UK Tomb Raider: Underworld reviews under 8/10 silenced until Monday [Update]

oops!

Woah! Honesty?!

Bit nuts, innit. I suppose all those who say transparency in this industry is a thing of the past can take the rags away from their faces, ’cause now ain’t the time for their tears….or something like that anyway.

That’s… shockingly honest. The PR firm tea-boy who answers the phone while everyone’s out on their regular liquid lunch will no doubt be out on his ear by the end of the day.

God forbid we should have reviews putting people off buying the game, though. I mean, who do these people think they are? Offering opinions? On games? So that people can decide whether to buy them or not? It’s unbelievable, the front of some people!

It really is terrible.

@ morriss
What? The game or this incident?

Wow. So honest. Maybe he didn’t think what he said would be published?

7 /10 is officially a bad score then?

Quiiik: the incident. Haven’t played the game.

This is fantastic, get stuck in. Are we expecting a ‘reverse Gerstmann’? Or.. a ‘Reverstmann’? Thanks Marty. Sorry everyone.

I really find it hard to understand why people still believe reviews. They are nothing more than a waste of time. And you really have to question reviews after the whole Kane & Lynch on gamespot affair.

No, 7/10 is far from bad. But something like ok/average …
With so many good new games out there which score 8 and above, it’s naturally more difficult to sell a 7.
But TombRaider being a well-known brand it will sell shitloads of copies anyway, no matter what score it gets …

Wait, what about the Eurogamer review?

That got 7/10!

>7 /10 is officially a bad score then?

Yes. Everyone knows that 8+ is good. 7 is mediocre and anything less is bad. People keep trying to push this 5=average thing but nobody will ever go for that. We only want to buy really good games.

@ jigglybean
Do you ever READ reviews or just look at the score?

“This is fantastic, get stuck in. Are we expecting a ‘reverse Gerstmann’?”

Hehe, a “reverstmann”

US publisher bonuses are based on Metacritic… have been for ages. Messed up system but there you go.

7/10 is officially a bad score if your looking at a Metacritic score average of 7.8 as it’s not going to help you get it into the realms of respectability score-wise.

The irony of this, sourced from Twitter, posted on a site literally dripping with sponsorship dollars, is very entertaining.

Also, I read that Eurogamer review. It was fucking awful (the review) in that it ranted about REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS (like why Lara can’t stand on a round rock but can on a square one) for ten paragraphs and in then summed things up with “..but it’s Tomb Raider. 7/10″

It’s Tomb Raider. People who buy Tomb Raider games don’t need a review to make their mind up for them.

Literally.

innit. safe. wicked. peace.

“It’s Tomb Raider. People who buy Tomb Raider games don’t need a review to make their mind up for them.”

I agree.

However, as TR: Angel of Darkness clearly demonstrated, not all Tomb Raider games are worthy of your money or time, so trusted reviews are still important.

Just to make myself perfectly clear, I’m not implying that TR: Underworld has anything in common with TR: AoD apart from the main protagonist. Quite the opposite actually, as I enjoyed the x360 demo and plan to purchase the full game in due time.

Pat, can you ask EuroGamer what kind of “problems” did their review cause?

“Future advertising problems”, I surmise.

“It’s Tomb Raider. People who buy Tomb Raider games don’t need a review to make their mind up for them.”

Thanks Shat, that line really made me smile. I’ve only ever met one person to whom Tomb Raider holds any interest, and I can say that they fit that sentence to a tee.

@that_happy_cat Especially as most publishers have very little to do with the quality of the end product. What are UK Publisher bonuses based on then?

Well I generally like Tomb Raider games. But I don’t like them all – I don’t have any of the games between TR2 and Legend, for instance. So that’s that theory bollocksed, then.

No problem Esha, happy to see you get something from my comments as I consistently find yours both engaging and considered.

And my “People who buy Tomb Raider..” comment wasn’t meant as some sort of snub of a demographic. Just that Tomb Raider is such a well established franchise (with more hits than misses in its lifetime) that people who like Tomb Raider generally know what to expect and whether a new installment will be their thing or not.

I love agile platformers like Tomb Raider, Mirrors Edge and the Prince of Persia series – so this Christmas is looking to be a good one for folk like me.

Additionally, this sense of “EMBARGO = THEY MUST HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE – HAVE NO FEAR FOR THE GAMES MEDIA IS HERE TO SHOW YOU THE TRUTH” is kind of undone in that Eidos put out a demo of the game for people to try out for themselves.

Want to know whether you’ll like the game? Play the demo!

Phew. Conspiracy theory averted eh?

Not really as the demo was a bit pap apparently and the game itself is a bit better. I love Tomb Raider but haven’t bought one the last few times as it’s disappointed me. This one had me interested until i read some articles and now i’m going to wait until Monday at least. Limit reviews? I’ll limit my purchase.

Thanks Eidos! I’ve an extra £30 to spend this weekend!

“Phew. Conspiracy theory averted eh?”

Not really; they /have/ admitted up there to conspiring to pervert the initial average of Metacritic, so that their sales in the key opening period are higher.

Also, there’s that the sheep-like element of some press, who rarely move far away from the Metacritic average, and they’ll help solidify the score at that level. A high initial average, even for a bad game, tends to stick a little. And, as that_happy_cat says, that’ll boost the US PR’s bonuses!

I really don’t think that the sort of people that would have bought a high-profile franchise game within three days of release would typically u-turn such behaviour if they saw a review lower than 80% in that period. They don’t usually.

This isn’t an isolated incident as far as embargoes and games are concerned. But now that there’s a nice juicy high-profile title to attach a mention of it to it makes it sound all the more conspiratorial. If every instance of such behaviour was reported as news then nobody would be batting an eyelid at this one instance.

[i]Context[/i]

“If every instance of such behaviour was reported as news then nobody would be batting an eyelid at this one instance.”

True – but in this case, someone’s let the mask slip, just for a second. That’s what’s so fascinating!

I really don’t think that the sort of people that would have bought a high-profile franchise game within three days of release would typically u-turn such behaviour if they saw a review lower than 80% in that period. They don’t usually.

Eidos PR obviously thinks it’s more important than you do.

Well DUH. I wonder why?!

“Just that we’re trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that’s handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don’t put people off buying the game, basically.”

Then they should actually spend more time making the game better! I’m delighted sites that reviewed it less than 8 have put their reviews up. What was this guy saying the sites would get in return for not putting the reviews up?

So, whilst we’re on the conspiracy theory trail: Where’s the Last Remnant reviews then eh? Big, high-profile release, no reviews anywhere.

/looks at who sponsors VG247
/looks at platform Last Remnant is out on

Oh.

Shatner: You are actually mad.

Everyone: BH just issued a statement on this. Top of site.

OK Mr Investigative Journalist.

So where’s the Lost Remnant reviews then? And where’s the multiple headline stories about their absence?

And why did you choose to ignore those perfectly valid observations in the first place?

hahaha.

I’ll answer you, Shatner. You deserve it.

I don’t know where the LR reviews are. Until you mentioned it, I didn’t even think about it, to be honest. I’ve just looked at MetaCritic and only one site in the world has reviewed it, apparently. Gamepro’s given it a 6.

I have no idea why this is, whether there’s an embargo in place, or what.

Normally I just see a bunch of reviews go online for a game and do a roundup. The only reason I followed up this TR story in this way was because of Guy’s Twitter post.

VG247: The difference is twitter

Something’s been taken out of hand, I talked to one of the PR guys and they said that this is all a big misunderstanding.

Shatner: I don’t particularly like it myself, but internet based journalism – and especially when it relates to video games – has always had a very “hand around” kind of nature. It’s nearly always about repeating other people’s stories.

It tends to focus on what’s said, not what isn’t, and there very rarely any investigating done (beyond emailing some PR guy to hear their answers).

It’s stupid, but that’s how it is. Whinging about it won’t change a thing.

I certainly do wish there were more reviews for LR as well, even though my purchases are rarely influenced by reviews. It would be nice to have seen more general thoughts on it, just so I’d have *some* idea of what to expect from it.

“Something’s been taken out of hand, I talked to one of the PR guys and they said that this is all a big misunderstanding.”

Isn’t that the same thing they said about Kane and Lynch? *laughs*

I don’t think there’s some giant conspiracy going on here; I just think Eidos are doing another shit job of controlling this sort of thing, and seem to be getting “special attention” just because sensationalist journalists want to get on the Evil Eidos bandwagon.

The whole nonsense of this is that sub-7 scores are out. So this is all moot.

THE MIGHTY GAMES MEDIA HAS SHOWN THE EVIL GAMES INDUSTRY THAT IT WILL NOT BE THREATENED OR HELD TO RANSOM! THE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW (That Lara can’t stand on curved rocks but is ok on flat-topped ones).

You can all sleep soundly in your beds…

…until Twitter twitches again..!

emo
m
ome

“Yes. Everyone knows that 8+ is good. 7 = average and anything less is bad. People keep trying to push this 5=average thing but nobody will ever go for that. We only want to buy really good games.”

For whatever reasons, it only seems to be the strangely over-sensitive “hardcore” gaming audience that screams about 7 being mediocre. Both the movie and music industry unanimously accept the 5 = average idea, and critic scores echo that.

The problem with the gaming media is that it’s far too reliant on the very medium it’s promoting to help fund itself. If gaming media stopped being so sensitive to the opinions of uneducated, whiny teenagers, it wouldn’t even be an issue.

You know the worst thing about this? Its not about constructive reviews, its not about distinct review scores or informed opinions.

Its about metacritic, its about 1 fucking average number.

People actually base purchases on that number.

They are fucking idiots. Metacritic is fucking horrible. Gerstmann has AIDS.

The game here in the U.S is not selling well,people are posting terrible reviews on you tube,i have it, i just spend 65.00 dollars, and i do regret buying the game. ;-(

Hey, look! You made a comic.