Speed Writing

This morn, having forgotten my MP3 player and being too lazy to go back up the stairs to get it, I resigned myself to local radio. Halfway through, a guy talked about how great the new Formula 1 game is, as part of a competition to win a copy.

All of which got me thinking. In the last week, I've read a large number of complaints of this very game on various forums, all contrasting to numerous positive reviews in the mainstream gaming media. Numerous bugs have been reported, including one which stops some of your opponents having to do their compulsory pit stop, all adding up to some very angry gamers. I was glad to read these, as I had been considering purchasing a copy, after enjoying the F1 season so far.

All this confirms my suspicion and disillusionment with gaming journalism, which is a shame as my journalistic ambitions were probably fired by Your Sinclair, of which I was a loyal reader from the late 80s till it's death. It was a brilliant magazine, full of in-jokes and absurd humour that still appealed to my youthful self. Recently, I went over some articles at the wonderful "Your Sinclair - The Rock and Roll Years" website and was surprised at how much it still stood up. I've subsequently nicked loads of the reader's jokes from the 'Kindly Leave The Stage' section.

Yet now, it appears a lot of gaming magazines are firmly in the pocket of games developers. Exclusive previews given on certain 'understandings' about subsequent reviews. Nothing unique there, of course, as the music industry has long since did the same. But it's still depressing to see that the huge issues with the F1 2010 game were overlooked and 9/10 reviews dished out wholesale - journalists may well claim they were 'promised' that the bugs would be remedied before sale, as happened with one very infamous case several years ago that noted games hack Stuart Campbell discovered.

Not that any of this will concern Codemasters (the company behind the game) too much, as it's a cert copies will have shifted by the truckload. From my perspective, I just hope the people behind the long awaited Gran Turismo 5 have managed to keep some sense of ethics and pride in their work.