Mario Galaxy Review--SPONSORED BY SONY!

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benfritz said:

I usually dont wade into forum discussions of my work, but I felt a need here. You're all welcome to your opinions of my Mario Galaxy review, of course, and I really enjoy reading them.

But I must say that the accusation I was paid off by or am kissing up to Sony is completely absurd. Variety is a professional newspaper and the advertising and editorial departments are totally separate. I have no idea who will be advertising on our website or in our print edition each day, nor do I care to know.

If Sony actually were trying to influence our editorial coverage, they would probably be pretty unhappy with our negative reviews of Lair and Heavenly Sword (both edited, but not written by me) and the many articles I have written pointing out how the Wii and (to a lesser extent) 360 are kicking the PS3's ass in sales, as well as how the DS is creaming the PSP.

-Ben Fritz

I have a hard time believing this is Ben Fritz, but I'll bite anyway. Professional magazine or not (yahtzee is about the most credible review source anyway if that tells you how respected being professional is in the video game world) I have doubts about your legitimacy as a serious video game reviewer. I can live with bad reviews, as I'm not a console warrior or fanboy.  I didn't buy Galaxy, instead opting for Assassin's Creed since I preordered it way back in February. Generally speaking I'm a pretty neutral guy, I go on evidence to form my opinions. For the most part I keep my gob shut. 

This review, however, is so contrary to every other review, post, and personal talks with friends so far, compounded with the fact that your site has been slammed for bad Nintendo reviews before (Metroid Prime 3 being one of the most recent and prominent), and the repeated hint dropping practically forces the conclusion.

As little word of advice, if you're going to slam a high profile game for some pretty oddball reasons, next time use that valuable space to justify that reasoning in a more clear and concise manner instead of plugging the PS3 and R&C.  

Sorry man, but as a professional journalist you should know better than to submit writing with the reasoning of a 15 year old. You should know your writing is subject to public scrutiny, this game much more than others. 

As far as the advertising/editing "wall", yes I know you write whatever you want, but you wouldn't be in that position to write whatever you want unless you shared the same ideology. It's not editor policy, it's hiring policy. 

Didn't you read your Edward Bernays?

Again, sorry to sound mean about it. I'm sure you're a nice guy, but can you honestly sit there and tell us any non-biased person (submit it to PC Gamer, they could care less about consoles) reading this review could honestly come to the conclusion that it's anything but a R&C commercial?