Duck and cover

In the console world nothing rings my alarm bells more then seeing a new release prior to its full review in the Official Magazine of the Console. It strongly suggests that the game is a huge steaming offering to Hruggh and they're throwing it out there in the hopes that some poor young fool will drop forty notes on it without looking at all the State-side reviews warning them away from it. Klaxons really start to add their strident note when you spot that they haven't released an online demo before it hits the shelves.

Okay maybe not. I've been accused elsewhere of being too cynical, so I'll try to think happy thoughts. Perhaps the game's already overdue and now it's ready they want to release it to all those patient people who have pre-ordered it; magazine deadlines go hang this game's great and it doesn't need any reviewers adding extra publicity to its already huge greatness. Besides it got great reviews in the States so why bother with what the yokel locals think. The demo thing is just too difficult, it's an open sandbox/highly complex/insert reason here and we'd have to spend valuable time paring down the game; time that could be better spent on the game itself.

Ulp nope sorry can't do it. While the bit about the demos contains some small truth the marketing drones at video game companies will essentially kill their own mothers if they think that they'll get good free press out of a magazine; and if that means delaying the launch of a title until the rave reviews have come in then that's what they'll do. So the only reason to launch before the printed reviews land is because they know it'll compare their offering to something that should be handled by six-foot tongs and dropped into a lead-lined poop-scoop bag.

So why my post? Well we've had a few games out for the Playstation 3 recently a couple of which I've been looking at, the first "Turning Point Fall of Liberty" and the second "Dark Sector"; both out before an official review.

After the former's review finally made it into print it managed to scrape a feeble 4 out of 10, 'un'official reviews of the latter suggest it starts off okay, improves, then drops like a stone into annoying repetitiveness and as such sounds reminiscent of TimeShift though maybe not as fun or with the vertical sync problem. In either case without a demo they're not getting any money out of me.

What with the US getting these games released several months before us and the many online reviews I have to ask "How dumb do games manufacturers think we are?"