Edge Does Reviews Right

Edge announced today that they would not be publishing their Halo: Reach review until Friday. They conclude the announcement with the following:

"Too little time to play...only does an injustice to games with the vast scope of Reach."

If I could, I would pay town criers to blanket the United States and praise Edge for doing something that ought to be standard practice in video game journalism. Any game that has a strong multiplayer component should absolutely not be reviewed until the end of the week in which it was released. If reviews are meant to be a statement as to the value of a video game, and the lion's share of value for a title is the multiplayer, isn't one obligated to have a solid grasp of that multiplayer functionality before issuing any kind of proclamation as to whether the game is worth it or not?

The Halo: Reach reviews are flooding onto Metacritic as we speak...and none of these magazines or websites have adequately played the game. Edge also cites the Firefight, Forge, and Theater modes as requiring additional playtime. The sites currently publishing reviews had early review copies and ostensibly had enough time to play with all of these modes, but they couldn't have adequately sampled the multiplayer because it doesn't even go live until tomorrow, and performance "in the field" should be the arbiter of a review's judgement.

Reviews in the professional video game media are essentially marketing tools both for the video game in question and the publication hosting them. Everyone wants to rush to print so that they get the page hits first, and the game publishers want the reviews up early to feed into the release day hype...but in the case of a game like Halo: Reach, which is going to sell a massive quantity of copies regardless as to whether or not a single review was released on or before Tuesday, September 14th, isn't there a case to wait and publish proper, thorough reviews on the game?

A game like Reach doesn't need a massive marketing blitz to sell it. In fact, I'd argue that Microsoft has wasted a tremendous amount of money promoting this title which didn't need anything past coverage in the video game media, supplemented by the mainstream media attention such an important title is going to also garner. We wind up paying for this marketing excess in the rising costs of software and Xbox Live subscriptions.

When Edge decides to hold back their review, therefore, they deserve to be praised for their integrity. To be fair, I don't think Edge serves as a primary review site for many people, so they also have added leeway in making this decision, but it's a nice ray of hope for someone having the right idea per being responsible with their reviews.

Dennis Scimeca is the Editor-in-Chief of the website Game Kudos and a writer at Gamer Limit.. If you tweet him @DennisScimeca, he will stop maniacally playing Dragon Age: Origins and get right back to you.

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Nick Nordstrom

September 13, 2010

I think a publication holding off on a review of a game until they've thoroughly tested its features is the ideal way to review games. Unfortunately, you're not gonna garner hits with reviews that are a week or two old. Like you said, publications race to finish the review of a big game to coincide with that game's release; that's when they're going to get the most traffic -- and the most money.

And I'll commend Edge on its approach to reviewing Halo: Reach ... if it gives other games with "vast scope" the same treatment. If it does that, then that's great. If not, why should one game receive special treatment?

Dennis Scimeca

In the case of a game like Reach, which is going to be an important title, I wouldn't mind if it *did* receive special treatment in terms of how people approach the review. All games should be thoroughly experienced before a review is penned, but when it comes to the really big, hallmark titles, they *ought *to get more attention, IMHO.

David McThistlepants

I'd say that they could have reviewed the Single player campaign as it doesn't need more than themselves, (or other people at the website/magazine/whatever,) and have that for the street date and hold off on multiplayer. Maybe not put a grade in till the second one, but give "an impression" of what's been reviewed so far to not effect metacritic. Hell, I saw Dan Hsu on last night playing Reach. I didn't know whether to harass him for getting the game early, or that he's a Michigan fan. (I didn't by the way)

Jason Wilson

I'm glad to see Edge hold its review until they think they've had adequate time with the game (though I'm not sure a few extra days count as "adequate time"). I'd love to see a review for something like Civilization V come out a month after the game launches -- or sites posting month-out reviews to see how the game's communities and such are shaping up (and 6 month, and year, etc.).