Super Gerrio Galaxy or Reviewers that can't keep their mouths shut

If it wasn't apparent from my last post, for the past few days, I've been totally engrossed with Super Mario Galaxy. Playing through all the ins and outs on a quest to get 120 stars and unlock the secret. I won't say what it is for those of you who haven't managed to do that yet, but I will say about 10 minutes ago I completed just that and it is totally worth it.

Unfortunately, that secret was ruined for me. A disturbing trend I'm noticing in reviewing politic lately is to tell you too much about an upcoming game, including plot twists that may have otherwise been a surprise. I can understand where they are coming from, however. They are the first ones to get a copy of the game in the world. It is their job to play it and give their analysis of this product. They are also gamers, and as such, they want to be able to brag saying, "Yeah, I unlocked this." Or, "It was so sad when..." But please, you are professionals. You should either put at the top of the article that you are including spoilers in the review. There are plenty of other things to talk about the games other than unlockables and what they are.

Because I am looking out for you, I'm going to put that this next paragraph DOES contain spoilers in an attempt to explain how reviewers are ruining things for every gamers. Though with some of these, if you didn't already know, shame on you. Back when Final Fantasy 7 came out, one particular review said something to the effect of , "The game does a good job of evoking an emotional response in players, especially when Aeris dies at the end of disk one." Wait, let me double back there. Aeris dies? And your fucking telling me this in a review? What the hell is the matter with you? Another one I recall off the top of my head was an image in the print EGM. They did a review of Chrono Cross in which one of the screen shots showed enemies earlier on in the game in your party.

I use older examples because I wouldn't want to ruin some of the surprises of newer games. There's one site in particular who is very good at this and others who seem to slip up every now and then (no I won't name them), but there's really no need to ruin the gaming experience for everyone. When I read the thing about Aeris, I literally stopped playing for awhile. A very good current example is how Gamepro ruined a surprise for Rock Band. I won't say what the surprise was, but I will say they were not the ones who were supposed to release the information. The good friends of Harmonix, Score Hero, were supposed to release that information.

But what do reviewers care? It's not like a developer can do anything or the reviewer may blacklist said developer. This is ridiculous. We make these games for everyone. Not just the over zealous game reviewer. Just because they want some attention and are trying to boost traffic is no reason to slip information. I can understand that they need to reveal enough about the game to put up a good review, but there is a point where you need to use some common sense and not let up a big secret or plot twist.