Either way they charge for this, so fuck'em.

The players or the game? Actually fuck em both. Anyone stupid enough to buy something that screams "don't buy this" on everything except the box itself deserves to be out 60 bucks.

I think most people remember Tony Hawk games being fun as hell. I wouldn't fault anyone for assuming they were buying a good, functional game if they hadn't read up on it before buying.

I'd agree with you if this was still the late 90s. I bought a lot of games as a kid because of the title, or album because of one song, but doing basic research was pretty complicated back then. Since Xbox one basically requires the Internet in the first place, there's no excuse unless you're the kind of person who would buy a Rolex watch from a man in a trench coat.

The real losers are the ones that will be getting this for Christmas from well meaning grandparents

(supposed to responding to Zest...)

Yeah.. how effective is that anymore though? I remember THPS 1 did big things for the then-mostly unknown Fat Wreck Chords and introduced a lot of people to Volcom, but that was before "you can skip this ad in.." days. I'll owe poetv a coke if Mtn Dew sales go up this week, mark my words. You all have to share. Mind the backwash.

Griffin knows all about the SL. He's the mayor, you know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-3jDVTLdaQ

The truly sad part about this is THPS is closing in on 16 years old. I'm willing to bet a number of kids who are now in 20s played it as kids and were inspired to get on the board. Now they'll just be inspired to be goats.

Haha really? Games can do that now? It's pretty common for movies to not be screened for critics (or movies based on games, see Hitman, not screened for critics) but the very interactivity of a video game entails that it is played in some way, since it's the reviewer popping in the DVD and not a projectionist running the film through for an audience that's not in attendance

Yeah, they do. More often than not, in the games industry, the embargoes are done simply by not giving professional publications copies of the game until a day or two before the release (sometimes not even until the actual day) which usually results in most websites/magazines/whatever not publishing an official review until about a week later. Of course, not everyone does this. Some websites will publish their hagiographic, bought-and-paid-for reviews right out of the gate even when the reviewer clearly could not have had the time to properly play the game in the first place. IGN and GameSpot probably being the most obvious offenders.

The only game with a review embargo I remember not being a total shitshow was the first Prototype.