I found an interesting article in which a journalist who played with the joystiq reviewer of Brink did some digging and found he had not even completed the game. Click the link and scroll down to where it says update. I for one won’t be reading a joystiq review ever again. Garbage .
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/60202/Brink-Reviews-Are-A-Mixed-Bag-Some-Thoughts
Yeah, that’s the wonderful thing about Xbox Live and services like that. Everyone can see how much time a reviewer spent playing the game. :stroggtapir:
Two hours of BRINK are nothing, especially as the beginning seems to be rather difficult.
Looks like the review is backfiring on Joystiq. I’ll post that part on Reddit gaming, they love a good bit of drama.
Yeah, it’s… odd. I think the one downside to releasing a hotly anticipated game on a slow release week is that the writers basically have one assignment to do all week, and they’re competing to be the first one out the door. Why is it so necessary to release a review at 3am after the game is out the door- when you only have the xbox360 to review, and no allowance for a day1 patch?
I’m amazed that the professional reviewers turned out to be just as irresponsible as the people that scammed it for xbox over the weekend. You’re reviewing this game before anyone is online with it for more than a couple hours? When there’s a day 1 patch already reported? Seriously?
I’ve been playing all night, having and absolute blast. But then, I’m playing a very different game, PC online with dedicated servers against badass humans. Incidentally, that’s the way it was designed to be played.
If anyone else has had as much fun as I have, the good thing to do would be write a letter to the editor of any article you feel unfairly jumped the gun on their review. Try to be civil and explain how your experience differed from theirs. Be civil, pretend you’re writing a letter to your grandmother/parole officer.
Yeah, I posted it as an update on my site. Will be following his career with great interest. 
Update: Uh oh, time for some drama boys and girls. I felt that Joystiq’s Brink review was fishy, it almost came off as if it was written by someone that had spent very little time with the game. I was also pretty sure that Griffin McElroy was one of the editors that I played in the media game with. So, I decided to do a little digging, and confirmed that I had played with him while he was under his Xbox Live gamertag called “The Pencil Rain”.
The kicker is Mr. McElroy has only earned a total Brink gamerscore value of 225, primarily from achievements that pretty much unlock themselves in the opening hour or two of play. I had over a couple hundred points just after the media playtest, and I’d imagine that’s where he left off too. Xbox Live says he was playing Brink just a couple hours ago, yet again the value is 225. In my picture of his gamerscore details below you’ll see that he hasn’t completed either campaign, let alone the “what if” missions.This puts a pretty big black mark on Joystiq’s journalistic integrity in my eyes. If I had to guess the amount of time he spent playing it’d be a few hours at best, and from my point of view that’s extremely unprofessional. But great job on that 2/5 score Griffin, way to shaft Splash Damage and Bethesda by putting in an absolute minimal amount of effort into your review.
Typical Joystiq.
Really a shame that the guy barely even played the game. What amazes me the most is how some website reviewers or whatever, praised the game when they tried it months ago, and now that its out they rather give it a negative score? That makes no sense to me. I really dont mind cause ill be playing Brink for a very long time. I love it.
Unfortunately, Brink follows that “strength in numbers” philosophy to its own folly. The absolute best strategy, 100 percent of the time, is to form up your entire team on the objective and hold off the opposing force.
I am kind of curious how people feel about the above quote in the interview? I haven’t had enough playtime to judge this, but it does sound fairly plausible.
I was under the impression all objective-based multi-player games had “zerging” as the best strategy.
IGN’s review was the same way. Reviewers are putting absolutely zero effort into their reviews. They aren’t playing online, they aren’t playing after the patch came out, and they aren’t even finishing the god damn game. I’m never trusting any IGN or Joystiq review ever again.
I’m on my way to pickup my copy, and even if I didn’t like the game, I’m going to support their vision no matter what, because at least they are trying to do something unique and FUN. With that said i do beleive I will have a ton of fun of Brink, as some review sites i actually trust usually have given Brink a fair chance and actually solid 8/10’s. It makes me sick to see the amount of affect reviews have on the gaming community, and the fact that Joystiq(IGN as well) published these amateurish reviews knowing full well the ****storm they would cause. I just don’t think Joystiq’s reviewer counted on another journalist he had played with to dig a little deeper and expose his honestly sad excuse of a review for what it really is.
What did you expect from someone who played the game with a joystick ? Not even a controller ?
Take any review with a pinch of salt. In Joystiq’s case, make sure their reviewers have actually spent a decent amount of time in the game…Heh.
Wow this will severally hurt IGN’s and joystiq’s cred. 2 hours of game time?? I knew something seemed a bit off while reading their reviews.
People need to make it known on other forums that IGN does this crap.
I bet this is the case for most top gaming review sites.
Stick it on, set it up ASAP, jump into a game, run around a bit working out what’s what, get frustrated that you can’t and then quit out of it remembering nothing but the things you didn’t like - then go for a snack.
I’ll never buy a game or not based on a review or hype. I got hooked by the very first cinematic trailer which showed no real concept of how the game would play, it was the art direction, character and originality that caught me. My pre-order has been sent as of 4hrs ago and I look forward to giving it a blast.
