Kotaku
It's not like the relationship between Kane & Lynch and review scores wasn't messy enough. But now this? Visitors to the game's official site will notice, once the page's flash intro is done, that two review scores for the game are flashed for your perusal. One from GameSpy, one from Game Informer. Both look positively glowing! Both give the game a very encouraging five stars! Thing is, both are...well, not real. They're fabricated. Lies, if you will.
GameSpy did not say "It's the best emulation of being in the midst of a Michael Mann movie we've ever seen" in their review of the game. They said that in their E3 2007 coverage. In other words, a preview. They also did not give the game five stars. They gave it three.
As for Game Informer, same deal. The highlighted quote does not appear in the review of the game. Nor do they give it five stars. Game Informer don't even score in stars. They gave it a 7/10.
To assist you in correcting your error, Eidos, and you in procuring all the necessary facts, dear reader, attached below are how the two review selections should appear.
Kane & Lynch Review [Game Informer]
Kane & Lyncn Review [GameSpy]
Official Kane & Lynch Site [Eidos]
Official Kane & Lynch Website LIES About Its Scores [Gamebump]
Comments
Wow. Classy Eidos.. very classy.
Jesus Christ.
Now I'm just pissed. And I LOVE Hitman.
:(
"A Mercenary, A Psycopath & A Bundle of Cash... What Could Go Wrong?"
Apparently a lot!
Anyone surprised?
Thank you for the truthful image, Luke. :D
Ya Burnt!
Come on, you should give Eidos more credit. Those aren't lies. It's just 5 stars out of 10.
5/10 stars?
Goddamnit Eidos
/face palm
More and more things like this leaning towards the rumors being true! Now they are fabricating false reviews!
Though the Game Informer text they use doesnt seem positive or negative. Just talking about psychopaths.
Hahahaha, thank you so much for that revision. This is just the icing on the cake of why I will NEVER buy this game. It's reputation has been shot to hell along with GameSpot's.
*sigh*
Ah, silly Plunkett! Those arn't meant to be taken as review scores! Those are just some comments people made about the game, seperated by five stars!
*****
"See? It's just for spacing! That's all! No one is lying about review scores at all!" -InsomniaBob
*****
"This is madness!" - Black guy from 300.
@June:
Too funny!
Sad because I love the Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver series. Best voice acting in video games ever!
Jeff was fired because of this game after being at gamespot for 11 years, i think this game should burn.
/facepalm is right.
Sad.
This is so funny that this article is up now. My wife and I just 2 minutes ago gave up on the game. She got stuck in various objects twice and the bank level was just obscene. We're trading it in tomorrow for something decent. We got it despite some negative press cos she really likes FPS and likes to play co-op with me. She's so upset about how bad it is. So am I. Any suggestions on a FPS co-op? She and I have already played through Gears and Halo3. She's also in to fantasy but its so hard to find co-op RPGs or adventure. 360 or PS3 games can be recommended.
Ahhh. Using your photoshop skills for evil. Does it ever get old? The answer is no. No, it doesn't. Nice work, Luke. :)
Undeniable evidence that it was forces within Eidos that helped get Jeff fired from GameSpot.
This game is becoming more of a joke than a fading memory. Is that what you wanted Eidos?
Well, I was planning to grab Kane & Lynch from a bargin bin, but maybe not even now. Eidos, why don't you just ship everyone interested a copy and we'll forgive you?
Welcome back to the spotlight Eidos. You almost make it fully into the shadows about Gamespot/Gerstmann/Kane and Lynch scandal.
Oh man, starting to change my thoughts on that gamespot garbage....
I was going to say the stars were probably there for decoration (LOL) until I hit the jump. This is excellent. Capitol Job!
Though in their defense, they have a lot on their minds as you can imagine. It's hard to stay focused and well... mistakes happen, people get fired, foots end up in mouths, etc...
BTW: Where's the Gamespot tag line... you'd think after all the money they paid...
Oh lord, like they needed to be more shady regarding reviews right now.
Further proof
Wow, WTF.
Kane & Lynch is seriously shaking up the gaming community, and in a bad way.
First their (probably) unintended breaking of GameSpot, and even reviews in general.
And now this??
Part of me wants to think of Eidos as a corrupt/crap company, but many of their games are some of my favorite series (Like Commandos and Hitman, to name a few).
WTF, Eidos. WTF.
Please do something to make me feel good about loving you, Eidos!
HAHA this is just too much!
So, I'm pretty sure this is illegal isn't it?
I would love to see some charges pressed for false advertising, or something.
Getting away with this kind of shit simply cannot be allowed or it will continue and even get worse.
Those stars are just dividing lines of course, not ratings.
I am an Eidos employee. All I can say is that right now we will not comment on the above critics ratings.
I never thought a man with a skullet and a beard could ever cause this much trouble. Character design of the year!
Jesus Christ, this story just keeps getting better and better.
If they were so upset with the GameSpot review, couldn't they invent a better one like they did here?
That really is disgraceful
But they made Deus Ex....I can't hate them can I?
Eidos should just accept the fact that the game sucks and move on.
Oh yes, brilliant thinking Eidos. With all the current negative press and rumors out and about, this is a time to start misrepresenting sources. Bravo! Well done! Idiots. You fail at running a business (and making decent games).
Movies and books do it all the time. They pick and choose sentences from reviews that make it look good. How this is surprising is beyond me.
Did they seriously think that no one would notice that? Sounds like Eidos needs a need marketing team to me, if not an entirely new game design team by the sounds of it.
WTF Eidos.
WHAT'S NEXT EIDOS? LARA CROFT IS REALLY A MAN? MAKE IT STOP.
@brent_w: I'd think it might fall under false advertising or some such.
@halopower67: Gamespot should burn... but keep the TheHotSpot.... now them's good podcasting.
I was laughing at that. Good thing I decided not to get the game at the last minute, although I kind of feel sorry for Eidos for the mess.
@vizion: Do they often attach random scores next to those quotes as well?
What would truly make this story the best ever would have been if one of the fake quote/reviews ended up being attributed to GameSpot itself.
My god. The sky is falling around my ears. Again.
Nice. Y'know, I briefly played Kane & Lynch (because Blockbuster didn't have Assassin's Creed and I was bored) and really thought of it as a reasonably good, if poorly executed, story. Gameplay was weak, but some good voice acting in a lot of places. Then Eidos comes along, drops trow, and unloads their digested breakfast all over my attempts to do the game some credit. Well, as Mother Teresa once noted: "fuck that noise."
Hey Kotaku. I just did a story on this on Destructoid and say something that you guys would really love. You guys apparently gave this game a 5 star rating too! Just go to the Kane & Lynch Web site, select German as your language and see for yourselves the perfect score you gave this game :P
[www.destructoid.com]
It gets worse. According to [www.destructoid.com], those comments are all taken from previews of the game, not reviews.
Apparently Kotaku gave the game five stars as well.
@vizion: It's not just that, but they clearly reported the wrong scores. I've never seen that happen for a movie. This is such blatant false advertising...
I can't believe it's gotten this bad. IF YOU DON'T WANNA GET BAD REVIEWS, DON'T PUT OUT SHIT GAMES.
I never wanted this game, but now I don't want any Eidos game ever. Just fucking die already.
It's really too bad, because the multiplayer game has been somewhat well reviewed.
Wow that's classy. >_<
@Tsaketh: Yeah! They need to stop ruining the Hitman series!
What's with all this BS? Kane and Lynch had a good IDEA for a multiplayer mode. The game sucks! This shit needs to stop.
@vizion:
These quotes weren't even from reviews, and the scores were entirely made up!