Daemon Hatfield, Senior Editor at IGN, was the subject of some probing questions this morning from PixelJunk studio head Dylan Cuthbert. Hatfield’s review of PixelJunk SideScroller, which was a 6.5 score, clearly upset the developer.
[drop2]”You didn’t play it on normal,” said Cuthbert over Twitter. We’ve yet to play the final game, so can’t comment, but apparently finishing the game on normal unlocks an extra final stage.“Rest assured I did,” replied Hatfield publicly. “Usually a big fan of your games, sorry this one didn’t click for me.”
Cuthbert annoyed that it was “the first review to go up” tweeted that “it’s obviously completely rushed by an intern”. Understandably annoyed, it then appears that Hatfield removed part of his review. “That’s really unprofessional,” he tweeted to the reviewer. “You removed the section from your review showing clearly you rushed through the game in casual.”
Hatfield later blogged about the issue. “I beat SideScroller twice, once on casual and then on normal,” he said. “The content was exactly the same in both play throughs.”
“When I assured the developer I had played on normal, he said I would have unlocked an ‘epic last stage’. I was confused, because I didn’t seem to unlock anything except the hard difficulty.”
“I thought this line in my review might be bothering him: ‘Finish the last stage and defeat the final boss and what is your reward? A swift kick back to the title screen with no more than ‘congratulations.'” This is the line that Cuthbert says was removed from the review. Screengrabs of both versions are here on GAF.
Hatfield says this was done “not to hide anything but in a hope to not mislead anyone into thinking there isn’t a brief little something at the end of the game, however insignificant.”
We’ll have a proper look at the final version of SideScroller (released yesterday onto the PSN) over the next day or so and pass our own comment – you can read our hands on here. It’s worth mentioning that Cuthbert doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with the score, just that the final last stage wasn’t mentioned.
Much like the secret stage in Shooter 2 wasn’t mentioned in most reviews, eh?
JBoo
If it was a xBox LIVE only game IGN would give it 9/10. Its as simple as that really. That is how those internet sites work.
tactical20
Kicking off with IGN and crying about it on Twitter is more unprofessional, imo.
bunimomike
Dylan’s not crying about it and you make his comments sound worthless which they are most certainly not. ‘Q-Games’ doesn’t have a huge marketing budget and with online games, as oppose to disc-based titles, online reviews are more important than ever.
If IGN (as the largest, most popular video game website online) treats a game with a dismissive tone or handles things unprofessionally, it can have a profound affect on sales.
Jakster123x
Read the review yesterday.
I like Daemon and I think he was just a little disappointed by the lack of content for the price.
The Lone Steven
Hmm if the review copy bugged out then the reviewer should have told the developer but seeing as they have ninja edited the review, that doesn’t excalty put the reviewer in a good light. I can see why the dev would be upset. Surely the extra stage is supposed to be a secret but the review should have mentioned it.
bacon_nuts
Used to skim IGN, then I found this site… Only ever looked back to laugh.
MayContainEvil
Anyone who actually takes what those semi-literate fools say is a fool themselves…
colmshan1990
IGN’s reviews have improved a lot lately.
It’s possible it was just a bug or glitch, we know they seem to be present in every game nowadays after all.
But arguing over what happens to be one person’s opinion on a game is a bit petty.
PixelJunk at this stage is a big enough game that it’ll sell with or without IGN’s seal of approval anyway.