I was reading some old copies of EDGE yesterday, and this issue in particular rather stood out, so I thought I may as well take an in-depth look at just what EDGE & the gaming industry was up to at the time...
EditorialEditor: João Diniz-Sanches
Deputy Editor: Daivd ‘Verisimilitude’ McCarthy
Associate Editor: Mark Walbank
Production Editor: Ian Evenden
Editor-at-large: Ste Curran
Writer: Margaret Robertson
Contributions: Steven Bailey, Kieron Gillen, Jon Jordan, Peter Lyle, Steve Poole, Mark Ramshaw, Jim Rossignol, Sam Richards, Mark Sorrel, Keith Stuart
Reviews Intro wrote:Great expectations
It’s official: games are brilliant.
Let’s talk Broken Sword III: The Sleeping Dragon and Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, games Edge has been following with interest for a while. Both have been presented at press events and trade shows for the last 18 months, and, from what Edge has gathered, journalists have been similarly impressed. So why the apathy? Look around for reviews of these two games. Sixes, sevens, maybe even a few eights out of ten. Faint praise and verdicts with tired disclaimers. “You’ll like it if you like this sort of thing.” Ho-hum. Conviction is not something you find much in the videogame press these days. It’s all the more exasperating when Enter the Matrix and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness score the same as titles that have been crafted with the care and thoughtfulness of Revolution and Ubisoft’s games.
In the bar, away from the hubbub of a show floor, fellow journalists will tell Edge that they love the pants off Prince of Persia, while Angel of Darkness is a broken mess. A few months later and both get similar ratings. What’s going on? Contrary to popular belief videogame journalists do not get bungs. No, there’s something more subtle and unthinking behind such discrepancies. It’s you. You are the cause of this perfidious change of heart in the typical game journalist. Take a list of next year’s game releases and you’ll be able to predict with alarming accuracy of the titles that will receive the most attention and acclaim from both the specialist and lifestyle press. Because these are the games they think you’ll like. To put it even more bluntly, they think you’ll think MGS3: Snake Eater is worth nine out of ten, so that’s what many will give it. Best not interfere with reader expectation.
As brilliant as Broken Sword and Prince of Persia are, they don’t fit into any cosy, predictable gamer world view or, perhaps more tellingly, focus the action blood and guns. There’s not much of a handle for a journalist to cling to. Neither ever had a hope of scoring full marks like, say, Driver 2. Sadly, the fact that both evolve their respective genres in a stunning new direction is lost. So: don’t be too disheartened about Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. Both Broken Sword III and Prince of Persia exceeded our expectations. We hope they exceed yours.
I have no idea what was going on here, as it’s shrouded in copious amounts of gooseberry fool & half-truths. Is it disheartening to see games like Broken Sword receive the same scores as the hopelessly bad Tomb Raider 6? Yeah, but guess what, that didn’t actually happen. The reality was the majority at the time rated Broken Sword, and Prince of Persia, 'correctly' (P2 magazine even gave Prince of Persia a 10). So why exactly were EDGE rubbishing the ‘typical game journalist’? How insulting to an entire industry. For a start, only one solitary magazine out of every mainstream website and magazine at the time gave Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness 8. And that was Official PlayStation 2. Enter the Matrix fared better (OPS2, PSM2, Play and Official Xbox) with 8s straight out of the gate, with scores then ranging anywhere from a 3 to a 7. Even IGN weren’t that blown away by it (who by the way rated Prince of Persia head and shoulders above ETM). PSM2 admitted they played it unfinished, so I’m presuming the other 3 did as well, therefore establishing a partial explanation at least to that. As is always the case with EDGE, it’s impossible to know who wrote what, and to this day you still can’t hold anyone to account, but the editor at the time was Joao Diniz-Sanches, who just three years earlier had told French website Polygonweb this:
Polygonweb.fr wrote:There is a lack of professionalism that almost defies belief - the level of corruption among the majority of magazines is astounding. Ludicrously high review scores are handed out in exchange for exclusivity and cover deals, the tone of the magazine is artificially altered to keep readers happy rather than inform them of the truth (however sombre), and other sordid details I won't bother you with here. Let's just say anyone trying to do a decent job of it can find the videogame magazine publishing world extremely depressing.
http://polygonweb.online.fr/aedge.htmNot sure in attempting to inform readers about 3 extremely dubious reviews they ended up with a contradictory, half-baked & confusing clusterfuck of an article that somehow manages to alienate all and sundry, but it's not the best introduction to what is actually a pretty terrible load of reviews as well.
ReviewsBroken Sword The Sleeping Dragon: 9/10
Mario Kart Double Dash!!: 5/10
Prince of Persia: 9/10
Metal Arms Glitch in the System: 8/10
Beyond Good and Evil: 7/10
True Crime Streets of LA: 7/10
Call of Duty (PC): 7/10
Medal of Honor Rising Sun: 5/10
The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King: 8/10
Grabbed by the Ghoulies: 6/10
Project Gotham Racing 2: 7/10
Secret Weapons Over Normandy: 8/10
Need for Speed Underground: 7/10
SWAT Global Stike Team: 6/10
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: 6/10
Atsumare!! Made in Wario: 8/10
Hidden & Dangerous 2: 8/10
Judge Dredd Dredd vs. Death: 5/10
Amped 2: 8/10
Tony Hawk's Underground: 5/10
World Rally Championship 3: 6/10
Crimson Skies High Road to Revenge: 7/10
Bombastic: 7/10
The Temple of Elemental Evil A Classic Greyhawk Adventure: 4/10
Over-rating both Broken Sword and Prince of Persia seemingly just to prove some sort of non-existent point, while then ironically underrating Beyond Good and Evil in the process...awarding Project Gotham Racing 2 7, and making some truly outlandish claims in that this much vaunted racer was lacking in "real fun"...and then there was the wildly out of step review of Mario Kart Double Dash.
EDGE, on PGR2 wrote:A more even-handed and complete package, then, but in terms of excitement PGR2 is found wanting. Locking the framerate at 30fps is part of it, but the real issue here is there's very little freedom to showboat, to have real fun. Ironic considering that Bizarre Creations has built the series around the idea of canning vehicles for extra points. Even in multiplayer and over Xbox Live performing that perfect handbrake turn is as gratifying as always, but generally the driving is a little too clinical, too austere to elevate it to classic status. Don't be taken in by those shiny doorknobs.
Past the reviews section & into 'Reload', which looked back at past issues, the thinly veiled insults on gamers and reviewers made its presence felt once more.
Reload, EDGE #66 wrote:Pop quiz, score-o-philes! Was E66’s Testscreen section the best ever? Of the eleven games reviewed, four of them scored an eight – roughly equivalent to full marks in many other magazines. Another two games scored a nine, an off-the-scale score elsewhere. And then there was Ocarina of Time, wrapped in a gold cover and given a golden mark: Edge’s third ‘perfect’ ten, a number so high that lesser reviewers across the country had to break out the oxygen masks when they saw it. Edge’s scribe was breathless, too: “The game single-handedly restores faith in both the creative might of Nintendo and in the power of the videogame as an entertainment medium,” the magazine wrote. “A work of genius,” it concluded, exhausted, dizzy and priapic. For those of you who aren’t aroused by numerical porn and actually read the magazine for the articles – Edge has reason to believe there are actually some of you out there – the issue also contained plenty to consume. As well as an apologetic (and now corrected) re-run of the previous month’s Black and White feature (E130), Edge looked at rhythm action, pocket gaming, and ran an interesting interview with Andreas Whittam-Smith, then president of the BBFC. There was also a piece on important events in videogaming, binding 16 unconnected occasions into a fascinating – if slightly random – read. But hey, who needs history when you’re making it yourself? 10/10! Ten out of ten! Quick, someone tell the internet!
Think it’s pretty fair to say EDGE at the time had a rather high opinion of itself, to the point of unparalleled arrogance.
FeaturedPrescreen focus: Full Spectrum Warrior – Developed from a training game for the US army, Edge gets scared by Pandemic’s latest.
Prescreen focus: Transformers Armada – It wouldn’t be a big robot issue without the ones that come in disguise, would it?
Big Robot Love – Japan’s Love Affair with gigantic, heroic mechs explored. Warning: may contain plastic toys.
Famitsu Forever – Edge puts its feet up to read the world’s second most important gaming magazine.
Audience with…Michael Ancel – A lead designer at Ubisoft, Ancel discusses his latest creation, Beyond Good and Evil.
PreviewsJade Empire
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Firefighter FD: 18
Gotcha Force
Cool Girl
Chrome Hound
Front Mission 4
Junk: Metal
Gran Turismo 4: Prologue
Richard Burns Rally
Gundam Online
Elsewhere…The Making Of…X-COM.
Retrotest… Assault Suits Valken