I tend to skip those segments.
But the rest of the time the GFW crew is always good for a listen.
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After 8 years, Frank Provo who worked for GameSpot quits b/c of Gertsmann being fired & b/c ht doesn't like the environment anymore. (http://www.gamespot.com/users/mosaic/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25273350)
Farewell, GameSpot
It's true, I'm no longer contributing to GameSpot.
I believe CNet management let Jeff go for all the wrong reasons. I believe CNet intends to soften the site's tone and push for higher scores to make advertisers happy.
I won't lie to people and tell them a game is good when it isn't. I won't downplay negatives that readers have a right to know about.
And so, the "Frank Provo era" at GameSpot ends after nearly 8 years of contributions. March 2000 through December 2007. It was a nice run.
I feel sorry for the GameSpot staff that have to continue to work there because they have no choice if they want to be able to pay bills and feed their families. For such upstanding people, the CNet overloads have created the ultimate soul-crushing work environment.
Category: Editorial
Posted by mosaic, Jan 4, 2008 1:20 am PT 31 Comments
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Sucks. I think I'm going to cancel my subscription as well. I like having videos to watch, but it really isn't worth the money.
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The GameSpot staff did not fire Jeff. The GameSpot staff are NOT corrupt. GameSpot itself is NOT the problem. CNet is. CNet's management is. The problem lies with the puppet masters. Unfortunately, those masters have RUINED GameSpot's credibility and reputation... a reputation built up for more than a decade.
Comment on same gspot page (http://www.gamespot.com/users/mosaic/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25273350)
*Shudder*
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I could imagine a GameSpot "spiritual successor" being built up by Jeff G and all those who leave G-Spot, if things keep going the way they are going here...
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Sucks. I think I'm going to cancel my subscription as well. I like having videos to watch, but it really isn't worth the money.
www.gametrailers.com
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Heh, I don't actually like GT very much. Their website never works right with my browser, and I find that I very frequently disagree with their reviews, more so than a lot of other sites. They're pretty hypercritical about really stupid shit. Some of the other video stuff is decent enough, though, and they have a less shitty user-submitted video thing. And the more I think of it, the more I think what I get on GSpot these days video-wise usually doesn't cut it anyway and I end up looking for more stuff elsewhere.
Anyway, I canceled my subscription, so I'll have to get used to finding other sources.
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Comment on same gspot page (http://www.gamespot.com/users/mosaic/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25273350)
*Shudder*
That's so true too. Gamespot had a pretty good reputation and it tanked really fast.
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The problem gets worse. (http://kotaku.com/344073/another-gamespot-reviewer-decides-to-leave)
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Navarro!!??
Hey this means there are going to be some openings there. ;)
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He was really the last guy there I actually liked. I'm done with that place. Unless they want to hire me to fill a position...
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Navarro's leaving....wow....
Yeah, this has just been one reviewer leaving after another, since Jeff G got tossed.
G-Spot will basically have to completely rebuild now from pretty much close to scratch....
Yeah, Good luck w/ that one..... :o
Who's left?
Jason Ocampo???
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People keep saying that Ryan Davis is the last good guy, and is next to leave, but he always annoyed the fuck out of me. He's like a tiny midget trapped in a fat guy's body. You just sort of want to step on him.
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I kind of liked Ricardo Torres as well. It seems like he's had more of a behind the scenes job for the past year or so, but he was fun whenever he came out of the woodwork.
Everyone has pretty much bleed out much of its frontline talent though. I doubt at this point it can really hurt them that much more, but it'll definitely never be the same site again.
With all these people leaving, you have to wonder if they're going to pull what a bunch of people do in the actual game development world and start their own project. They've got the talent and I'm sure personal connections with a lot of the right people.
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Yeah, Good luck w/ that one..... Shocked
Totally because these guys do something that 80% of the population can not and will not do. Oh wait, that was a total lie. There's people who do the same thing they do for free as a hobby and do it just as well (taking into account the lack of time and funding). All these guys have is vague name recognition. You should probably get a resume ready Que, because it looks like GS is hiring.
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With all these people leaving, you have to wonder if they're going to pull what a bunch of people do in the actual game development world and start their own project. They've got the talent and I'm sure personal connections with a lot of the right people.
Does it matter though? It's inevitable that they will sell out and the same thing would happen all over again.
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haha
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Another long-time staff member of GameSpot leaves.
Almost 8 years w/ GameSpot, Ryan Davis decides to go.
Check it out (http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/the-gamespot-exodus-continues-as-ryan-davis-leaves/19301/?biz=1)
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I always thought he was kind of a dork, but whatever. Everyone predicted he'd be leaving... guess they were right.
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It appears Jeff Gerstmann is busy on a site called Giant Bomb (http://www.giantbomb.com/). Interesting.
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K-MaN beat you: http://www.overwritten.net/forum/index.php?topic=3733.msg47950#msg47950
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K-MaN beat you: http://www.overwritten.net/forum/index.php?topic=3733.msg47950#msg47950
Indeed he has.
It is a unique site though. Sure it looks petite right now but it looks like it has the potential to grow.
Of course my loyalty will always go to proslouch/player1start or whatever Pug chooses :D
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The guy who fired Gertsmann has been fired by CNET (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/37929/GameSpot-WeaselDick-Fired)
GameSpot WeaselDick Fired
Apr 04, 2008 at 6:56 PM - Robert "Apache" Howarth - 4 Comments
I guess it's safe to read GameSpot again as the dude who fired Jeff Gerstmann has been let go by CNET.
We contacted GameSpot Editor in Chief Ricardo Torres to verify the news this morning.
Torres confirmed that Larson's last day would be April 9, but declined to comment much further on the restructuring, citing the "internal" nature of the news.
It was clear that, at the time, Larson's capabilities as editorial lead weren't well regarded by some of the GameSpot staff. The anonymous "gamespot" commented at sister site Valleywag that Larson was "a suit [...] who had no editorial experience and was only involved on the business side of things." The anonymous commenter lamented that the presence of the sales team had become much more visible under Larson's watch, with other contributors going on and off record with less than favorable comments of CNET management.
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Well thats good news, but the damage has already been done. I pretty much check up on Giantbomb.com everyday now.
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Yeah, that came too late. I still check the site, but I let my subscription die, and most of the people I liked best are gone.
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Huge 4-page interview w/ Jeff Gerstmann -- talking about GameSpot, the upcoming Giant Bomb website, journalism on the Internet, snark, etc etc. (http://www.gamesradar.com/f/jeff-gerstmann-on-gamespot-giant-bomb-and-snark/a-20080403102237110057)