First we get the controversy at IGN that Matt Casamassia brings up. I think after watching the video of the Roundtable he was referring to, he has some very valid points.
However, Gamespot sometimes has some strange caveats as well. Take a look at Brad Shoemaker's recent contradiction about the Zelda title, for instance:
Gamespot's Most Anticipated Games: 2005 (written in 2004):
Confession time: I'm glad the new Zelda isn't cel-shaded. The Wind Waker was an incredible game that completely succeeded at what it attempted to do. There's a reason we awarded it Game of the Year in 2003, after all. It came closer to a living, breathing animated film than any other game I've ever seen. Same great Zelda formula and one-of-a-kind visuals... It's not that I didn't appreciate The Wind Waker's fanciful reimagining of the Zelda universe; I just like the Nintendo 64 Zeldas even more. The Ocarina of Time remains one of my all-time favorite games, even six years after its release, and that's saying something. To think that Nintendo is now going to revisit the same style with its next Zelda. Well, the thrill is palpable.
Now take a look at his comments in the 2007 version of the same annual feature:
Gamespot's Most Anticipated: 2007 (written very recently):
The 2004 announcement of Twilight Princess and its realistic visual style was great wish fulfillment for a lot of diehard Zelda fans, but to me it just felt like backpedaling on the part of Nintendo. The company made a bold move in conceiving The Wind Waker's childish, cartoonlike graphics (which admittedly received an ambivalent response), but I thought the game's visuals represented a pleasing evolution of the similarly colorful graphics in past games like the resplendent Link to the Past. So I was disappointed to see Nintendo move away from The Wind Waker's style so quickly--and then just as delighted to find out last year that a new Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass, would reprise that whimsical approach on the DS.
I hate to bring this up because it sounds very much like I am splitting hairs. I mean, anybody has a right to change their mind. So, I almost didn't post this. But then I read it again, this time a little closer. Look at what he says. He's saying in early 2007 that his reaction to the news that the next console Zelda game wouldn't be cell-shaded was a disappointment, and constituted "backpedaling on the part of Nintendo", and he's basically saying that was his opinion in 2004 as well. But reading his comments from 2004, basically from the same feature, he says the exact opposite. He isn't saying that his mind has changed since then. He's saying that's been his opinion on it all along.
Will the real Brad Shoemaker please stand up?!?
I hope I am not making too much out of this. I was reading this new feature tonight and something about his words bugged me. It took me almost an hour to remember that he was the very guy saying the opposite in late 2004. And it took me almost as long as that again just to find the page where he said it.