RicardoT's Journal
Right, so let's talk about that GTAIV score. For those who haven't seen or heard, here's the deal: there was a bug in our publishing system on Monday that caused the incorrect score for GTAIV, a 9.5, to appear for on some pages for a while. This happened hours before we posted the actual score with the review, a 10. This has all led to a lot of talk and speculation so I'm going to set things straight, short answer: it's not true. Longer answer requires me to run you through stuff which I'll be doing now.
Our review process is like so: Once our reviewer has finished the game, he writes his review, submits it to copyedit, and then goes back over the text to look over the changes copyedit made before submitting it to production who then produce the review. Once the review is produced as a Web page on our QA servers, a link goes out to the reviews team for the peer review process. During that time the review score is not final. I'll say that again for dramatic emphasis: During that time the review score is not final.
In the case of GTAIV, that non-final review had a score of 9.5 attached to it--a score which the peer review process is designed to fine-tune and then set in stone. As has been standard GameSpot operating procedure for years, the last step of the peer review process is a discussion about review content and score. The content discussion entails making sure that relevant gameplay features and whatnot are mentioned to ensure the review is accurate as possible--and that said score matches said review.
As Justin noted in his blog, there were enough people in the reviews group who felt GTAIV deserved a 10 that we all holed up in a room to settle the matter....as the review was in the QA process on our staging servers with a 9.5 score attached to it. Ironically, one of the staff poked their head in the room during the at-times heated discussion and mentioned that it looked like a bug on the staging site had caused the QA score to go live for a split second. The importance of this event didn't sink in at first, since were so embroiled in our talks. Why were we so focused? Because we take matters of review score seriously. I'll reiterate what Justin said in his blog: We don't hand out 10s lightly--we've given out just four in GameSpot's entire history.
I've hit up our tech folks to find out what the deal was. After some back and forth, they got me answers because I wanted to post about this and include some info. So here's the tech nitty gritty for those that care:
* a 9.5 score, which as I noted above was not final, was the original score placed on the GTA4 page and became the page that was cached while testing and reviewing the site for quality assurance.
* Due to a bug in our publishing system that has since been corrected, a cached page containing the score and review blurb, but not the review itself, appeared on the Production version of the site.
* The length of time this was up is not precisely known but logs show that changes were made from 4:45PM PST - 8:20PM PST, with the actual review going live at 8:20PM PST.
And there you have it. A publishing snafu + some tremendously awful timing = needless drama. I'm well aware there's a bunch of folks out there happy to add this to the conspiracy theory tapestry that has been woven about GameSpot. Adding to said conspiracy was a blog post from a moderator saying the 9.5 score was deliberately put up as a "red herring" to test reader reaction. The same moderator has since corrected himself, pointing out that in 2003, an accidental score of 0.0 was posted for one of the highest-review games of the year--Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (9.1).
I'm disappointed that, end of the day, one of the best-written and best produced text and video reviews is being cynically written off by some. None of the naysayers know the effort that went into making sure our review of probably the biggest--and so far, the best--game of the year was as bulletproof as possible. The personal attacks on Justin are unnecessary. Apparently people don't realize that Justin's been at GameSpot for 9 years--starting with the original GameSpot UK--and has reviewed all sorts of games in that time.
But so it goes. Bugs and assorted glitches are a fact of life on the web just as misspellings and assorted printing issues can be with print magazines. We take our reviews seriously here and we don't post them until they're ready. This is why GTAIV went up when we wanted it to with the score we wanted it to have. For those that gave us the benefit of the doubt and that didn't jump to conclusions, you have my thanks. To the others? ...
So I meant to update sooner but we've kind of been on crazy train since hitting town. It hasn't let up but, although I should be doing something smart like taking a nap or something before our coverage of tonight's Wii-splosion in Times Square, I figured I'd write out some stuff to fill folks in on what's been going on. Here's a quick run through:
Wednesday
Ryan Mac, Myself and the boys all flew out to New York (via New Jersey). We got in evening time and once we checked into our hotel made our way to the Sony Style store in Sony Plaza. The line for PS3's was pretty hefty so we did some taping and then headed back to the rooms to pass out.
Thursday
D-day for us. The crew took to the streets of NY and hit a few places to do some taping at various lines. We hit the Circuit City and Best Buy lines to see how folks were doing there. I gotta say, in a non pandering "HELLO CLEVELAND" kind of way, that I do love New York and its peeps. It's a great city with good people. Anyhoo, back to our day:
Later that afternoon we headed on over to the Sony Store to set up our live broadcast. It was crazy to get everything together in time. The way things worked out we couldn't get in until a little after 4 to set all our stuff up which didn't give us much wiggle room in case something was busted or didn't go like we planned. Fortunately it all worked out well. Have to say it's pretty insane to think that this whole live thing was a crazy notion Mac and I tossed around a few months ago when we started brainstorming launch ideas. At the time I remember we were both like "This'll probably never happen..." and yet there we were setting up. If you saw the broadcast you got a taste for how crazy things were. Anytime we do something like this we try to prepare for anything that could go awry but there's always stuff you can't plan for that happens. Like when Charlie Murphy did his shout out or when a glass door was closed and severed our power line in a Fantavision like display of sparks forcing us to go all "MacGyver" to get back up and running. Mac's amazing that way. Once that was done it was tear down time and a crawl to the hotel to sleep.
Friday:
So we slept most of the day since we weren't back to the rooms and sorted until about 3 am (ouch). Once everyone was conscious we split up with one team heading out to check out Wii lines and the other going to set up our tech for Saturday night. Way later in the day I met up with folks at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center and poked around, squeezed in some Christmas shopping since I haven't even started. Once that was sorted we headed back to the hotel for some sleep since we expected Saturday was going to be insane.
Saturday (today):
We were up and out this morning and started making our rounds. We hit up Toys R Us in Times Square, which is gonna be ground zero tonight, to do some early filming and check things out. There's a new Wii section on the second floor that was put in especially for the launch. The lower level's gotten a bunch of extra monitors in that are running Wii trailers or have playable games on them. Zelda is actually running on a 70 inch monitor which is sweet. Once we were done there, we headed back to the Nintendo store to check on our homies from the day before. The line at the store was much longer so we shot interviews with a whole bunch of people for tonight's show. Once that was done we headed on back to the hotel which brings me to right now:
The plan now is to go interview Reggie before it gets too crazy, gotta head out in 10 minutes. Once that's done we'll come back, rest up, prep the gear and head over. The festivities kick off a few hours after that and then it's on. Whew. Hope folks are digging the coverage. Come back and check out the stream in a few hours. For the New Yorkers out here, come say hi if you see us at the event. You might wind up on camera!
One Big Blur
So I'm sitting here on a bus speeding to Narita International Airport in Japan on my way home after a whirlwind trip to Japan for PS3 launch. I meant to write something in my blog during the trip but it's been just a little crazy so the ride to the airport has turned out to be the first chance I've had. So here's a quick run through the trip.
Arrival:
Left SFO Tuesday morning got in Wednesday night. Awesome traffic stretched the normally two hour limo shuttle ride to close to 3 hours. Once Takeshi and I got to our hotel we made a run for some beef bowl, ran back to the room to tape the video segment they ran on On the Spot, checked in with a friend that was helping us out with our PS3 adventure and then passed out.
Thursday morning we made a run to Akihabara to shoot some stuff and get a feel for where the best place to camp out for our PS3 was going to be. I'd been ready to start lining up by 2 or 3 in the afternoon but a lot of the stores we intended on pitching a tent by were discouraging folks from lining up- mostly due to the fact that most stores weren't expected to get many units. Finally checked in with our buddy Henry who popped over and joined us as we merged into the conspicuously line-like clump of loiterers standing in front of the Yodabashi Camera watching PS3 trailers. Later in the evening around 8:00 Yodabashi employess busted out some bullhorns and announced that if people didn't disperse they wouldn't be able to sell units in the morning. So we all dispersed, like 10 feet and just all spread out, sort of like that final scene in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Once bullhorn guy left everyone edged in again. I tapped out and left Takeshi in line while Henry and I made the rounds to other local stores to doublecheck all our options. Our backup plan was to try one of the launch day raffles happening in several stores on the morning of the 11th. In order to be eligible I had to go sign up for point cards at a few stores. When that was sorted I traded spots with Takeshi so he could go sign up too and wedged myself in to the crowd right in front of the PS3 monitors running trailers for games and an interactive kiosk that let you play Devil May Cry, Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer. We expected it to be mellow until after the store closed at 10 pm since employees and the local cops made it clear they weren't allowing lines until after the store closed.
Things didn't quite turn out that way.
So there I am wedged between tons of people watching the Afrika trailer yet again. I heard someone start talking loud, I recognized the word "line" (my Japanese aint what it used to be) and then the world kind of exploded. People ran away from the store and towards a guy holding a PS3 sign up the street, the start of the official line. I was ready to join the "running of the nerd" herd but one of the runners in front of me fell so I stopped so's not to stomp him and wound up getting shoved from behind and going down for a bit. I got a little stomped trying to get back up cos rather than step over someone on the ground mofos acted like they were playing DDR with me as the pad (ow! ow! ow!) Eventually I did get back up and found myself in a big honkin line. It seemed uncomfortably far from the store so I was a little worried that my getting mashed by tomorrow's DDR champions had cost me a good place in line. When Takeshi and Henry got back a while later they were a little taken aback by my new location considering how primo the spot in front of the monitors was but what're you gonna do? I tapped out with Takeshi a little later so I could nurse my wounds. I went back about 1 am and parked it in our spot on the sidewalk. Takeshi headed on out to work on editing video leaving me to have all kinds of fun sitting on the ground until 7am praying that it wouldn't rain.
The wait wasn't so bad thanks to the magic of the DS and PSP although, in retrospect, something soft to sit on wouldn't have been bad. The vibe was a little weird. Though there were plenty of Japanese folk and foreigners who were genuinely excited for the system. There was also a different crowd there namely scalpers and their minions. Amidst all the regular folk it wasn't too hard to spot people who were there with the intention of grabbing a unit to either eBay or turn over to someone who was paying them to stand in line.
Takeshi returned around 6 am because we'd heard Ken Kutaragi was going to make an appearance. It made sense since he'd been on hand 2 years ago to sell the first PSP so Takeshi wanted to be around in case he made a return. As it happened he didn't show up to sell the first one although we did catch sight of Phil Harrison, who put in a brief appearance before heading out to make his rounds. When 7am rolled around the store opened and started selling units. Of course since I was #449 it's not like I had to move for a while. While I waited for my turn to go by the line started shuffling forward… and it started to rain buckets. Henry got me an umbrella from a nearby convenience store and also got Takeshi a poncho since he was still trying to film stuff.
I finally got into the store at around 8:45am and got to stand in yet another line that weaved through the aisles. As I waited for my turn I was slowly driven insane by a trailer for Kirby Squeak Squad on DS which looped the 20 second tune over and over. 9:15 I got I finally got to a register. I got a 60gig, the five launch titles, and a handful of Sixaxis controllers, turns out they were sold out of the memory card adapter. Thankfully Henry offered to pick one up on his run through Akihabara to assess launch aftermath for a news story. With our PS3 in hand Takeshi and I made our way to our hotel to check it out. We got a bonus on our way out when we got handed a FROM SOFTWARE HD Visual Preview Disc, fancy name for a disc containing Amrored Core 4 and Enchant Arms PS3 trailers.
First thing we did was update the firmware and then start to poke around with the games, Genji, Resistance, Ridge, Gundam, and Sega Golf Club. Three of them, Resistance, Ridge, and Gundam, offered English language options while Genji and Sega Golf Club were all Japapnese all the time. The downside to our experience was that all we had to work with was a standard def TV and the simple RCA cables that come with the PS3- not an ideal set up. For what it's worth everything looked good enough on the TV. Web browsing was a bit of a chore due to the cell phone style text input but most pages loaded up fine although flash proved to be a problem depending on the site. Once that was done I passed out on the floor for a bit.
Follow Up From Home:
Rest of the trip is fuzzy but I remember packing, hitting up some UFO Catchers for souvenirs for the gang back home, responding to a PM from Sethfrost, dropping stuff off at work, seeing Greg and Ryan Davis who were there reviewing stuff, doing some email and then heading home. Also I seem to recall meeting a dude named Steve (I think) on the BART ride home who asked for my autograph. I stumbled home and passed out. Insane? Yes. But also oddly fun. End of the day console launches don’t happen that often and it's always a unique experience. Granted this one may have felt a little low key because of the quantities in stores but it's still the start of a new set of boxes to play on so it was worth the madness and stomping.
Next up PS3 and Wii US launches. O_0
So I've been thinking about the kind of games I want to be playing on the PSP. With the hardware locked and loaded for a March launch, we're starting to see more and more of the software that's being developed for it. So far there's a fair mix of new content along with the expected ports. It's funny because I'm pretty torn about the subject of ports on the PSP. While I'm usually not a fan of dirty porting, we see that enough on consoles, I have to say that I wouldn't mind seeing some old favorites get a portable makeover.
Vampire Chronicle was one of my most anticipated titles for the system when it shipped in Japan, despite the fact that it was basically just a ten year old fighting game with a new mode and WiFi built in. The extras weren't a bad addition and the fact that there hasn't been a version of Darkstalkers out in an age made the game practically new anyway. Looking at what's coming I think you can say that "everything old is new again" in a number of cases, like Wipeout Pure and Ape Escape for example, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to see developers scampering back to their PlayStation catalogs and dusting off anything that came out for it.
What I'd like to see happen is developers take an approach that's in the same spirit as what Capcom did for Vampire Chronicle. If you pick the right old stuff I won't hate, especially if it gets tricked out to take advantage of the PSP's Wifi, massive screen, and good amount of buttons. The geek in me wants to see the PSP software library turn into a showcase for great new original titles as well as a spotlight for enhanced director's cut style versions of PlayStation games that didn’t quite get their due or are hard to find. My wishlist of PlayStation games I'd like to see enhanced on the PSP is, and this is by no means comprehensive since this is me just thinking out loud:
Klonoa
Einhander
Xenogears
Soul Blade
Silhouette Mirage
Monster Rancher
On top of all that I'd like to see Sega do its fans a solid release Shining Force III for the system. And I'm not just talking about the lone chapter that hit the Saturn at the tail end of that console's life, I want them all. For those that don't remember, the Shining Force III debacle was one of Sega's biggest FUBAR moments and the final smack to long suffering Saturn owners. Basically the Shining Force III that was released in the states was the first of three scenarios, the other two came out in Japan as they were meant to and finished off the well thought out story. While the 20 or so of us that imported the rest of the chapters were satisfied by how the story played out, anyone who just played the US game was left wondering how the heck things turned out. Given that most players have never played the other two chapters, or even the first one actually since the game was released at the end of the Saturn's life when most folks had moved on, Shining Force III would be a great candidate for a PSP game. A visual makeover plus the inclusion of the other two scenarios, hell Sega could even through in the super rare Premium Disc content which you could only get by sending in proofs of purchase of all three scenarios too if they wanted, would ensure the game would come packing some serious value and gameplay. Who knows if anyone's going to listen to these mad ramblings but it sure would be cool if at least some of them happened, right?
So the madness of launch day in Japan has subsided mad I've got a few to collect my thoughts. It's been a whirlwind few days full of some unexpected surprises as we've all been doing our thing and prepping for the launch of the PSP. Saturday afternoon found us prepping and debating amongst ourselves as to whether we should do the line thing. The weather's cold and a little wet which gave us some pause when toying with the idea of waiting in line the night before if one started to form. We weren't really sure if people would be coming down the last two major releases in Japan, DQ8 and the DS launch, had lines that started early in the morning on the day they respectively went on sale. We weren't sure just what to expect for the PSP since you just never know. Even still, Mac and I were pretty surprised as we headed back to our hotel following an afternoon adventure (more on that in a second) at around 8pm and saw people lining up in a queue outside a Yodabashi camera. We did a double take and then realized that people were already hunkering down which was a little crazy since we'd kind of figured the lines wouldn't start for a few more hours.
Once we saw that we decided to pass on waiting in line all night and just show up at dawn the next day- we already had our PSP needs covered anyway, we just wanted to "keep it real" and clock in some line time. While that may sound a little bizarre, let me toss out some context. Between Jeff, Mac, and myself, we've all been doing this for a good chunk of time and we've seen more than our fair share of system launches. This has helped give us a good perspective on the whole "launch day" activity thing because, no matter how much time has passed and no matter how things have changed in the industry there's one constant that will hopefully always remain the same: waiting in lines he day before a new system hits- which, honestly, is kind of awesome. When it comes to a major release of hardware and to a lesser degree these days, software it always goes back to waiting in a line with other like-minded nerds. Lines remain the great equalizer because it doesn't matter if you're a journalist, hardcore gamer, or even a causal player, if you want to get your hands on the goods as quick as possible you're going to drag your butt out someplace and get yourself in a queue. When you're in one there's no real pretenses, you're just one of a sea of people jonesing for this one cool thing. Doesn't matter if you're young, old, or even speak the native language for however long you're in that line you're part of the tribe which is just dope.
But, before I wrap up the tale of our launch day morning, let me fill you in on a little adventure Mac and I had the night before. We had a bit of time before we had to start prepping for our launch duties and I convinced him to come with me to see Godzilla: Final Wars, the latest in Toho's most excellent oeuvre of "man in suit" flicks. The movie recently opened in Japan and was in pretty wide distribution so it was easy to find a theater close to our hotel that was playing it. After a quick walk/run to make the showing we settled in to the Toho run theater and saw what is quite possibly THE best Godzilla flick in ages. I did some research before we left to see what we'd be in for if we saw it and was left a little uneasy. Folks either loved or hated it; it seemed to polarize the fans like few of the recent films had done so I was worried it could be a mess. I dig director Ryuhei Kitamura's style so I hoped that, mess or not, the film would at least offer up some cool visuals. Yeah well it did that and then some. I can see why some fans were irked by some of the film: Mothra did not need to go out like she did; Hedorah <i>did</i> get some lame treatment; and yeah Minya really didn't have to be in the movie. But aside from some minor points like that, Final Wars is probably the Godzilla movie people have been waiting for for years. A grip load of fights (Godzilla tears through and whups tail on something like 11 monsters), and a nice sense of history go a long way towards making the flick appealing. Best of all the cast of humans in the film was great. Lead actor Masahiro Masuoka and the rest of the cast, including UFC vet Don Frye, are all having a good old time and kept the non monster sequences almost as lively as the epic city destroying battles thanks to some Starblazers style action sequences. As if that wasn't enough, one of the critters big G stomps is none other than the crappy American Godzilla, inflicted on us by the Emmerich and Devlin movie, that looked like some kind of iguana. The sight of Godzilla tail smacking the frigging thing into the Sydney opera house and lighting him up with some atomic fire is satisfying on so many levels. But back to our launch day adventures...
The morning of launch day the three of us headed out around 5:30 am or so and were staggered by what we saw. The Yodabshi we were headed to is tucked away in the center of a shopping district in Shinjuku that's towards its center. By the time we were at the crosswalk to get to the outskirts of the district we saw a fat line. There was easily over a thousand people snaked through the area by security hoping to keep things orderly. If things couldn't get anymore surreal I passed by an obviously happy Ken Kutaragi who snapped a few shots of the line with his camera before popping in the store to prep for the sale. Word had spread that a few stores would start selling their PSP goods earlier than the standard 10 am opening time. In Yodabashi's case that mean 6am. We positioned ourselves in front of the store for a good view of the action as the hour grew near. All three of us were pretty surprised at the volume of folks. Up until then it had been hard to gauge local interest in the PSP. We'd seen plenty of ads for it on trains and magazines but, given the expected number of units available at launch, it seemed as though people were being pretty low key about it. At least we thought so until we saw the thousand people lined up...
A few minutes before 6 a countdown started that found the assembled people chanting along with it as the hour approached. At the end of the countdown some confetti was set off and a bunch of folks cheered (it was almost like a frigging New Year's Eve countdown which was awesome). The line started moving into the store and local and foreign press ran in for the first shot of the day's first PSP being sold by Kutaragi-san. Of course Mac was in the thick of things so keep an eye out for his visual account of what I'm describing because you have to see it to believe it. After we did our thing at the Yodabashi it was time to get to work so we headed off to our rooms and started our day. I'll be checking in soon.
