They all had to review it at a PS4 review event. They couldn't take time if they wanted to. If they wanted to review it like normal, they'd have to wait until launch and then the reviews would have been late and less revenue for them.

On topic, while the game looks good, graphics matter for only a couple points. The other portion of the review score can be attributed to the story, gameplay and general enjoyablity. From what I've seen, the story is lacking in depth and knack has a very cringeworthy voice and writing especially for his design. The gameplay doesn't look to be too intuitive. It tries to merge platforming and a brawler too much. It takes the took easy to die mechanic of platformers but lacks complexity in the difficulty curve aside from buffing enemies. Most platformers  don't need difficulty levels because they are designed to gradually build up difficulty and make the hardest stuff optional. The collectable mechanic also seems to be not properly implemented since only a couple gadgets can be built in a single run and the levels don't seem too particularly fun to replay. I have yet to play the game itself though so i can't be the best judge but from the stuff i've seen, Knack wasn't designed very well

You won't know how bad it is until your hands are on the controller, because I thought it looked good too originally. It's like a really pretty candy with really sour filling inside.

I know what you mean, I felt exactly the same way.

Guess we'll never really know unless we play the game ourselves though.

I watched Yosh playing too... I think I will give it a change... seems a lot fun.

Do you have a recorded link to that?  I missed it.

I played 2 levels or so (dunno if they were full levels or cut down for demo) on a demo unit and... meh. The game controls reasonably well, and it looks nice, but there is little in the way of depth. Walk through room, punch something. Walk through another room, punch more things. No enemies really offered any resistance of required any change in my punch till dead strategy. Just a demo, but those are my impressions.

Even without the bad review, I wasn't too hyped for it anyway. But after watching some game play, I definitely plan on getting it next month.

Twitch is full of PS4 streams. Quite interesting and entertaining.

The controls are fine... that's not what the reviewers bashed.

I'm not saying the control is broken, I'm just saying there is a huge difference in watching that game and actually playing it, and I've been warning people about it for awhile now. Not all PS4 games has to be a master piece, it just came out and it's new hardware, it's honestly not a big deal that Knack is not a very good game since there are other better ones already on the PS4 IMO.