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IGN rushes through PJSideScroller, lies, is called out, removes part of review

A

Amir0x

Banned
metsallica said:
Just FYI, guys. Editor at IGN means you write for the site. Senior Editor means you have been there a while, make a bit more, and write for the site. Neither position is a copy editor and it's rare that other people will double-check reviews for smaller titles, unless they're written by freelancers. It's kind of rare then too, though.
Click to expand...

Well then this is what needs to be fixed. Because it's clear these people can't police themselves.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Has it been mentioned that IGN did the exact same thing with another game?

Go Vacation for Wii

cacildo said:
I read two reviews saying its impossible to control your character movement in volleyball. Destructoid and IGN.

And well, this caught my eye because i saw somebody in this thread saying "pay attention: the first time you play any mini game it will give you the dumbed down version of it. When you play it again you get the full version, with full controls and objectives to complete. In fact, the first time you play volleyball you cant even control your character, and playing it for the second time you can control it with the nunchuck" (or something like that)

So, did i got something wrong or did these sites just played any event once and rushed to finish the reviews?

(destructoid gave it a 5, IGN said 7)
Click to expand...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=31797877&postcount=108


IGN says

The same goes for volleyball, which felt really clunky, especially because you don't actually move your character during the game, you just use the Wii remote to hit the ball.
Click to expand...
http://wii.ign.com/articles/120/1200155p1.html



Someone who actually played the game says:

Plinko said:
They rushed to finish the reviews. Once you play the first game of volleyball, any other time you go back to play you can choose the control option that allows you to move your character.
Click to expand...
 
Riposte

Riposte

Member
foodtaster said:
Who cares? One stage isn't going to change the entire quality of the game. It would have gotten a 6.5 regardless. Buncha mad folks in here
Click to expand...

Isn't the actual concern the difficulty setting?
 
DiscoJer

DiscoJer

Member
I have some sympathy for the guy. I've written a review a week for the last year and a half or so over at Pspminis. It can be painful if you have to write one for a game you don't enjoy or aren't good at. But reviews aren't going to write themselves.

I know I haven't finished every game I've reviewed (for instance, after about 3 hours, I was only halfway through 1000 Tiny Claws). Do I feel bad about it? Sure, especially as I jumped to a conclusion or two that I could easily have been wrong about, but at the same time, it's just not possible to always finish them. When you come down to it, most reviewers are not great gamers, but instead are fair to middling hacks. You pretty much have to be able to write on a regular schedule.

I'm not using hack as an insult - it requires a lot of dedication and work and willpower to enter their ranks, after years of practice I'm only nibbling at it. But it often does sometimes come at the expense of quality. This is one of those cases.
 
B

bigdaddygamebot

Member
foodtaster said:
Who cares? One stage isn't going to change the entire quality of the game. It would have gotten a 6.5 regardless. Buncha mad folks in here
Click to expand...

Hey cool dude. Try another thread...your apathy and ignorance isn't needed here.

DiscoJer said:
I know I haven't finished every game I've reviewed (for instance, after about 3 hours, I was only halfway through 1000 Tiny Claws). Do I feel bad about it? Sure, but at the same time, it's just not possible to always finish them. When you come down to it, most reviewers are not great gamers, but instead are fair to middling hacks. You pretty much have to be able to write on a regular schedule.
Click to expand...

You fucking people need to stop admitting this.
 
T

Trumpet909

Member
http://www.ign.com/blogs/daemon-ign/2011/10/26/concerning-my-pixeljunk-sidescroller-review/

So today I reviewed PixelJunk SideScroller. I played on a PlayStation 3 test kit with review code provided by Sony. I gave it a 6.5. One of the developers was upset and accused me of not playing the game on the normal difficulty. This isn't true -- I beat SideScroller twice, once on casual and then on normal. The content was exactly the same in both play throughs. When I assured the developer I had played on normal, he said I would have unlocked an "epic last stage." I was confused, because I didn't seem to unlock anything except the hard difficulty.



To clarify, there are three stages in SideScroller. In both casual and normal mode, when you complete all three stages you unlock the "last stage." So I played through this last stage on both difficulties.



I thought this line in my review might be bothering him: "Finish the last stage and defeat the final boss and what is your reward? A swift kick back to the title screen with no more than "congratulations.""



That is technically a true statement, although after completing normal mode there is a brief scene telling you you've unlocked hard mode. That scene was not significant to me, but upon reflection I thought maybe I wasn't being fair. So I removed the above sentence from my review, not to hide anything but in a hope to not mislead anyone into thinking there isn't a brief little something at the end of the game, however insignificant. To me, this wasn't an important change to the review -- it didn't change my score and all the important information about the game is still there. Tweaking articles is common practice on the internet. Should we notate every change to an article we make? Perhaps, but IGN doesn't have a standard in place for doing so.



Anyways, I should have just left the article the way it was because there was nothing factually wrong with it and changing seems to have bothered some people, including the developer. I put the sentence back in and am writing this blog post to try and clear things up.



I think PixelJunk SideScroller is an "okay" game, which is what a 6.5 means on the IGN scale. I beat it on both normal and casual modes and saw the same content in both play throughs. The only perk I can find for beating the game on normal is unlocking hard mode.



Daemon
Click to expand...
 
H

HiVision

Member
EvilMario said:
Maybe it'll all turn out for the best. I had little interest in Pixel Junk before this, but now I want to buy it. ;)
Click to expand...

bad PR is good PR? I bet IGN isn't complaining about the increased hits to their page either!
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
foodtaster said:
Who cares? One stage isn't going to change the entire quality of the game. It would have gotten a 6.5 regardless. Buncha mad folks in here
Click to expand...

Why make excuses for it? People have a right to be disappointed or angry at someone lying or misrepresenting something. I hope this Damien guy takes responsibility and admits people have a right to be angry because he did something wrong.

Maybe it would have been a 6.5 either way. But if he misrepresented this, maybe he misrepresented something else. How can you believe anything then?
 
Riposte

Riposte

Member
With Daemon's most recent comments, I've officially become too confused. (You get the stage on Easy, also?)
 
M

MadraptorMan

Member
Can't believe I'm saying this but it seems like IGN is in the clear this time. That reviewer seems like he is on the up and up and his blog post is quite clear.
 
D

darkressurection

Banned
Based on that blog posts comments, this is the type of person that supports IGN:
Uy! Accusing Daemon Catfield of not playing the game on normal!! WOW
First off all does he know you work for IGN. The most trusted site in video game journalism today and BEYOND!
You said the developer was "upset" and "accused" you. That's totally unprofessional.
Daemon just egg this person house. lulz Thank you Daemon for being a professional and clearing any damage done by the developers on your journalistic integrity. pff accusing you of not finishing the game and unlocking the"epic last stage"
Call back and just yell "FLORA DORA 6.5!!!!!! Also keep reading IGN.com" lulz
Click to expand...

Soooo....yeah.
 
Zomba13

Zomba13

Member
foodtaster said:
One stage isn't going to change the entire quality of the game. It would have gotten a 6.5 regardless. Buncha mad folks in here
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not.
Thing is he not only didn't play the full game (yeah, 1 stage/boss might not make the different I agree) but when called out on it covered it up by removing that part from the review. I totally get and applaud removing inaccurate information in reviews (they are meant to serve as a buying guide after all) but he didn't mention or acknowledge what he did at all. I think that's the thing that annoys most people here (well, me at least).

It's easy to just chuck a little edit or update at the bottom of the review saying that you played on casual, not normal so didn't see the last stage/proper ending.
 
B

bigdaddygamebot

Member
MadraptorMan said:
Can't believe I'm saying this but it seems like IGN is in the clear this time. That reviewer seems like he is on the up and up and his blog post is quite clear.
Click to expand...


If by "on the up and up" you mean, he's backpedaling...then yes, you're correct.
 
P

Pride

Member
Amir0x said:
I admit what I did though, I have no illusions. As soon as it was caught, I didn't try to make an excuse. I was wrong and that was it. Taking responsibility for your actions is important.
Click to expand...

It's obvious to see you didn't learn your lesson. You didn't just lie, admit to it, and are now a better person for it. You lied, got called out, abused your power to edit the past to support your lie, got caught doing so, got rightly punished, then admitted to it.

Right now the IGN guy is only at the step of abusing his powers to edit the past and getting caught doing so...
 
J

jim-jam bongs

Member
So what is the scene he's talking about? If it's not significant we might be in storm-in-a-teacup territory here.

Either way, he should have added a comment clarifying rather than removing something even if his intentions weren't underhanded.
 
DonMigs85

DonMigs85

Member
You folks at Q-Games should make Pixeljunk RPG next, with a rich story involving characters from all previous games. That should at least satisfy Daemon's need for a longer game.
 
D

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
lowrider007 said:
I'm not buying that at all.
Click to expand...
Because you and most of the people in this thread made up their mind after reading the thread title.
 
B

bubnbob

Banned
DrForester said:
BxKoh.gif
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Why does this get posted? What does it even mean?
 
A

Aselith

Member
Riposte said:
With Daemon's most recent comments, I've officially become too confused. (You get the stage on Easy, also?)
Click to expand...

Yeah I don't get that either. I though the developer keyed in on him not getting the last stage...but if you get it anyways then what clued the developer in?
 
M

metsallica

Member
jackdoe said:
That's an awful practice for a "professional" games review website.
Click to expand...
Been like that since they launched in the mid-90s. Honestly it's like that most places; games journalism is not real journalism. Hell, real journalism is barely real journalism these days. Fast and lose is the name of the game.

It sucks. It should change. It won't.
 
S

Seiru

Banned
Tashi0106 said:
Daemon's a good guy, I trust he's trying to do the right thing.
Click to expand...

Get that levelheadedness out of this topic. You don't belong here unless you believe that this horrendous scandal is worse than the holocaust.
 
Zomba13

Zomba13

Member
darkressurection said:
Based on that blog posts comments, this is the type of person that supports IGN:

Soooo....yeah.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt that was a persons true feelings. I think it's just a troll doing it for 'teh lulz'.



At least I hope.
 
lowrider007

lowrider007

Licorice-flavoured booze?
Dance In My Blood said:
Because you and most of the people in this thread made up their mind after reading the thread title.
Click to expand...

errr, no, I actually saw the original post in the official thread of the game, it was in there that the op said he was going to make a new thread on the matter, and here we are, I've been following this closely from the beginning.
 
I

ItWasMeantToBe19

Banned
Seiru said:
Get that levelheadedness out of this topic. You don't belong here unless you believe that this horrendous scandal is worse than the holocaust.
Click to expand...


The overreaction to overreaction groups are the worst of this whole process...
 
T

Tallshortman

Member
Isn't he an IGN veteran? Pretty sad... At least redact the review and redo it. Much less bad than bashing a game you didn't actually complete.
 
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