Ubisoft and Co Ban EGM

[Opt1]

Dan Hsu's 1UP Blog: Banned

or the time being, you'll get little, late, or no coverage of the following products: anything Mortal Kombat (they didn't like our reviews), anything from Sony's sports department (ditto), and now, anything from Ubisoft (it seems our coverage of Assassin's Creed was the last straw). So in case you're wondering why you're seeing so little of these games in our magazines and on our websites, now you know.

I don't necessarily agree with all their reviews, let alone read most of them, but its pretty sad that Ubisoft and co have gone so low as to try to silence the opinions of those they don't like and who don't rate their games high enough.

Its not even as if EGM have reviewed THAT much badly for Ubi - other than Assassin's Creed, which deserved to be a little raped, and Naruto, which I imagine is not going to be a game that will appeal to everyone.

If people don't agree with a site, they should choose not to read the reviews.. the devs shouldn't be making this decision for us.

Its not as if most review sites these days don't put out the same homogenized crap everywhere these days.. and you just can't trust previews anymore - as the EGM editor said, its all a rehash of press releases these days. If reviewers don't rate a game high at preview, their access and exclusives get pulled in the future.

E.g. TXB Spiderman Preview:

Visually, Spider-Man 3 is looking like the webslinger’s book once proclaimed…spectacular. The Xbox 360’s power offers amazing (another Spidey book) draw distances and for the correct amount of NYC bustle. The city is brimming with life that can be experienced on foot or when slinging close to the ground. But swing up to skyscraper tops and you’ll begin to appreciate the architectural beauty of the concrete jungle a bit more. Head in the opposite directions and you’re treated to a highly detailed Manhattan subway that would make the MTA proud. And don’t forget about the sewer and building innards, which also have been excruciatingly detailed to compete with the movie’s CGI work. Spidey is clearly next-gen, too, with expanded animation sets that are, unbelievably, keyframed—an attention to detail that speaks volumes of Treyarch’s relationship with Sony Pictures and Marvel on this project.

The review:

I would say the biggest problem is the game’s weak graphics, which are apparent right off the bat and continue through the whole adventure. In addition to rampant jaggies on nearly any straight-edged surface, sloppy texture seams and poor collision detection between objects (which on more than one occasion resulted in a non-player character standing inside of a vehicle’s front end, for instance). In some cases, this looks like a PS2 game ported up to the Xbox 360, instead of a game that was designed for a 1080i-capable game system.

I was seriously appalled by the poor quality and sloppiness such a major game as Spider-Man 3 contained. I’m sure development time was a factor, but this is embarrassingly bad in many spots.

This seems to happen everywhere these days, is a sad thing.

Anyhoos, pretty lame, thought would share.

 

[Will]

The thing the devs don't get is that a good review from a site known to be honest is worth far more than from another set of toadies. Honest reviews are almost a unique selling point nowadays.

Edit : devs are probably the wrong people to blame, I assume it is a publisher decision.

PS : Why does unique sound better with "a" instead of "an", even though it starts with a vowel?

 

[Vae]

PS : Why does unique sound better with "a" instead of "an", even though it starts with a vowel?

tangent
It's because it begins with a "you" sound rather than say an "uh" sound as in "umbrella" and thus disobeys the normal a/an rule.
/tangent

 

[Opt1]

Sorry, meant publishers.. I think.. I'm never sure where the dev/pub distinction ends in terms of who has the say in these things.

And what he said

 

[Ch3tan]

It's easy to see which games are worth it these days. The majority of good titles will have the demo available before the game. Kane and Lynch and assasins creed are two examples of games that did not have demos available till well after the launch.

 

[Stimpy]

It's easy to see which games are worth it these days. The majority of good titles will have the demo available before the game. Kane and Lynch and assasins creed are two examples of games that did not have demos available till well after the launch.

and yet assassins creed is great, weird

 

[Yaka]

heh i like reading EGM even tho it hits our shelves a month later than usa.

thought the Assasins creed preview was good it pointed out most of what i didnt like in the game, the review i thought was pretty spot on

Its not as if most review sites these days don't put out the same homogenized crap everywhere these days.. and you just can't trust previews anymore - as the EGM editor said, its all a rehash of press releases these days. If reviewers don't rate a game high at preview, their access and exclusives get pulled in the future.

this is not a new thing it has always been the case since the 16bit days, the rise of the robots review by a popular amiga mag was a case in point back then #9exxellant review for a horrendous game) .
by the late nineties it game publishers would dangle golden carrots to sway reviewers but then it didn't always werk take dakitana for example eidos supposed to have done all kinda shit pre release, quite a few previews were positive but the rewviews panned it