Then explain Metacritic?

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/conduit

The Gamepro review is marked as 70.

Metacritic applies the same to everyone, having nothing to do with what the scores actually mean.

I sent some emails to Gamepro to see what kind of response I could get.  Here is the result:

to gjones@gamepro.com, mweigand@gamepro.com, sshuman@gamepro.com, tkim@gamepro.com date Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 4:34 PM subject The Conduit Review mailed-by gmail.com

hide details Jun 23 (2 days ago)

To whom it may concern:

The review that your site has allowed to be posted for The Conduit is abysmal.  It is filled with outright lies and inconsistences.  He complains about the controls, without realizing that they are fully customizable.  If he didn't like them, he could have changed them to anything he wanted.  He says the story is confusing, while skipping cut scenes.  The reviewer admits to not playing multiplayer, arguably the most important part of the game.  Did the reviewers also skip multiplayer when reviewing Halo 3, Killzone 2, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty World at War?  He also compares the graphic to a twelve year old game, and then has the gall to say that they are not much different.

Did any of the editors even look at this review?

I will never be buying your magazine or visiting your website again unless this 'review' is taken down.

Sincerely,

to	gjones@gamepro.com, mweigand@gamepro.com, sshuman@gamepro.com, tkim@gamepro.com
date	Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 8:34 PM
subject	The Conduit Review
mailed-by	gmail.com

To whom it may concern:

Your employee is not acting very professionally.  From his twitter: https://twitter.com/taelurkim

"Forget words. What i need is one of those Red Faction sledgehammers. And the addresses of everyone who bitches in our comments."

"My mistake was forgetting the passing of the Internet Opinion Act which outlawed opinions on the Internet. I wish I'd voted no now. Haha, thanks? I'd try and respond to all the criticism but I'd have better luck draining the ocean with a teaspoon."

This guy has NO CLUE why people are upset.  Opinions are fine, but they need to be defensible.  I could be of the opinion that the earth is flat, but that is in no way defensible.

His assertion that the graphical gap between The Conduit and Goldeneye is less than the gap between Halo 3 and Halo or Killzone 2 and Killzone is not defensible.

His constant insults of the Wii for an exclusive Wii game are in no way defensible.  In the same vein, his praise of the hardware of the 360, PS3, and to a lesser extent PC are out of place in a review for an exclusive Wii game.

At the start of one paragraph, he claims the controls are "terrible" and then in the last sentence of the same paragraph says, "I played with the default and was absolutely happy with it."  It goes without saying that contradictions are not defensible.

He complains about the mapping of two functions to motion controls, without mentioning that you can completely customize all control options.  He could have mapped those functions to buttons.  Leaving that out of the review, or more likely not spending enough time with the game to find the option menu, is not defensible.

Not playing multiplayer of a game made primarily for the multiplayer, is not defensible.

This was easily the worst review I have ever read.

Sincerely,

rom	Tae Kim
to
date	Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 2:08 PM
subject	Re: The Conduit Review
mailed-by	gamepro.com

Hello , I am the author of the review of the Conduit. Thanks for taking the time to write me a note letting me know what you think about my work. As for your comment about the controls, the build that I received (directly from the company's PR rep) did not have an option to change the controls. If there was an option, I would have used it and mentioned it.

I also did not skip cutscenes. I did press the A button repeatedly to try but it wouldn't let me. As for the multiplayer, I would argue with you that it isn't the most important aspect. It is a major part of the experience, but it is not more important than the single-player. The reason why it wasn't reviewed was because the multiplayer servers were not available to me at the time of review. The only experience I could have gotten with multiplayer was in a closed session held by the PR company. That does not faithfully recreate the experience a gamer will have at retail, so it was not included. I mention that we did not play multiplayer and the score reflects my thoughts on the single-player.

Also, I did not compare the graphics to Goldeneye. I simply pointed out that the graphics on the Wii do not show the same level of progression as the graphics on the Xbox 360 versus the original Xbox and the  PS3 versus the PS2. It is a fair statement considering we are a multi-platform magazine and the Wii competes in an HD era.

And the review goes through a lengthy process where it is checked by several editors and designers before it is published in our magazine.

As for your request that the review be taken down, I'm afraid I can't comply. The review will stand. If that affects your decision to visit our website, that is regrettable but you are certainly entitled to do so and I will respect that.

-tae

Tae K. Kim
Reviews Editor
GamePro Media
501 Second Street, Suite 114
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: (415) 974-7372

from	Tae Kim
to
date	Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 2:25 PM
subject	Re: The Conduit Review
mailed-by	gamepro.com

, I don't believe anything I said in my Twitter is out of line. The first was a casual comment I made to a friend and fellow game reviewer. It was facetious. Obviously, if I really did have a sledgehammer from Red Faction Guerrilla, I wouldn't take it to people's houses. I'd probably get arrested and I try very hard not to go to jail. The same goes for the second and third comment: they're facetious comments made to a friend.

I already sent you a response detailing your issues. You seem to have very strong opinions of the game. Can I ask what your own personal opinion of the game is after playing it?

-tae

Tae K. Kim
Reviews Editor
GamePro Media
501 Second Street, Suite 114
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: (415) 974-7372

He will not take down or correct the review because he is the CHIEF EDITOR, so there. You have to go above his head.

E mail his superiors, and use his reply as a way to show that he should have waited to review the game until he had a final build. He did not reviewed that actual game but a gimped version.

Sounds like he is secretly sharpening that red Faction sledgehammer to silence you.

I'm not sure I even want to respond. He completely ignored the bulk of the second email.

I think he his flat out lying that his build did not have customizable controls. I found a video showing that ability from July 16...2008.

He says he did not skip the cut scenes, but wanted to skip them. That's really professional.

He thinks that the single player mode of a FPS is more important than multiplayer. My question: Since when?

As I said in the second email, his statement about the graphics comparison is flat out indefensible.

He says he will let the review stand. That's sad. If he isn't lying, and it was an incomplete build, he should have at least mentioned that in the review.

Well the least he could do would be to update the review to include online mutliplayer. Similar to the publication that redid their Grand Slam Tennis review when they realized their Wii didn't work with M+. At least they did the right thing.

The right thing in this case would be to do a small edit at the beginning of the review to include adjustments and multiplayer.

At least that would be a review of the retail package, not of a pre-release build.

Look in the 'to' field.  Those same emails went to more than one person.  They went to:

GEORGE JONES
Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director
gjones@gamepro.com

MIKE WEIGAND
Managing Editor
mweigand@gamepro.com

SIDNEY SHUMAN
Senior Editor
sshuman@gamepro.com

TAE KIM
Reviews Editor
tkim@gamepro.com

Yes, I saw that.  I should have been more specific.  Tae Kim is the Reviews editor, so any complaints sent about reviews are going to be forwared to him.  So it would not be of any use complaining about a review to the Vice President.  However, if you are complaining about the editor himself, then he will be willing to take some action.