A Scintillating Symphony of Sycophancy!

I never wanted to work in marketing. I��m no glad-handing, gregarious quipster shill who can charm and con the public. In fact, one perkily perspicacious PR pooh-bah once posited, "The cool thing about you, Robert, is that you say what you think." Which was her way of not saying what she thinks: "The thing about you, Robert, is that your people skills are so atrocious, you practically qualify for handicapped parking." But somehow, in spite of an inability to sway people to my way of thinking without resorting to chloroform, a good 23 minutes with a lovingly rusted EZ-Grip vegetable peeler, and a hatbox full of smothered squirrels, I have been converted into a company shill.

"A breathtaking, original ballet of death." That��s the quote. I came up with it while writing CGW��s Max Payne 2 cover story a few months ago, and now, because the catchphrase gurus at Rockstar Games decided that "So much like the first game, you may not notice the difference!" might not be the most effective selling point, everywhere I look, those hyperbolic words come back to haunt me. Every friggin�� ad for the game, be it in game magazines, general-interest magazines, gaming websites, www.hotcoedshower.com��even the godforsaken game box��has that one single line pulled out as a glowing endorsement of this game. For me, the month following the release of this game has felt like this: A breathtaking, original ballet of death. A breathtaking, original ballet of death. A breathtaking, original ballet of death.

But here��s the thing��the litter of money pigs encouraging you to line their feeding trough with your dollars is using a line from a preview as if it were from a review, twisting optimistic early speculation and presenting it as if it were a glowing endorsement of the final product. Now, you might think I��m splitting hairs, but there is a huge difference here: It��s the difference between commenting on a baby��s ultrasound and the finished product. "Beautiful and full of possibility!" can easily turn into "Two heads means double the kisses!" when that joyous bundle is finally released.

Not that I don��t like or wouldn��t recommend the game. It��s perfectly fine. But I don��t think "It��s perfectly fine!" is exactly what Rockstar is looking for on its box cover. And odds are "I loved it the moment I started playing it��three years ago!" or "I lost interest halfway through Chapter 2!" aren��t exactly the company��s dream quotes, either, and that��s why no one there bothered asking what I thought about the finished product. I understand the inclination to go with the snazzier quip��it just makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Now, Gene Shalit may be happy blurbing every flick with a halfway-decent buffet at the press junket, and Roger Ebert may not mind having his increasingly dubious thumb and nose well up every studio��s ass and trumpeted on every full-page ad, but that��s not who I want to be. And that��s not what I want CGW to be. I don��t like being taken out of context, I don��t like the gnawing feeling of watching what I say and write, and I don��t like worrying about getting excited about a game before its release because some clod looking for a holiday bonus wants to subtly misrepresent me and this magazine. It��s not like we hated this game��we gave Max Payne 2 four and a half stars, for cryin�� out loud. There are plenty of kind words in the review, which is based on the actual finished product, which is what Rockstar is actually trying to sell people, which is why those words are more valid��which is why Rockstar��s current campaign is disingenuous. It��s just not right to use words from a preview to build hype post-ship. Man alive, I wrote nice things about Daikatana in previews. Daikatana! Say what you will about John Romero, et al.��at least they didn��t put positive preview quotes on their game box. (Of course, they didn��t put "Makes you want to punch the developers in the face!" on the game box, either.)

Ultimately, there��s not much I can do here. I could try to avoid writing breathless hype about unreleased games, and while there��s definitely a good lesson to be learned there, the fact is that we��I, the editorial staff, and all two of you reading this��are die-hard game fans who enjoy the excited anticipation of games almost as much as we enjoy playing them. Quashing that would be awful��I��d like to fully enjoy my hobby while I can, thank you, and judging by the all-het-up nature of most of our reader mail, I��m guessing you would, too. Besides, if you want brittle, joyless takes on upcoming games, you��ve got options out there, believe me.

To be safe, I��m going to start hedging my bets. If I liberally pepper my previews with lots of exclamation points and quotes such as "Probably won��t totally suck!" and "Not the worst game in history!" then maybe I can still convey a sense of excitement��and maybe, just maybe, the publishers will have to play fair and wait for the review.

Robert Coffey robert_coffey@ziffdavis.com

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.