Eidos UK blocks Tomb Raider Underworld reviews below 8/10

by Justin McElroy { Nov 21st 2008 at 10:45AM }

Reps from the UK PR firm for Eidos have confirmed that they're asking publications not to release any reviews for Tomb Raider: Underworld below an 8/10 until Monday. The firm says they're doing so at the request of Eidos, which is trying to manage the scores for as long as it can. The game is currently sporting a 78 on Metacritic.

Really Eidos? Really? You didn't lose enough goodwill being blamed for getting the world's most popular video games journalist fired and bringing a respected games portal to its knees? (Yes, we know you denied any involvement. This sort of thing certainly makes that seem credible.) You thought maybe journalists would keep this quiet because you were buds? Because they were worried about not getting advance copies of Just Cause 2?

Note to Eidos: Stop being evil. That is all.

[Update: The head of Barrington Harvey, the UK PR firm, is playing defense, with director Simon Byron saying, "Any site, be it Gamespot or whoever, is entirely within their rights to post whatever score they want and no-one is under any sort of obligation to delay any review." It should be noted that "being obligated to" and "being asked to under penalty of being blacklisted" are two very different things. Not that we think that happened, of course.]

Tags: eidos, reviews, tomb-raider-underworld

Related From Joystiq

Lara's Underworld adventure goes budget in the UK
170 days ago
Eidos looking to reinvent Lara Croft (again)
300 days ago
Eidos disappointed with TR: Underworld sales, stock drops
303 days ago

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

ganrob @ Nov 21st 2008 10:38AM

i am pissed! I have no idea what's going on, but I'm this close to spilling mountain dew over my homemade snes controller while my mom shouts at me to do my homework!

EIDOS!! EIDOS DAMN YOU!

reign-♥-of-♥-love @ Nov 21st 2008 10:54AM

thats funny. they're basically admitting their game sucks. very sad eidos.

Oh and Eidos, make another timesplitters!!! i miss that game. i dont care if it sucks i want it

Erluti @ Nov 21st 2008 10:56AM

@reign

like a 70 isn't supposed to mean "suck". But since all review scores are super inflated anyway, having honest reviewers in the mix will hurt their inflated review score next to the other inflated review scores.

reign-♥-of-♥-love @ Nov 21st 2008 11:01AM

good games get a metacritic score above an 80. and thats cause they have problems. scores should be rated from A B C and F. i get that. ;P

that guy @ Nov 21st 2008 11:09AM

Eidos only published the first two Timesplitters. EA published the third one; Free Radical developed (read: made) them, and there is, in fact, a fourth one in development :)

BananaBoat @ Nov 21st 2008 11:41AM

I was extremely surprised by the Tomb Raider Underworld coverage on the 1up show. Especially considering that they loved the game, and never made even one joke about Miss Croft's Boobs. Then I saw the full page ad for the game on 1up.com. Now I'm wondering if yet another site hasn't fallen under the weight of a money hat.

I'm holding out belief that they just REALLY love Tomb Raider, and take it ultra seriously, but come on guys.

Oh, and Eidos got a permaban from receiving my money. They were shitlisted if you will. This new fiasco moves them up the list.

DigDug @ Nov 21st 2008 12:29PM

It's only really Xbox owners upset here, as finally they felt they had something even remotely as good as Uncharted, but really they should just stop crying, and buy the PS3/Uncharted pack and be done with it. better console, better game. job done..

Duke @ Nov 21st 2008 12:55PM

Another worthless comment from DigDug. Seriously dude, f*ck off with your fanboy trash.

Vcize @ Nov 21st 2008 2:43PM

I played, and loved, Uncharted. But I don't get why that would mean you wouldn't care about any other games coming out in the same genre. I mean the game is like what, 8 hours long? How many freaking times can you play through that thing before you want another game in the same genre?

Though, I guess PS3-only owners got used to playing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again for that year and a half where they only had 1 decent game worth playing.

What's that you say? I'm using an old, expired argument? Take a look in the mirror, Mister "Shooterbox".

gst @ Nov 21st 2008 3:52PM

@reign
That is oversimplifying a little.

I think the largely accepted view is:
90s: you should play this
80s: this is worth playing for almost everyone
70s: worth playing for genre/series fans but little outside appeal
60s: your next-door neighbor will argue with you about how underappreciated it is, but it is honestly mediocre and/or buggy
Below: Just like an F in school, you can always get a lower percentage, but, the lower you get, the more likely it seems to be that the developers weren't even trying.

I guess that would fit with an A,B,C,D,F system very well, but the percentages, I think, are understood well by most. The supposed inflation of game ratings seems to have followed the common trends of grade inflation in academia, so the scales are about equivalent.

Mostly, I just wouldn't want letter grades because then you can't do complex, down to the nth demical point analyses of metacritic and gameranking scores. All my pointless Excel regressions of metacritics score vs number of letters in game's title would be ruined!

butaneko @ Nov 21st 2008 4:31PM

Uncharted is not a great game, please stop spreading these falsehoods. After purchasing, playing, and selling this game, I came to these conclusions:
- The graphics are great
- The gunplay is weak and more than a little out of sync with the storyline (light banter after I just murdered 30 dudes?)
- The platforming stuff has been done 10 times better in Prince of Persia games. It's not fun or challenging.
- Zombies? No.

C+

BananaBoat @ Nov 22nd 2008 7:26AM

I know that I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but 1up reviewed Underworld again....why would a game get two reviews nearly back to back, especially when it's not really a AAA title? Shenanigannnnnsssssssss.

For its part, Uncharted dropped when the PS3 had dick all else for those without Wii's or 360's to play. Naturally, all of those people decided that it was the greatest game in history, and tried to lord it over the internet for awhile, but noone that had a 360 at the time bought into the hype. It's a decent game, but it has been done so many times in the past that it isn't even worth bringing up again.

Bert @ Nov 21st 2008 10:39AM

Wow, just wow. To do this one time is bad enough but doing it twice in a year is just crazy! Looks like I'll be boycotting Tomb Raider now.

Duke @ Nov 21st 2008 10:41AM

What the hell people. If you make a crap product just sit back and accept the bad reviews. This blocking bad reviews makes you look pathetic.

ChemicalPainter @ Nov 21st 2008 10:52AM

Yeah, that's really dumb.

Eh @ Nov 21st 2008 12:36PM

From a business standpoint its a perfectly good strategy for shitty games, they will sell more shitty games if people dont know theyre shitty.

The problem here is Tomb Raider isnt a shitty game (anymore at least, the new ones are pretty good), but Eidos in all of their wisdom plans on making people assume its a shitty game that needs protection from the press. They also seem to have a fetish for user score backlash and should enjoy an extremely low user score average on all the major sites.

They should have left it alone. The game isnt bad, it just lacks polish because it didnt have a massive budget to make every element perfect. People can look past that just like they do with STALKER and other medium-budget good games.

Duke @ Nov 21st 2008 1:02PM

"From a business standpoint its a perfectly good strategy for shitty games, they will sell more shitty games if people dont know theyre shitty."

Believe it or not we aren't all stupid. Of course it would help sell more games. Yet it will also hurt their image to consumers when they find out the company is using such a strategy to trick them into buying said games.

Vcize @ Nov 21st 2008 2:45PM

"Believe it or not we aren't all stupid."

No, but most consumers are. I'd be shocked if 5% of people that have a videogame system ever heard about this embargo.

Duke @ Nov 21st 2008 6:04PM

Is that because they're stupid? I would say it's because the info isn't distributed to them widely.

HitNRun @ Nov 21st 2008 8:12PM

@Eh

"From a business standpoint its a perfectly good strategy for shitty games, they will sell more shitty games if people dont know theyre shitty."

A perfect scheme. There's just one problem: we all know it's a shitty game now, even if it isn't.

Gaming publications - the ones that would actually even open, much less submit to, an email from Eidos' PR firm - are patronized by the same readers who visit game blogs. In fact, I'd say your average game site troll is more likely to read about this scandal than they are to read a sub-80% review of Tomb Raider.

Mark C @ Nov 21st 2008 10:50AM

Ruh roh

Markez @ Nov 21st 2008 9:29PM

Easy scoobs, maybe there's a better tomb raider game behind that old mill!

samfish @ Nov 21st 2008 10:51AM

This gives me another reason to refuse to buy this game until I can get it used for about $20 bucks.

mernmern @ Nov 21st 2008 11:05AM

Thats my target price. If this blows up it might be much sooner than later.

macgyver @ Nov 21st 2008 5:01PM

which by the way, OT, but Army of Two is now $30 new at walmart. in my opinion, its a great game for $30.

koehler83 @ Nov 21st 2008 11:01AM

I guess we wont be hearing any real reviews until monday then. Except from anyone who doesnt give a crap about Eidos advertising revenue... (clearly not Joystiq, plastered with TR:U ads, as it is)

I can't be the only one who thinks that game looks horrible. I have no idea how it plays, but it certainly looks bad.

Rollins @ Nov 21st 2008 11:03AM

If Joystiq really cared what Eidos thought of them, would they have posted this story?

J.Goodwin @ Nov 21st 2008 11:03AM

What Joystiq ads?

Mr Khan @ Nov 21st 2008 11:04AM

Joystiq has had quite a bit of underworld ads floating around, quite neat ones too (they're clever like that Wario Land one, and they don't take up the whole damn screen to boot)

SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Nov 21st 2008 11:52AM

Firefox 3 + Ad Block Plus = i have no idea what ads you are talking about.

Blank-Mage @ Nov 21st 2008 12:15PM

Same as above.

Haggard @ Nov 21st 2008 10:53AM

lol, the negative reaction to this will be worse than to the mid-high review scores.

Anam @ Nov 21st 2008 10:54AM

There's not too many Eidos games I care about anyway, but now I am not buying them with a purpose!

holyice7 @ Nov 21st 2008 10:57AM

I take your comment, and apply it to describe my own reasoning.

Good day, sir.

Erluti @ Nov 21st 2008 10:54AM

I want free early copies of Just Cause 2. I will remove any review score I would post below 80 before Monday.

Rollins @ Nov 21st 2008 10:55AM

It's a shame that Eidos is pulling shit like this. By all accounts, Underworld's not a bad game. Even 1up gave it a B.

As Haggard said, the negative publicity is going to kill.