jeff gerstmann

When deciding what game to spend their hard earned dollars on, players often turn to review sites for information if playable demos are not available. Naturally, one would hope that the writers for these review sites are remaining unbiased in their views of a game -- if it's wonderful, say as much, if it's flawed, point it out, and if it's absolute rubbish, leave it at the side of the curb for pickup.

Unfortunately, when the game in question is the same one that the front page of the website is devoting a banner ad and a full-background splash to, problems can arise. What began as a rumor across gaming forums worldwide last night has been all but confirmed early this morning -- GameSpot's editorial director, Jeff Gerstmann, has been fired for writing a negative review.

While the text-based review for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men certainly doesn't paint a sparkling picture of the game, it makes it seem like a AAA title compared to the brutally scathing video review. When many of the same written words are spoken, the context and inflection of "Kane & Lynch is an ugly, ugly game" and "if you have a chance to see it, take a look - but it's probably not worth the purchase" takes it down to a whole new (lower) level of garbage.

In a bit of prophetic cartooning, Penny Arcade posted a comic outside of their usual schedule (language may offend some) up last night, showing poor Mr. Gerstmann being asked if he understands the connection between the torrent of Kane & Lynch advertisements and the box of his possessions outside his locked office.

While Jeff has responded to Joystiq confirming his termination, he stated that he was "not really able to comment on the specifics of (his) termination" at this time. Joystiq has promised to continue digging, but already the Eidos forums have come under attack from legions of angry fans, which required them to be taken offline and restored to a snapshot from Thursday -- currently, some members are reporting that they are completely unable to post.

The Kane & Lynch user review score on GameSpot has also rapidly plummeted -- currently sitting at 3.9 -- as reviews of "1.0 - Abysmal" flood in from disgruntled users
Jeff Gerstmann
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Jeff Gerstmann
Born August 1, 1975 (1975-08-01) (age 32)
Los Angeles, California
Occupation Video Game Journalist
Nationality American
Website www.gamespot.com

Jeff Gerstmann (born August 1 1975) is the former editorial director of the popular gaming website GameSpot. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot (back when GameSpot separated PC and console games into completely separate entities). He shared his thoughts on a variety of other subjects every Monday on his GameSpot blog. He has also been quoted by the New York Times as a video game expert,[1] and says that he owns over 2000 games [2].

Founding member of the bands Headboard, The Suburban All-Stars, and Midnight Brown, Gerstmann has an extensive musical career that has earned him a fair amount of musical fame.

Jeff was largely part of the audio section of GameSpot. Most of the background music or intro music for shows is provided by instrumental tracks from Midnight Brown. In older video reviews at the end of the video the numerical score would be announced, Jeff also provided the voice for these scores. Additionally, Gerstmann's vocal stylings can be heard on the theme songs for Time Trotters (A single episode live-action series that was later revived in animated form), GameSpot's game show, Button Mashing, and Indievelopment: a video documentary following Echelon Software's progress on their game Black Powder Red Earth.

Gerstmann also appeared on ABC's T.V. show, Good Morning America as a guest in September 1999 to discuss the launch of Sega's Dreamcast gaming console.

The first game system Gerstmann owned was a Fairchild Channel F which his parents, who own an auto-repair and tire business, bought opposed to the Atari 2600 as there were some educational games available for it. After being ruined in a flood, he then purchased an Atari home computer.[3]

He replaced Rich Gallup as the host of On the Spot.

Jeff Gerstmann is no longer an employee of GameSpot as of November 29, 2007. His email address with the site has been confirmed by moderators with GameSpot to be deactivated. The details of his departure are yet unknown.

Trivia
He enjoys the music of hard rock band Van Halen, as evidenced by "The Bad" section of his review of Guitar Hero[4] stating that it has no songs from the band. He also stated in the "Greatest Games of All Time" section covering Lode Runner that when he first played the game when at age nine, all he did that summer was listen to Van Halen while playing his Atari 800.[5].
Purchased Garou: Mark of the Wolves on the Neo-Geo for about $1200.[6]
Two films he enjoys are Heat (1995) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), of which he bought an HD-DVD version before an HD-DVD player.
His favorite The Legend of Zelda game is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
In the credits of Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360, he is listed in the "Special Thanks" section as a beta tester.