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I work for a UK magazine. What seemed like a few errant public relations agreements is turning into a wider problem in the UK games media, with shocking score agreements being implemented before any reviewer has seen final code.

In the race to splash “Exclusive first review” on the front cover, editors are now agreeing to grant high scores to titles irrespective of quality, in what is perhaps the most distasteful abuse of reader trust imaginable.

The culprit right now is Atari with DRIV3R, with reports coming in today of demands for at least 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. Although the build with magazines at the moment is described as being “…two or three weeks away from being final,” it has not lived up to expectations with certain press contacts. However, in order to obtain the code, a score of nine has been demanded by Atari’s PR team.

Other culprits of late include Sonic Heroes, which Sega’s European PR office demanded scores of at least 8/10 in exchange for code, a shoddy state of affairs indeed. As you may remember, all early scores were 8/10 for Sonic. Strange huh?

Tomb Raider was another game for which it was demanded that a certain score must be granted before review coverage was agreed. Impressively, 10/10 was the requested score, though as you know, various editors bartered this down.

Another is Devil May Cry II, for which Capcom demanded 8/10 for the exclusive. Turok Evolution also came pre-decorated with an eight score.

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Driv3r may have achieved incredibly - arguably ludicrously - high scores from some publications, but major sites such as IGN and Gamespot have both criticised the game harshly, as have several other publications. It seems likely that the balance of professional critical opinion will come down heavily against the title; but while Atari is unlikely to be happy with this situation, nobody seems to believe that this critical slating is going to make Driv3r bomb.

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