First two "real" reviews are out - 9/10 and 10/10

The 5TH Cell guys must be psyched about this one. Though the review embargo for online publications doesn't end until Monday, the embargo on print reviews must be different (due to that production cycle?), as we currently have TWO reviews from two magazines.

Now it's hard to say these two guys are...well...unbias. After all, one is the Italian Official Nintendo Magazine, while the other is the UNOfficial Nintendo magazine of Australia. Still, 5TH Cell is a 3rd party, not a 1st or 2nd, so their bias shouldn't be THAT strong.

Italian ONM gave it a 9 while Ultimate Nintendo gave it a 10/10. Good deal! You can find the covers to both of these magazines below.

Reviews on the Run admit their mistake, promises a re-review

I didn't expect this one.

If you haven't already read up on the review craziness that began yesterday...well, you can find it all right here. The long and short of it was that RotR reviewed a preview copy, one they played back in August, and ended up breaking their review embargo. Oops.

Victor Lucas, one of said reviewers, actually posted an apology and an explanation as to what happened. He begins "We screwed up", and explains what happened. Props to them for the apology, though I do wonder if they're only doing it to save face with Warner Bros.

Further, they promise to do a re-review once the review embargo ends, which they reveal is September 14th, a day before release.

[Thanks, Anon commenter!]

Oops! That review I mentioned earlier? Well, something WAS fishy...

And that something was that they reviewed a preview copy. Which was purposefully stripped of features. And they broke the review embargo. Jackson over at GAF tells us why G4 is full of shit...

The "review" isn't real they scored a preview build what they did was unethical they broke the review embargo date early by reviewing an older preview build that had lots purposefully missing they should know better and you won't find this "review" online. I'm typing from my iPhone at PAX so excuse my sentence structure

Wow. As I mentioned below - when I first reported on the review this morning - something felt very weird about the whole thing. The score didn't match their words at all and the review itself seemed REALLY early. Initially I speculated that they broke the embargo and rated the game low in order to generate publicity. I edited out that part after reviewing my work, figuring that I shouldn't accuse them of such a thing with no evidence.

Well, I'm back to accusing them. They broke their embargo, reviewed a incomplete preview build, and rated it low based on problems that might not even exist in the final copy. That's low, a new low of gaming journalism that tarnishes the reputations of them all. It's misleading to consumers and damaging to the companies.

One must question what exactly they had to gain from all of this. Certainly it severely damaged their reputation among Warner Bros and 5TH Cell. You got to wonder...were they really doing it for publicity?

First review hits, definitely not that flattering

Scribblenauts finally received its first review score, which seems a bit weird as it was my understanding the game is under review embargo. Anyways, it was on the show called "Reviews on the Run", which airs on a Canadian version of G4.

You can find said review right here. Simply click the "Reviews on the Run" tab and select the September 4th episode. Then you're good to go.

So, the final scores?

7.0 and 7.5

Ouch!

Now before you have your hearts broken TOO much I'd like to take a look at this review. It's actually pretty weird, as the score doesn't seem match up with their review. They spend about 3 minutes explaining and praising the game, and it'soOnly in the last 30 seconds or so do they mention how the controls were a pain. Apparently a single problem, one they seemingly only brush over, drops the score by 30%. Honestly, it makes me suspect their review scores were purposefully skewed lower due to other reasons. At the end they mention that it didn't live up to their expectations stemming from the E3 hype, which leads me to believe they were disappointed due to being overhyped. Perhaps that is why they were more harsh on it than I was expecting.

Also, though I have no idea if they are breaking their review embargo or not, I'd say the possibility is likely given the fact other big sites and publications must have their review copies by now. If the embargo is up then we would have certainly seen other reviews by now, right? But we haven't, and so far they've been the only people to get a review in. Strange.

Of course, all of this could also mean that the controls really are THAT big of an issue, something we should all keep in mind as well. Control issues can be dealbreakers for people.

Regardless, as far as I know this is the first review to hit, so looks like we'll be seeing more over the next week.