I don’t know if you can call Phil Harrison a failure, so early into his tenure with Infogrames, now known as Atari, or is it the other way around? In any event, it looks like that Harrison has whatever you would call the exact opposite of the Midas Touch, as Atari’s lone foray into next gen gaming, Alone in the Dark, appears to be a miserable failure.
Not only does Alone in the Dark appear to be a huge failure, but now Atari is threatening to sue anybody that posts a poor review of the game. Check out the sordid details, after the jump…
Kotaku has reported that two Scandinavian sites, Gamer.no and Gamereactor, and one German site, 4Players, have reviewed the game and gave it scores of 3/10, 3/10 and a 6.8/10 respectively. Atari, apparently in their haste to draw as much attention to these bad reviews as possible, have threatened to sue the sites if they don’t take their reviews down, claiming that they obtained the copies illegally.
Gamer.no claims that their copy is a retail copy and as of the time of this post, hasn’t retracted or removed their review from their site, but I can’t read Norwegian, so, I can’t be sure… Heck, they could have a review up for doggie chew toys and I wouldn’t know the difference.
Anyway… Looks like the Atari savior is a huge flop. I haven’t played it yet, so I’ll reserve judgement, but if these scores hold up, I think Phil Harrison is regretting his decision to leave Sony right about now.
UPDATE: Gameindustry.biz has Atari’s latest statement, “We’re happy with the review scores in the UK,” a spokesperson explained. “We believe the game speaks for itself.”
This type of comedy writes itself…
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9 responses so far ↓
1 DazC91 // Jun 20, 2008 at 10:36 am
I’m really surprised at these scores i’m only on the 2nd chapter at the moment but i think it’s great so far
2 randomperson // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:10 am
Crap, Gamespot Scandal all over again.
3 Havok Saunders // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:40 am
Yea, the game speaks for itself. Too bad it is screaming “garbage” at the top of its lungs.
I was excited about this game, but if the terrible reviews continue to roll in, I might have to save my $60. Of course, with the PS3 version delayed until fall, I have plenty of time to make that decision.
4 mashedPenguin // Jun 20, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I just read Eurogamer’s (who I generally trust) review. It sounds like the thing that really lets the game down is the controls. They loved the setting and atmosphere. But found the controls horrific.
5 NarkJoe/ Sean // Jun 20, 2008 at 1:28 pm
It looked good, strange that it is reviewing so poorly. I will maybe rent it or read some of this reviews………unless they’re in another language.
6 crashcrazy // Jun 20, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Landmark passed, a number of sites are reporting this article.
Such as Gametrailers, Ign and ugh, Gamespot
7 GideonB // Jun 22, 2008 at 4:02 am
lol. Atari just want their game to sell. my friends at Gamestation said that no-one will buy that game. I think I can agree with that.
8 Tobitron // Jun 22, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I speak and read Norwegian, so here is Gamer.no response:
The review was posted on Wednesday morning, taken off on Wednesday afternoon, and put back up again on Thursday morning. Supposedly Atari was pushing the editors hard to remove the review. The sites had gotten their copies from stores rather than from Atari, who claimed thay had sent review copies (which never arrived) and claimed that the reviews were based on unauthorized verions of the game. Thus, Atari started screaming bloody murder and claimed that they had pirated an unfinished copy of the game. What’s strange is that Atari Nordic won’t reply to Gamer.no’s calls.
9 Bacon // Jun 23, 2008 at 9:42 am
Ha ha. Atari is so screwed…. Good thing too. Nobody liked them anyway!
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