There's a bit of a row going on on Eurogamer.net and Eurogamer.fr at the moment. The UK arm of Eurogamer (.net) recently released new editorial guidelines to prevent corporate influence over reviews following an infamous incident and has just made a statement to the effect that the reason Eurogamer can't review Black Ops 2 right now is because they didn't attend the special 'review event'.

At the same time, however, Eurogamer.fr has just published a review of Black Ops 2 that reads like a press release. Most of the reluctant criticism designed to give the impression of neutrality is hidden in a box entitled "Strike force c'est faible!"

Worse still, the reviewer - Julien Chevron - has just been outed as the architect of Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops PR campaigns and his resumé boldly states that he actually still works for Activision-Blizzard France.

Gaming journalism gets dragged even further into the gutter.

Exactly why i rarely read pro reviews. I trust fellow gamers review much more even if the writing is not pro. I read my reviews mostly from Amazon and GameFaqs.

4 HOUR CAMPAIGN
BROKEN MULTIPLAYER FROM DAY 1 PLAGUED BY HACKERS AND CHEATERS JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COD RELEASE
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW OR INTERESTING IN THIS REHASH
ZERO REPLAY VALUE

10/10 GAME OF THE YEAR, ACTIVISION PUBLISHES ANOTHER MASTERPIECE

There, every "review" of this game summarized above, it will still sell millions regardless of what happens or how good the game is

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/pc-version-of-black-ops-ii-contains-mass-effect-2-20121113/

* laughs *

Personally I am eagerly awaiting FarCry 3 on the PC

The last CoD game I played was World at War which was REALLY good, I briefly played Modern Warfare (First one) but just didn't enjoy it as much as the WW2 ones prior. I also tried out Black Ops and found that extremely poor after playing for an hour or two.

Trouble is that if people keep buying them then Activision will just keep churning them out without adding any new innovation, I wouldn't be surprised if next years installment is already well underway.

Obviously a conspiracy to enforce Steam onto people.

What exactly is a "special review event?"

Basically it's an event to which reviewers are invited with drinks and stuff. Reviewers watch a presentation of someone playing the game and then have the 'opportunity' to play the game for themselves under the supervision of an employee of the publisher.

They really are a disgrace.

Huh? What exactly is the point? Don't they play throgh it themselves anyway?

.....why?

Well, as I understand it, the Activision reps are trained to 'befriend' the reviewers, really get them heated up and excited about the game.

Basically the idea is that a reviewer will be more inclined to write good things about a company that he personally has ostensibly been treated well by. It's a psychological thang.

Well, that's a smart move on Activision's part I guess.

I've started to have some real contempt for the professional reviewing scene... some of it justified some of it perhaps not.

That kind of thing has always made me laugh. Why not just go and buy it in the morning or preorder it? My mate was raving about going to Halo 4's midnight launch and how he'd stay up all night completing the campaign. He got it, got home, played 30 minutes and fell asleep. Now he's stuck in bed with a cold. Whereas I preordered it for £15 less than he paid, got it that morning and I don't have a cold. I'm bored of it already though because of the terrible matchmaking system ensuring almost every game is laggy as sin. Campaign was enjoyable however.

That would make too much sense.

Likewise, however I do understand when you attend actual big launch events, you go there for the experience and not just to "play the game earlier" as well as the chance to get some exclusive stuff

A good example would be the massive Launches of Starcraft 2 and WoW: MOP, those events were well worth attending

Not only that but on some launches (like the ones mentioned above) you can get your game signed by the developer/director/whatever of the game