Every single EGM review

[Trip_Cannon]

I found this link and it's pretty cool. Hope it hasn't been posted before!

 

Was EGM biased against Atari? You be the judge!

 

http://boards.ign.com/The_Vestibule/b5296/34216686/p1

[NE146]

That's not every EGM review.. it's only the ones where they did the Review Crew 1-10 scoring system obviously. There were reviews prior to them adopting that from the Jap mags

[DracIsBack]

Do you move your feet when you walk?

 

Of course they were biased against Atari! :-) They'd rip Jaguar games to shreds for things that weren't even problems. Ex: "Pitfall suffers from a lack of ingame music".

[Kialan]

Ex: "Pitfall suffers from a lack of ingame music".

 

Yeah right. If you were lost in the jungle, I'm sure slightly upbeat music would be playing out of nowhere. /sarcasm

[Trip_Cannon]

That's not every EGM review.. it's only the ones where they did the Review Crew 1-10 scoring system obviously. There were reviews prior to them adopting that from the Jap mags

 

Hey! Don't bite my head off! I didn't write that thing!

[Rocko]

Ex: "Pitfall suffers from a lack of ingame music".

 

Yeah right. If you were lost in the jungle, I'm sure slightly upbeat music would be playing out of nowhere. /sarcasm

 

 

It does! From the Music Bird!

[+davidcalgary29]

This says it all:

 

Alien vs. Predator 7.O 6.O 5.O 5.O

 

Baldies 9.O 8.5 8.5 8.O

 

 

Tempest 2OOO 1O 9.O 8.O 7.O  

 

[DracIsBack]

I love Baldies!

 

Some of my other favorite EGM Jaguar bashings:

 

"Super Burnout suffers from an incredibly low frame-rate" ...

 

Yeah, that 60 frames per second really jerks along ...

[DracIsBack]

Ex: "Pitfall suffers from a lack of ingame music".

 

Yeah right. If you were lost in the jungle, I'm sure slightly upbeat music would be playing out of nowhere. /sarcasm

 

Ha ha!

 

Still, in referring to their bashings of THIS PARTICULAR GAME, it makes me think they didn't actually play it.

 

Another favorite of mine: Read their review of RAYMAN and then read the PS description. Virtually the same game, but the Jaguar version of written very negatively (even though the scores are high) where as the PS1 version is written positively.

 

Those guys weren't exactly ... objective ...

[Trip_Cannon]

David, don't forget this one!!!

 

Blue Lightning 2.5 2.5 2.O 2.O

 

 

So the top games for the Jag were Baldies, Cannon Fodder, Rayman, and Tempest 2000.

 

The top games for the Lynx are Blue Lightning, Klax, Ninja Gaiden, and Turbo Sub. With Rampart and Shadow of the Beast closely behind.

 

Do people agree with those scores?

[+davidcalgary29]

David, don't forget this one!!!

 

Blue Lightning 2.5 2.5 2.O 2.O

 

   

 

So the top games for the Jag were Baldies, Cannon Fodder, Rayman, and Tempest 2000.

 

The top games for the Lynx are Blue Lightning, Klax, Ninja Gaiden, and Turbo Sub. With Rampart and Shadow of the Beast closely behind.  

 

Do people agree with those scores?

 

I really like "Blue Lightning" on the Jag, but I'm in the minority on these boards.

 

EGM's Lynx scoring nonsense:

 

Lemmings 7 7 7 6

 

Pit Fighter 7 7 6 5

 

Again:

[NE146]

EGM did rate 7800 games slightly better.. at least they got positive reviews. But yeah the rest seem pretty suspect

[Ze_ro]

In my opinion, the worst were "Sushi-X"'s Gameboy reviews. He admitted many times within his reviews that he was taking away points because the game was in black and white.

 

... not that I had a lot of respect for EGM anyways, but christ...

 

--Zero

[Gregory DG]

I've always thought their Jaguar Doom review was extremely biased. The vastly inferior 32X version got better scores!

[bergbros2]

How far back does EGM go? What biases did they have against certain systems and why? Also, how much time do these reviewers have with a game? It must be tough considering tight deadlines to review a few games, but to get obvious things wrong is inexcusable. Some reviews come right out of left field- They gave Lynx Turbo Sub better numbers than Xenophobe? WTF. And look at that Herzog Zwei review. Their number one game of all time Metroid got 9s. Chron Trigger? How about Conker's Bad Fur Day with a 7.5. Still, its amazing that a magazine like this has lasted as long as it has considering that gaming mags come and go all the time.

 

I know most of you guys think reviews are B.S. but I do read them and rely upon them to some degree in making a purchase. Is there a magazine or web site in which you generally find to be credible and consistent? Gamespot maybe?

[Trip_Cannon]

EGM goes way back. 82 or 83 maybe?

 

Now, from what I've heard, they've always had a bias against Atari because of their business practices. I use that in terms of their cheapness. For instance, one of the great things about being a reviewer meant that you got a free copy of the game. Well, Atari insisted that the games be returned in a certain amount of time. Another rumor was along the lines of advertising spending. Nintendo and Sega spent a hell of a lot more on advertising real estate than Atari ever would. Therefore Nintendo and Sega would get far more coverage in reviews and such.

 

Anybody else? Any others?

[DracIsBack]

I've always thought their Jaguar Doom review was extremely biased. The vastly inferior 32X version got better scores!

 

Great article. The 32X debacle was another example. Being a Jaguar owner back in the day, it was pretty obvious that EGM refused to even try to look at the Jaguar objectively at all.

 

Now, though I am an owner, I freely admit that many Jaguar games suck. I admit that few push the system and that few games lived up to Atari's "64 bit powerhouse" claims.

 

That said,

 

EGM beat up on the Jaguar in ways that showed a serious bias against the Jaguar.

 

When the Jaguar launched, it was shown in a little window on the cover of the EGM magazine around that time, while other things were given preference.

 

A short time later, EGM ran a list called "ten reasons why the Jaguar will fail."

 

A short time later, EGM made the infamous claim that the Jaguar isn't "64 bits", but two 32 bit processors running in parallel. While the "64 bit" claim has been argued, EGM's reasoning was idiotic as there were 5 processors running in parallel, not two.

 

Then EGM blasted the Jaguar in another issue claiming that "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and because the Jaguar isn't 100% 64 bit, it's not a 16-bit system." In the same magazine, EGM talks about new games for the 16-bit Sega Genesis which happened to have an 8-bit Z80 processor handling the sound. So the Jaguar wasn't 64-bit, but the Genesis was 16-bit?

 

Add to that reviews that say things like "the 32X version of DOOM is far superior", " Super Burnout suffers from a slow frame rate", "Pitfall suffers from a lack of in-game music" and the the trashing of Jaguar RAYMAN while pumping PSX RAYMAN and you got the sense that they were incredibly biased against ... even beyond legit complaints.

[DracIsBack]

EGM goes way back. 82 or 83 maybe?

 

Now, from what I've heard, they've always had a bias against Atari because of their business practices. I use that in terms of their cheapness. For instance, one of the great things about being a reviewer meant that you got a free copy of the game. Well, Atari insisted that the games be returned in a certain amount of time. Another rumor was along the lines of advertising spending. Nintendo and Sega spent a hell of a lot more on advertising real estate than Atari ever would. Therefore Nintendo and Sega would get far more coverage in reviews and such.

 

Anybody else? Any others?

 

I'd wager the advertising played more of a role than anything else. Money talks ... if you give your customers a lot of bad reviews, they won't pay to advertise in your magazine, they won't purchase reprints of your reviews and they won't pay to use your quotes on the web, or in marketing literature.

 

(And yes, all of those things do happen)