Kieron Gillen’s Workblog » Eurogamer Gears of War Furore

[Okay. EG reviewed Gears of War this week and gave it 8/10. They admit to not including multiplayer in that, and will return to it later. This score - the lowest that its recieved - leads to a comment thread just shy of 800 posts. This leads to a thread over at Rllmuk about Eurogamer’s recent conduct here. That leads me to replying to someone else here. And since it seemed to be relevant more generally, I post it here.]

Eurogamer’s biggest problem, as always, is being honest. Most organs would have just bluffed through it. I guarantee Kristan has played enough GoW MP to comment on it. Hell - they ran a GoW MP feature the week previously based on someone playing it on a big trip over to Epic which they link on the review. What - a solid day of play of finished multiplayer code?

Instead, they took the approach of *honestly talking about what they thought about the game and revealed precicely about what they actually played*.

Comments like yours makes me think organs are better off when they lie to their readers.

(And going through the review, I can’t find the bit you allude to about them not being able to play multiplayer because the code lacked it. The review talks about not actually being able to play multiplayer properly because it’s on a Debug kit. That’s a very different thing.)

Idly - do you think all the 9s and 10s have played significantly more GoW multiplayer that EG?

Oh - My take on bias generally? *You can’t be biased towards a console until you actually review some of its fucking games*. I *guarantee* you EG will slash at the initial PS3 line-up just as hard as it did the initial X360 line-up if it’s as uninspiring.

My take on Gears of War? I love it. Gave it 90% in another place. But if you asked 20 people off the street to play it and give it a mark out of 10, I guarantee you that at least one would give it an 8. In fact, I dare say some would give it a lot lower.

The homogenity of game scores isn’t a sign of a critical consensus. It’s a sign of critical cowardice. When people get so upset about a 1/10 difference on a site which is traditionally one of the hardest marking places on the web, I don’t think it’s EG who needs to defend themselves against accusations of Bias.

[John Walker, ever the diplomat, adds: “”For the love of all things, fuck off forever and ever and ever and ever.”]

12 Comments so far

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Heh, I wondered why the comments thread was so huge. I’m glad EG sticks to the long essay style reviews (and they’ve gotten even longer of late!) - I hope they never change from that approach.

Kieron surprisingly sticking up for a place that gives him work. Add that to your ‘bias’ update, you mong.

RLLMUK in “full of clueless wankers” shock? Surely not!

We were given code for the 360 debug to review from. That uses PartnerNet, which is a closed network of debug users rather than Xbox Live, so our multiplayer access was very limited. With the US reviews, I expect that they had US boxed copies to review from, what with their version being released the day the embargo lifted. So they will have played it online more than we did, but Kieron’s right with the point that we just didn’t feel comfortable commenting on that element yet. As for whether it was right to post a “semi-review” based on one thing: I think we’ll always do some approximation of that if the single-player’s good enough that it’s worth buying for alone.

As for our conduct lately, I’m surprised everyone thinks I’m a giant Sony fanboy given that I’m actually a giant Nintendo fanboy. If Nintendo had given us a Wii the same day that Sony gave us a PS3 then things would be a bit different, but we’re in a live-news sort of environment so we go with what we have. We’re a multiformat site - we’re far happier if everyone buys everything because then more people will read our stuff…

I’ve never known review scores to be as keenly studied as they are in EG comment threads. I’m sure some users must have text documents open with all the previous scores for comparison. “Hmm, I see you gave ‘x’ an 8 back in 1961, is ‘y’ really worse than ‘x’?” I think the silent majority understand EG and their scoring system, and enjoy their honesty. I know I do.

I sort of enjoy the fact we’re beaten up about our old scores. I’d prefer if they beat us up about the things we’ve /said/, but I’m alright with this. It’s just a bit depressing when we’re misinterpreted. I wrote a thing about what our PS3 debug does and everyone claimed I was in Sony’s pocket. Although I suppose it’s good for traffic - they’d probably be quite bored if I told them that I’ve had a PS3 sat on my desk for a week and I’ve spent more time playing Advance Wars DS and Earthbound than anything else.

Kieron’s right that we’d be much better off if we just lied though - I got death threats for that Kameo review :/

Yeah, sorry about that, but I was terribly annoyed at you not giving it the 2/10 it deserved.

This is why I never ever look at other mags’ scores until after I’ve posted a review.

Don’t like how a site scores games? Sod off then. Find one that more closely matches your opinions of games. That’s the point whole of a review site, being entirely opinion-based there’s no such thing as “right” just “reviewers with similar tastes to you”.

Of course, it’s easier to just bitch on the internet about something you disagree with instead.

I thought the review was excellent. Every other review i’d read had made it sound like an 8/10 but then slapped a 9 or 10 on at the end anyway.

Eurogamer is the best gaming site on the net and this is exactly why.

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Eurogamer Gears of War Furore

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