Gamespot Is bleeding credibility - it has dropped another rung on the ladder with their review of the PSV. The article extrudes blind hate, focuses mostly on smartphones and the PSVs competition and blows out of proportion OS issues. I don't know if it was a piece to get hits, or they are just Sony haters but the article lacked professionalism and was close to fanboy ranting. If it weremt for their forums would anyone be here?joel_c17

For the record, we haven't reviewed the Vita, nor do we have any intention of doing so. Our reviews are easy to spot because they have numbers on them that offer scores out of ten. Mark wrote an opinion piece on the hardware after spending some time with it. He, like you and I, is entitled to his opinion. Personally, I can't wait for my preordered Vita to arrive.

I'm not saying that metal gear solid 4 and Duke Nukem Forever are similar games and i'm not saying give Metal Gear Solid 4 a 3/10, i'm saying that it shouldn't get a perfect 10 (actually no game should, they all they have their flaws), but it should be stated in 'The Bad' section of the written review about the cutscene/gameplay ratio, i haven't played it (actually i was going to buy it until i herd about the cutscene thing and give the game a lower score (and every other game with a 10 score for that matter, nothing is perfect).

ps3gameplayer

As for Cod, just google 'Call of Duty is the same every year' or something similar and you will see how many others agree, Mario games have always been the same with updated graphics and yes i have played them and for FIFA, i should have said most sports games in general.

ps3gameplayer

On CoD: Your assertion that lots of other people agree with your opinion doesn't in any way make your opinion more valid than that of our reviewer. In keeping with your earlier suggestion, he is a fan of both the series and genre, and evidently he wasn't quite as disappointed by MW3 as I assume you were.

On Mario: Which Mario games have you actually played? To say that new games offer nothing more than "updated graphics" seems overly dismissive for a series that, to name just a few titles, has given us Super Mario World on the SNES, Super Mario 64 on the N64 (which was massively innovative in its time), and Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. While it's not a favorite of mine, the quite different Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube is also deserving of a mention I guess.

On FIFA/Sports: My earlier point stands. Regardless of which sport a games company is working with, they're obviously constrained by its rules to some extent.

And for the Mafia II and GTA IV, while the dates were not mandatory, they were for 100% percent completion, and most of the time the Mafia II mundane tasks were a simple tap of the triangle/Y button while in GTA IV (i'm not saying it is a bad game by the way, i have completed it 4 times, but a little disappointing when compared to San Andreas and instead of starting huge forums like others i have seen on the internet i just play San Andreas as well as GTA IV) you had to drive half way across town, pick up your date, drive them somewhere and drive back to where you had to pick them up from.

ps3gameplayer

@ps3gameplayer: Firstly, I appreciate your honesty in letting folks know that you haven't played all of the games for which you believe our reviews are biased in some way. Before I address your individual concerns, I'll just quickly point out that what you're talking about isn't any kind of bias, but rather what you perceive to be inconsistency in our reviewing.

Your comparing of the Duke Nukem Forever and MGS4 (I assume) reviews isn't really an apples to apples deal; the games are very different, both in terms of their quality and their content. Why did we complain about the platforming and lack of shooting in Duke Nukem? I didn't review the game myself, but I suspect that it had something to do with the fact that platforming in first-person games rarely works well, and that in a game with as inventive an arsenal as Duke Nukem has at his disposal, it's disappointing if you don't get to spend a lot of your time using it.

As for Metal Gear Solid 4, story has always been a big part of those games and so, while you might personally find it frustrating to be watching rather than playing for extended periods, that's not true for everyone. Personally I've always enjoyed the cutscenes in MGS games, just as I'm enjoying conversation sequences in Star Wars: The Old Republic currently. I might even go so far as to say that I enjoy that game's conversations more than I enjoy its combat, though I highly doubt that most folks would agree.

Reading our review for Tomb Raider Underworld, I think it's clear that the reason we complained about the game doing little to change its formula (or at least improve upon it) was that the previous game in the series had noticeable issues that should have been addressed. With the possible exception of MW3, I think CoD games have always added significant features to the formula established sometime ago, which is why they continue to garner praise. Mario games are far from formulaic if you look past the kidnapped princess premise, so I'm not really sure why you mentioned them. And FIFA, really? It's not like EA can reinvent the sport or change its rules every year. What choice does EA have but to iterate on previous games in the hope that the game improves every year?

I didn't play a great deal of Mafia II, but I believe the "mundane tasks" in question (such as cleaning a toilet or loading crates) were mandatory, whereas the dates in GTA IV were, for the most part, completely optional. Having the option to ignore a feature that you don't enjoy, I think you'll agree, makes it less annoying.

Also, we always try to have folks who are interested in a series or genre review those games. How else would we do it?

@topsemag55: GameSpot editors are required to finish games before writing reviews. That's all of us, not just one of us.

Castle Crashers immediately springs to mind. You might also consider ilomilo, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and Renegade Ops.

I wondered why that guy is always loitering outside our office when I go to grab lunch. Figured he was Shaun's older brother or something. You kept that quiet Jody!

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

You know they would have to pay for those PC versions themselves - the games they've already played - if the publishers of games don't send them free copies.

Its the publishers fault, not GS. They're going to send the version that they think will sell the most.

_Pedro_

For what it's worth, we regularly buy games for review when we're not sent them. Recent examples include Iron Man 2 and Record of Agarest War (the latter review is still in the works) and a number of downloadable games on PSN, XBLA, and Steam. We've never insisted on getting free copies of games here at GameSpot (we'll never write that we couldn't review the multiplayer because we only got one copy either - I forget where I read a review like that, but we always just buy more copies), but we have to work with publishers to get copies of games because otherwise we can't get them early.

Great work guys! I've only just come across this thread after Jody pointed it out to me, and I honestly wasn't expecting to find something put together so professionally. When nobody's looking I might even use the office printer to make myself a hard copy. I haven't had time to read any of the reviews or longer articles yet, but the layout is great, I enjoyed the Tom and Kevin interviews, and I love that Splinter Cell: Conviction scored a scores-are-lame out of ten.

Oh, but seriously, only a 9.0 for Miner Dig Deep?! I haven't played it, nor have I read the review, but based on those screenshots it should be a 9.5 at least!! :P

The "Wii-Wii"!

Not sure how I didn't notice it before, but with the new rarity stuff used for achievements on the site, the blue (rare) and purple (epic) borders look the same to me - especially when they're right next to each other.