Sword of the Stars, by most accounts, was a rather forgettable space strategy game with a gorgeous look to it and some of the most obnoxious, petulant twerps as developers this side of Derek Smart.

Case in point, Martin Cirulis — CEO of Kerberos — has recently gone absolutely bat-shit crazy on Tom Chick, one of the best known writers in video games journalism. Chick dared to give Sword of the Stars a negative review, you see, even though Chick wrote the manual for not-really-a-competitor game Galactic Civilization 2. As a one-time contractor. With no vested financial interest whatsoever in the sales of that title.

In response, Chick has written a long rebuttal, filled with common sense. But it's hardly needed. Chick sums up the kind of company we're dealing with.

Cirulis' insinuations via email, first through his hired PR agency to my editors and then directly from him to me, have been insulting. He's questioned my integrity and made cryptic remarks about resorting to "other venues" to resolve the issue. It reminds me of his other attempts to mute negative opinions. Cirulis bullied Worthplaying into revising a skeptical preview and then running a new preview written by one of his personal friends. After the demo for Sword of the Stars was released, critical posts and threads were routinely removed from Kerberos' message board and people who didn't like the game were banned. Posting as "mecron", Cirulis dismisses complaints with accusations of "GalCiv2 fanboy". Or "manual writer".

Martin, take a lesson from Derek Smart: as a small time developer specializing in unorthodox games set in outer space, you can either be well-loved and listen to criticism... or you can be an insufferable cunt. But not both! [ Florian Eckhardt

What's the deal with...the developer of Sword of the Stars? [Qt3]

We're not afraid to post dissenting opinions, so be warned that Chick doesn't find Au's point to be particularly salient or elegant. On the other hand, he has some interesting thoughts on the nature of writing previews and getting sucked into the still-hypothetical world of the game designer. How does he know? He once proclaimed Trespasser the second coming of Christ. Here's what Chick has to say about that:

I remember being enamoured of a game called Trespasser many years ago.

Until it came out.

But until then, boy, was I enthusiastic listening to Seamus Blackley and Brady Bell tell me all about what it was going to be like. I could probably cull some excerpts from those previews and we could all enjoy a good laugh. I might even be eligible for some sort of special recognition from Wagner James Au's Preview Ho Awards.

He goes on to offer some advice to gaming journalists on how to write good previews. Definitely worth reading as a sometimes opposing but sometimes complimenting perspective on Au's editorial.

Pure Au [Quarter to Three]