Reviews Week

MTV Multiplayer Blog is looking at the practices of game reviews in their Reviews Week feature. There’s some great stuff on dubious practices in there, including Low Metacritic Scores Cause Game Publishers To Withhold Developer Royalties and Video Game Company To Wii Reviewer: Save The Panning For Later, Okay?, as well as proposed solutions in The Game Reviewer’s Bill Of Rights.

Here’s a bit of “Save The Panning For Later”, an interesting read.

This, he said, demonstrated the way the communication sometimes works. (I have a note in my hand that came from a PR person surrounding a certain Wii launch game,) Navarro told me.

This is the note he was sent by a publicist whom he declined to name:

If the review is 9.0 or higher you can post immediately. Lower than 9.0, could you please hold until launch day, November 19th? Thanks.

(And that’s not the first time I got something like that,) he told me. Navarro said GameSpot ran their review for this game based on a copy bought in a store. And they panned it.