It seems that Kotaku's Brian Crecente may have created a repeat of the infamous Jeff Gerstmann 8.8 debacle with his review of Halo 3. The review ended by saying that while it was immensely enjoyable, the game didn't quite live up to all the hype surrounding it. A synopsis of sorts was later posted; listing a score of 87.5 or rounded off: 88/8.8. Now I don't know the man, nor have I really kept up with his writings, so I can't say if it was an intentional reference. It's possible, since he claims that he normally doesn't like to use numbers in his work for more community oriented sites like Kotaku --which is understandable, since it's a different writing experience when your audience is figuratively right there in front of you.

There likely won't be a huge backlash since Kotaku isn't seen in quite the same light as Gamespot is in terms of being a reviewing authority, but unrest is already brewing on forums and the picture at the top of this entry was presumably created to preempt what the artist figured would be the ensuing shit storm.

Frankly, it's ridiculous that people go and read reviews when they've already got a preconceived notion of what score the game should receive. It's like they need to re-affirm their purchase so badly that they're willing to crucify any reviewer who doesn't do just that. I realize that there are times when it's obvious that a game is being reviewed by someone who doesn't have the qualifications to be doing so (or sometimes just plain doesn't like the genre, as was the case in several old Gameplayers reviews in the early-mid 90s), but 8.8 is never a bad score and at least up here in Canadia, it means the game got a solid A.