Eidos UK's PR firm has confirmed that British sites planning on posting Tomb Raider: Underworld reviews with less than an 8.0 score are being asked to hold off posting them until Monday. The news originally game from a twitter post from Gamespot UK journalist Guy Cocker, relaying a call he received voicing that very request. A representative from the PR firm Barrington Harvey spoke to Videogaming247 this morning.

"That's right. We're trying to manage the review scores at the request of Eidos."

When asked why, the spokesperson said: "Just that we're trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that's handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don't put people off buying the game, basically."

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You guys are so mean to game reviewers. In sincerity, though, as games themselves seem to be creatures of far more depth than they once were, the role of the game reviewer has come under increasing scrutiny. I like to think that we're all trying to do the best, most ethical and most useful work we can, and so there's been a lot of talking amongst ourselves in the games press about what the ideal way of doing our jobs is.

Gus Mastrapa posits in his column at GameDaily that writing really well is the game reviewer's highest calling, and he goes on to point out what he feels are the reviewer's seven deadly sins - Measure, Dullness, Doubt, Diplomacy, Forgiveness, Purposelessness and Obsession.

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Over at MTV Multiplayer, Stephen Totilo is hip-deep in Reviews Week, his week-long look at all things having to do with game reviews, from advertising concerns to stupid PR tricks, such as the following
response former GameSpot reviewer Alex Navarro received when asking a PR rep when the review for a certain Wii game could be posted.

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.

Based on communications I've had with PR people over the years, yeah...I could definitely see this happening. In this case the GameSpot folks opted to just buy the game at a store and review it, but it makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Video Game Company To Wii Reviewer: Save The Panning For Later, Okay? [MTV Multiplayer]

GameDaily's 'Media Coverage' section has an interview up with Dan Hsu, 1UP's editorial director, on the plight of game journalists and sites getting frozen out by companies as punishment. We recently mentioned Hsu's blog entry that called out Ubisoft, Sony's sports game division and Midway's Mortal Kombat team for practicing this sort of freeze out of media outlets in punishment for '"candid reviews" and "less-than-totally-positive previews."'. Hsu hastens to point out that this isn't a regular occurrence, but it does happen. What's a blackballed media outlet to do?

When the occasional company does turn the screws, Hsu relies on advice from those that came before him. "The thing that always guides me is something my first editorial director [Joe Funk] told me on the day I interviewed at EGM [in 1996]," he said. "I brought up an old EGM editorial where the editor said that Capcom has pulled advertising, but EGM wouldn't change its ways to win them back. I asked the editorial director about that, and how can EGM survive without advertising...how does the magazine deal with that pressure? He told me, 'As long as you write for the readers and not the companies, the readership will come, and the advertisers will have no choice but to advertise with you.'"

Companies giveth, companies taketh away, but soldiering forward with some modicum of integrity will at least leave your reputation (and readership) intact. It's an interesting look at some of the behind the scenes aspects of game journalism and the industry as the whole.

Media Coverage: Frozen Out [GameDaily]

If you thought game development was all fun and...games, you'd do well to remember the example of the Tabula Rasa dev team. They had to write an essay on the use of ethical parables present in the gameplay of Rochard Garriott's new MMO, detailing the insertion of heavy moral dilemmas into standard mission-based gameplay to give the world a more epic, lively feel. Eschewing what they call the "static, boring type of storytelling," the TR team wanted to give the players decisions with long-term consequences in the game. The essay in its entirety appears after the jump, and I really do feel for the poor bloke who had to piece this together. Even talking about someone else writing an essay makes kicks my lazy procrastinating gland into high gear.

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