No Man’s Sky was not broken. For what it was, it was well made, and it was compelling. The trouble is that it was never sold for what it was, it was sold for something greater than that that the developers never delivered on. That’s the cause of the backlash.
I assessed No Man’s Sky as the game that it was- and I stand by my assessment of it. As a space exploration game, I think it deserved an 8.

Why exactly is Bethesda bad? When have they ever lied?

You know what? I agree with them too. It is my job to review games for a living, but I support them, I think they have their finger on the pulse of the industry. And it’s not like they’re trying to cut out any early media or impressions of their games, either- YouTubers and Twitch streamers will still get their games early. It’s just traditional games media that’s being bypassed, and I’m not sure I can disagree with their reasoning.

Three things:

a) The No Man’s Sky review and the Gears of War 4 review were both done by different reviewers on this site. I was the one who reviewed No Man’s Sky, and I stand by my score for it- I felt it was a game that was worth its 8, and that was great in spite of all the controversy that surrounded it. Also, if I had reviewed Gears 4, it would have received a 9 from me. Ravi naturally did not enjoy it as much as I did, and that’s a shame- but he is entitled to his opinion about Gears 4, and I am entitled to mine about No Man’s Sky

b) If I was so hellbent on trying to sweep No Man’s Sky’s issues under the rug, then I wouldn’t have written this piece where I specifically not only call the game, its issues, its hype and marketing, and its developers out on what they did, but I also flat out admit that I scored the game an 8- in fact, I lead with that. That is hardly ‘sweeping it under the rug.’

c) Reviews are ultimately opinions. Your opinions are not always going to align with mine, or anybody else’s for that matter. You can’t blindly assume you will like a game because a reviewer liked or disliked it. Ultimately, it’s the aggregate of multiple opinions that will tell you whether or not a game may be worth your attention- and even then, the majority can disagree with you (as an example, I hate Skyward Sword and Uncharted 3, but most people seem to love them).

Behold, the Xgimp siding with one of the worst publishers in terms of bad practices and lying in the industry. Figures as much.

Not sure how I feel about the whole Bethesda thing yet…but I wholeheartedly agree with you about how corrupt the media has become. They’ve followed mainstream media (politics) to a tee.

What I do now is just watch one of my favorite YouTuber reviewers (ACG) and be done with it.

100% agree

Gaming “journalism” has become as bad as regular “journalism.”

And this is why i support bathesda in their decision to pretty much cut the head off the snake which is the review system.
It needs to die because its so corrupt at this point , its extremely hard to tell who’s trustworthy or not…
Its time gamers start trusting their own opinions vs sites with shady practices