14 DAY TRIAL // Sad day over at Gamespot as Jeff Gerstmann, executive editor at the CNET-owned website, has been laid off on the count of issuing a rather negative review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. Eidos of course has an ad contract with the renowned video games publication - the website's current Kane & Lynch: Dead Men skin. Need more pointers to make the connections?
Well if you do that's not going to happen. Not on our behalf anyway. Check out the image to the left (click to enlarge). As reported by Shacknews.com today, "popular webcomic Penny Arcade posted a strip about the alleged incident tonight, outside of its normal publishing schedule." Yup, there's your answer right there.
It was only a rumor when the news first hit the web, but, as it turns out, it's more than a reality. An update provided by Kotaku.com reveals the following: "Update: We did get confirmation that Mr. Gerstmann is no longer with Gamespot. The circumstances in which he was terminated or left of his own accord, however, were not disclosed."
You can imagine that a hot shot publisher, such as Eidos, threatening to pull its considerable ad contract, is reason enough to fire those who had something to do with it and while we're not glad that something like this has happened (the man did say what was on his mind, period), it's just life. Honestly now, you'd expect a company like Eidos to want a little respect for their game, using the website's platform to lay out their ads and stuff.
It seems that another Gamespot employee is leaving, voluntarily this time, in light of... something. The blog entry doesn't say, but you can check it out for yourselves right here. Not wanting to take any sides here, this is all we're going to reveal about this story (for the time being). As such, here's a small description of the Io Interactive-developed Kane & Lynch: Dead Men video game:
The game revolves around two men bound by circumstance as they wait on death row for their final sentence. One is a flawed mercenary, while the other is a medicated psychopath. As the game's plot says, the two are forced to embark on a violent and chaotic journey, hating each other every step of the way. "Tense" and "unpredictable" are the two words characterizing the game experience, which features a wide variety of intense 3rd person gameplay, intuitive combat and a two-player co-op mode.