I think it's been pretty clear for a while that IGN has been getting paid off. They consistently post the earliest reviews and clearly get advanced copies before anyone else - that simply doesn't happen by magic. If bribes were happening, then this would clearly benefit both parties. Publishers could ensure that the pre-release buzz for their product is positive maximising that all-important early take-in and the gaming site would see a huge influx of visits when it is the only one providing the opinion.

I'm sure they're still willing to call a spade a spade when push comes to shove, but if it's on the cusp, I bet they'd have no problem with either pushing up to an 8.0 (which seems to be the magic number for worth buying), or inflating it up in the magic 8.0 to 10.0 range if enough money were to change hands.

Maybe, this is just the ramblings of a paranoid but the whole Kane & Lynch fiasco, purely judgement based notions of what games deserve and this seems to all but confirm it in my mind:

http://www.gameswire.net/news/reviewer-odst-is-underwhelming_316.html

What would be interesting if someone did a comparative study on the major gaming review websites and the scores they give across different publishers, I would hardly be surprised if that confirmed it.

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