Remember the other day when we briefly discussed (after quotes from Jaffe) the morality behind reviewing a game? Today we have an example of how NOT to do it.
Granting a game a 6.5 score and then complaining that it is easy, short and without a decent ending may not be the best way of handling things, especially if you don't realize you only recieve the final 'super epic' level and other features when completing the game on normal or above. This is the case for IGN, who recently played PixelJunk SideScroller, lied about completing it on the lowest difficulty level and then deleted entire portions of the review.
Written by Daemon Hatfield, the review was called out by Dylan Cuthbert who didn't feel the game had recieved a fair review. Based on Hatfield's complaints, the game had obviously been rushed through very quickly on the easiest difficulty level, hardly a fair test.
"If you beat it on normal," Cuthbert tweeted, "you'd have seen the entire ending sequence."
Flash forward 14 minutes and Cuthbert is tweeting again: "woah @Daemzero, that's really unprofessional…you removed the section from your review showing clearly that you rushed through the game in casual."
I feel for Hatfield, I really do. Fitting in every single game to review is a pain and often you have to make concessions, you have to be able to say "enough is enough" and get a decent schedule sorted and work your ass off. But what you should never do is write what is supposed be a authorititive account of a game that you've hardly played – especially if you complain about things that instantly prove you don't know what you're talking about.
