Why aren't any of the reviews live yet? Isn't the game out today? I thought that the policy with reviews are that the embargo can be "mandated" up until the point the game comes out? Well it's out. You can buy it right now from any outlet that sells games. So why aren't any review scores live?

It's odd, I agree. Even GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd said the same on Twitter earlier.

Kevin VanOrd‏fiddlecub
I may never understand release-day embargoes. People can go buy the game right now at this very moment. Yet I cannot publish my review :(

Yeap, I've always found this dumb.

They're hiding something...
 
Probably.

Some Australian publication liked it.

I got my copy in the mail yesterday. Seems pretty rad. Assuming it retains the same level of quality as the first few hours, it has my seal of approval.

There's your review!

A poor review can hurt day one sales. People

@Hunkulese said:

@Hunkulese People planning on buying the game day one may check the review before they go buy it and change their mind if the review is poor. People waiting for a good review probably won't be buying it day one anyway.

This pretty much, nice assessment.

It is dodgy, but if you take into account that Thq probably can't afford to not be careful and take every precaution.

X360 Magazine UK gave it a 90/100 and Game Masters UK an 88/100. Those two are the only two that show on Metacritic for the moment, at least.

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Truly harsh words.

@JoeyRavn said:

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Trully harsh words.

Man...there goes my pre-order. :(

@JoeyRavn said:

X360 Magazine UK gave it a 90/100 and Game Masters UK an 88/100. Those two are the only two that show on Metacritic for the moment, at least.

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Trully harsh words.

Wow... that's a really thought provoking review. I like how he mixes a few real words with random gibberish to provide commentary on the game and the industry as a whole.

Rent it today without buying it. You can rent a new game for like $10 at Blockbuster. Play it for a week and beat it. Take it back. If THQ can't play nice with reviewers, drop a rental on their balance sheet. You just saved $50.

Here's a review for ya: Got the game at midnight last night, played until 5am in the morning, I'm now at work at 9am and thought about calling in. It's really fun, and really good. 

my game is flying somewhere in america (hopefully) coming towards me... *sigh*

I hate this waiting game...

X360 Magazine UK gave it a 90/100 and Game Masters UK an 88/100. Those two are the only two that show on Metacritic for the moment, at least.

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Truly harsh words.

Hmmmm, why has it not been reviewed by anything other than shoddy magazines?

Could it be...it sucks.

Publications that buy the game on release can publish their reviews day one, right?

@scalpel said:

Publications that buy the game on release can publish their reviews day one, right?

That's not really enough time to properly play a game though. Especially with a long game like Darksiders II.

@MariachiMacabre said:

@JoeyRavn

X360 Magazine UK gave it a 90/100 and Game Masters UK an 88/100. Those two are the only two that show on Metacritic for the moment, at least.

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Truly harsh words.

Thanks for saving me $60, viverra4. Such a disappointment.

Aw man, drakeface is the worst! And sosnooleyy!? No thanks.

@Bobby_The_Great said:

Here's a review for ya: Got the game at midnight last night, played until 5am in the morning, I'm now at work at 9am and thought about calling in. It's really fun, and really good.

Nice, but not enough drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface.

I hope this isn't part of the new THQ.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@scalpel said:

Publications that buy the game on release can publish their reviews day one, right?

That's not really enough time to properly play a game though. Especially with a long game like Darksiders II.

Yeah, I'm just wondering about the details of the embargo thing. I'm assuming it's something you sign in order to get a pre-release review copy. Theoretically, a publication could deny the review copy, get their hands on a pre-release copy in some shady manner and publish their review whenever they want. Doesn't even have to be shady, seeing as any person could walk into a Gamestop and get a game early from some clueless clerk.

@scalpel: its about getting future games from the publisher. anyone can publish the review now, but they don't because they want to keep a good relationship with the publisher.

Another update from Kevin VanOrd:

Kevin VanOrd‏fiddlecub
Darksiders II review embargo lifts in 30 minutes. And then I can tell you why an embargo after this game was being sold was silly.

Do people really care if they break THQ's embargoes or not? I mean come on, they're not exactly in a negotiable position.

@Cincaid: I assume that means the game is going to get a fantastic review and THQ have only servered to make themselves look bad in this situation.

@Heltom92 said:

@JoeyRavn said:

X360 Magazine UK gave it a 90/100 and Game Masters UK an 88/100. Those two are the only two that show on Metacritic for the moment, at least.

Most worringly, though, is that viverra4 gave it a 0, arguing:

Fail of the year. grafon tonet, kinco tonet, vse tonet, sonyblyadi sosnooleyy. drakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakefacedrakeface

Trully harsh words.

Wow... that's a really thought provoking review. I like how he mixes a few real words with random gibberish to provide commentary on the game and the industry as a whole.

I like to think that the sheer level of terribleness of the game made him go into such a rage that he stroked out while writing his review.

@stinky said:

@scalpel: its about getting future games from the publisher. anyone can publish the review now, but they don't because they want to keep a good relationship with the publisher.

Getting games wouldn't be a problem provided you had a good source. I'd imagine a bigger concern would be not getting invited to events by the publisher etc.

I get embargoes on midnight of release day, but seriously? That's shady bullshit, and Darksiders deserves better.

@JerichoBlyth said:

Hmmmm, why has it not been reviewed by anything other than shoddy magazines?

Could it be...it sucks.

Yes, this is most likely the case. It has either too much or not enough #drakeface.

Phil Kollar gave it a 9 over on Polygon. http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/14/3229370/darksiders-2-review

Edit: IGN gave it a 7.5 http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/14/darksiders-ii-review

Gamespot 8.5 http://www.gamespot.com/darksiders-ii/reviews/darksiders-ii-review-6391200/

Destructoid 9 http://www.destructoid.com/review-darksiders-ii-232783.phtml

and Gameinformer 9 https://www.gameinformer.com/games/darksiders_ii/b/ps3/archive/2012/08/14/death-39-s-loving-embrace.aspx

9AM on the day of release is hardly a rare embargo time. Everyone should move to midnight EDT on day of release, but not everyone does. It's a struggle.

So think of this post the next time you go to post something about how the lack of reviews for a game seems "fishy." It isn't.

Are embargoes enforced by contracts that are signed to get pre-release copies? Is it a EULA sort of thing, where they say "If you play this copy we sent you, you implicitly agree to these terms:"? Or is it purely a matter of playing nice with the publishers?

@Jeff said:

9AM on the day of release is hardly a rare embargo time. Everyone should move to midnight EDT on day of release, but not everyone does. It's a struggle.

So think of this post the next time you go to post something about how the lack of reviews for a game seems "fishy." It isn't.

Out of curiosity - and this probably isn't the place for it, but whatever - do you have an idea of why publishers embargo reviews until the release day? I mean, I get it if they know the game was disappointing, but this hardly seems like a bad game. I mean, THQ isn't doing great financially, and I think a few positive reviews right before launch might help push some of those on the fence. Feel free to educate this fool.

@Jeff: It's also terribly understandable given THQ's position, they can't really afford any press coverage of any kind.

No news is good news it seems. Super stoked that it seems like they didn't mess up what was fun about the first game.

@Heltom92 said:

Wow... that's a really thought provoking review. I like how he mixes a few real words with random gibberish to provide commentary on the game and the industry as a whole.

@Cincaid said:

Man...there goes my pre-order. :(

You guys are my favorite. Followed.

@HatKing: I would assume it's fear that it's given negative reviews.

I think they want to see how much they can get with the hype that their marketing produced, and then if the game is well received maybe get a second wave of purchase. Day 1 purchases are mostly Pre-Orders anyway.

@Scrawnto said:

Are embargoes enforced by contracts that are signed to get pre-release copies? Is it a EULA sort of thing, where they say "If you play this copy we sent you, you implicitly agree to these terms:"? Or is it purely a matter of playing nice with the publishers?

Depends on the publisher. When I was working for my college newspaper, I got a pre-release copy of that awful Family Guy game for review along with a letter saying if we wanted to review the game, we would need to contact the PR rep before running it, and there was a not-so-subtle hint included in the packaging that if we gave it positive feedback, we would be put on a list to receive future titles for screening. The game came totally unsolicited, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Went home, put the game in PS2 and the game broke on the second level. We didn't write the review, publisher asked us why not and I had to write a nice email explaining that the copy we got (not a beta, btw, the actual thing they were releasing in two weeks) had a crippling bug. We never got video games from them ever again.

@Ravenlight said:

@Heltom92 said:

Wow... that's a really thought provoking review. I like how he mixes a few real words with random gibberish to provide commentary on the game and the industry as a whole.

@Cincaid said:

Man...there goes my pre-order. :(

You guys are my favorite. Followed.

And that's why I only consider the community of GB as my home on the internet =)

@Jackhole said:

Edit: IGN gave it a 7.5 http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/14/darksiders-ii-review

Gamespot 8.5 http://www.gamespot.com/darksiders-ii/reviews/darksiders-ii-review-6391200/

Ouch, that has to suck a giant dick. I think THQ had bigger expectations than that.

It's a good thing I've never relied on reviews. I know if I want a game or not, and I'm not waiting for a bunch of reviews telling me how good a game is before I go and get it.

@Grissefar: Seems IGN's only real complaint was how much it's "inspired" by other games, which I guess is a valid complaint, but it never really hurt my enjoyment of the first.

@HatKing said:

Out of curiosity - and this probably isn't the place for it, but whatever - do you have an idea of why publishers embargo reviews until the release day? I mean, I get it if they know the game was disappointing, but this hardly seems like a bad game. I mean, THQ isn't doing great financially, and I think a few positive reviews right before launch might help push some of those on the fence. Feel free to educate this fool.

If you break their rules I am sure they won't be sending you any more review copies.

@Jeff said:

9AM on the day of release is hardly a rare embargo time. Everyone should move to midnight EDT on day of release, but not everyone does. It's a struggle.

So think of this post the next time you go to post something about how the lack of reviews for a game seems "fishy." It isn't.

It just seems incredibly cheesy and gross. It totally may not be the case, but when you see some of the weird tactics taken by game publishers in the past, and a pretty decent ad campaign by THQ (followed by little to no news upon its launch), it's hard not to get suspicious.

Are they going to lose that many sales because they waited until later in the day for publications to post their reviews? It's a good game, from all I've read. They should be trying to get that news out as much as possible.

I'm probably missing something plainly obvious, but embargoes after the launch day are bad for the consumer.

IGN's review was hilarious. I don't know who that skirt was but she doesn't know shit.

@phrosnite said:

IGN's review was hilarious. I don't know who that skirt was but she doesn't know shit.

This. I don't know who Audrey Drake is, but whenever she gives her opinion about something, I always wonder why she's tasked to represent IGN's views with her reviews.

@Klei said:

@phrosnite said:

IGN's review was hilarious. I don't know who that skirt was but she doesn't know shit.

This. I don't know who Audrey Drake is, but whenever she gives her opinion about something, I always wonder why she's tasked to represent IGN's views with her reviews.

Hey, let's lay off the misogyny, okay? Who gives a shit if it was a female reviewer? Jesus.

@phrosnite: Not to say anything bad about her, but she was very quick to point out every single flaw with the game in the video review. It sort of felt like she was nitpicking, but I think overall, it just wasn't a game she liked to begin with.