Game I didn't like gets good reviews? Bribe.
Game I like didn't get good reviews? Didn't bribe.

Stop playing damage control. People didn't like the game because it's crap and the jokes are bad.

Bribery most certainly does go on in games journalism be it directly with paid holidays or indirectly through advertising fees. PC Gamer Dragon Age 2 - 94% l-o-l

You're trolling right? Have you even read the reviews?

It's not a matter of games I didn't like getting good reviews, it's a matter of how the industry works. Give the game a good review so that the publisher will continue to advertise. It's been pretty well established that reviewers aren't always particularly neutral when ad revenue is at stake.

Plus, it's not damage control to point out how incompetent some of these reviews are. The Joystiq "review" consisted of a full page diatribe about how terrible the game was, without actually giving the reader any actual justification for why it's a terrible game.

Yeah, it's not blatant but there have been enough leaks and comments to know it happens. Plus it is just common sense... you depend on review copies, interviews and previews to survive. If publishers don't like you they won't offer these things. Simple.

The same thing happens in all media... no one calls politicians on their bullshit because they need them to do their Sunday shows. No one calls movie stars on their shit because they need them to do their talk shows. And on, and on, and on...

Movie critics are arguably immune because they don't do previews and shit, Roger Ebert's paper pays for his movie ticket and he writes what he thinks. And oh look, movie reviews tend to be more realistic and have lower averages.

Oh please, DNF advertising is all over, and that's what the "bribes" are. DNF just appears to be so bad that they wouldn't even give a good score to it while raking in advertising revenue. There's a reason there was an embargo on reviews until the game came out. It's bad. The game is bad. I don't know where you get your blind faith about the game, since you don't appear to have played it, but there's a consensus among reviewers, and that is that it's bad. Or are you going to accuse RPS and TotalBiscuit of receiving bribes as well?

With movie reviews it's relatively easy to find someone you usually agree with and follow their advice most of the time. I have yet to find a game reviewer I feel that way about. Brad Shoemaker on giantbomb is probably the closest, but nowhere near 100%.

I'm lazier, I just adjust my interpretations to match the genre. If it's a Wayan's brothers movie, I won't watch it unless it's got fewer than 2 stars. Which worked up until several years back. These days I just don't watch them at all.

I don't personally mind that some of my favorite movies received one or fewer stars. Or that Red Dwarf was given negative stars by a reviewer. I mean, negative stars, if I'm going to be pissed by a bad review, I think giving negative stars to such an obviously brilliant series would do it.

It helps that movie reviewers actually explain somewhat objectively the merits and intents of the movies. They might not like it, but they typically do a good job of letting you know if YOU would like it.

Game reviewers absolutely without question are terrible at this.

Precisely. The PC Gamer review I saw was pretty decent in that respect. I'd like to read several more reviews written in that general style because at least I had a sense of why the parts of the game he didn't like were bad in his view. Most of the other reviews I've seen have been highly charged editorials which were clearly going for clicks rather than information. Those particular reviews are the sort that Pitchford was likely referencing when he suggested that the readers would hold them accountable for bad reviews.

Most reviews I've seen have just been atrocious narrating of what's happening. "He went here, this is where the boss was, it was kinda hard, then this happens, repeat until word count is finished." This is fine with the game mechanics, UI, control, but when it comes to narrative, almost universally I have failed to see anyone try to deconstruct or dig into the story. You get a few gems here and there, but for the most part, I have to wonder if their training consists of two weeks of journalism 101 and glancing over the syllabus for creative writing.

You're being generous. Journalism 101 typically includes the topics of editorializing and journalistic integrity. You can never completely separate yourself from the subject matter, but you should be keeping yourself as far out of the story as possible.