Back in the days between Half-Life 1 and 2, the pre-release hype over 2 was stratospheric. Everyone wanted an interview with Valve, and better if Gabe was there.
Valve were careful in who they let see the game, and journos had an hour in a room with a rep and a dev from Valve to see the game in action. Some hands-on was permitted. Lots of copy-cat reviews started to appear in print.
At the time, I occasionally contributed articles to a now defunct online video gaming ‘magazine’, who’d been denied access to experience this fabled Valve HL2 demo. Tried and tried, but they just weren’t big enough.
The mag was peeved. I offered to write up a sort of prank review. The premise was that I’d been allowed to play the last level. My description and narrative of it, for those who had long memories of video gaming, would have led the reader to realise by the end of the page that I had described a 3D FPS version of Donkey Kong, where Freeman was Mario.
It essentially sent up the ending of HL1, which was a ‘how high can you try?’ pixel-perfect jump-fest and a very incongruous addition to an otherwise excellent game.
The editor, who was as long in the tooth as I was, thought it was hilarious and ran it.
Gabe Newell/Valve PR didn’t like it. Neither did all the puzzled, expectant fans. Neither did the editor, when the backlash began….
I was never asked to contribute again.