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"Am I missing the point with these reviews"

My daughter wants to get Ecco (sorry can't account for tastes here - that's not the point)- The game isn't out for another week or so yet it has two customer reviews against it - how - you cant buy it yet ? I have seen this happen before many times and am always perplexed - good word considering I'm now of home.

but you can still win off a demo review, it takes most of the games main points and then with my knowledge of MGS2 alreday then i can write a review on it.

There you go - your review will only be a review of the demo not a review of the actual game itself - you cannot give us an opinion of how the later levels play and how the story unfolds and what appears to be the main downer of the game how the cut scenes blend in and do they really take up too much time. You cannot give an unbiased opinion of the whole game without playing the whole game - you will not be in a position to finish your review with details like how long the long the game will take to play through and wether or not it is value for money and wether or not the whole game has any replay value to it - I am not saying that MGS2 is not any of these but just stating that a review compiled on the basis of the demo only will not be able to provide this information.

ye ihave just reviewed mgs2 because i have the demo and i have played it looking for fine details to put in my review, thats not out til march 8th.

I agree with nh on this one.

A review is supposed to be your opinion on what you felt was good/bad about a game/movie/book.
By rehashing someone else's stuff, you can't add anything genuine to it simply because you have no experience.

They should be called "previews" not "reviews" due to the lack of personal input.

They could have done the review from a OPSM2 playable demo...

He could have it on import

I take your point but - read the review of Ecco on PS2 by AntoC - he says he has bought the game and played it - which he can't have done - and is basing his review on that. Customer reviews are supposed to be exactly that - customer reviews which means they are reviews completed by people who have played the game and can therefore form their own opinion on the actual game, this can not be done by just researching other game magazine, publisher and producers sites. All this is doing is copying and pasting other peoples work to make what looks like a good informed review.

I agree with adrian here. It is completely possible to go and find out all the info you need to make a respectable review. Personally I`ve only ever once written a "preview" as a review, and tend to stick to writing the review once the game is complete, however there`s nothing wrong with doing loads of research into news articles, other sites` previews, and of course the website of the developers and then on top of that, playing demos, and watching rolling demos, and then forming your own review from that.

nh wrote:
> Just what I was thinking - they must be ripping of the reviews from somewhere
> else just to con themselves to a win - Special Reserve shouldn't allow it !

There not ripping the reviews from anywhere as SR would know. Its pretty easy to write a review of a game thats not out. I could write one about Halo, Project Gotham, Dead Or Alive 3, Final Fantasy 10, Metal Gear Solid 2, Jet Set Radio Future e.t.c. as I have read lots about these games. Reviews can be written with knowledge of a game, and not any experience of playing the game. But in the case with Ecco the DC version has been out for over a year, so people who own the DC version could write a review for the PS2 version.

They do though, its advertising games that are not out yet and gets them potential buyers to pay. Kind of unfair on the 'real' reviewers though.