Gaming247 said:Eidos UK PR firm Barrington Harvey has confirmed that British sites are being asked not to post Tomb Raider: Underworld reviews with scores lower than 80 percent until Monday.
The game releases today for 360 and PS3.
Gamespot UK journalist Guy Cocker revealed the tactic in a Twitter post on Wednesday that said: call from Eidosif youre planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday.
Said a Barrington Harvey rep on the phone this afternoon: Thats right. Were trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos.
When asked why, the spokesperson said: Just that were trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US thats handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we dont put people off buying the game, basically.
British site Eurogamer has already gone live with a 7/10 score, an act the rep said had caused problems.
OXM UK has also posted a 7.0 score.
The news is unlikely to go down well. Eidoss efforts at controlling review scores are still fresh in the mind: it was a row over Gamespots 6/10 review of Kane & Lynch that cost popular US journalist Jeff Gerstmann his job.
Tomb Raider: Underworlds Metacritic average stands at 78 percent.
http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/21/uk-tomb-raider-underworld-reviews-under-810-silenced-until-monday/
Wow Eidos. That takes some guts after the whole K&L thing... Props to Eurogamer and OXM for telling them to shove it. I wonder what these "problems" that Eidos is causing EG mentioned are (cutting adverts?)...
Can any of the NA gaming media that frequent GAF comment on whether they were given any sort of block or set parameters on what was OK or not OK in a review?
Also, adding this because it's awesome:
Credit to Glaurung for the pic.