Apparently, more than a few game sites have been told by game maker Atari that their low-scoring reviews of Alone in the Dark had to be taken down, but Atari has taken legal action for the first time. German website 4Players was told that they owed Atari compensation for writing a review based off a pirated version of the game; 4Players contends that they obtained their copy legally through a retail outlet. Atari also accused Gamer.no and GameReactor of writing based on pirated copies, but took no legal action.

Another review site, Gamer.nl, was recently told the same, and noted that "[Atari] explicitly told [Gamer.nl] that they only let high scoring reviews break the post-release embargo date." The Wii version of the game hits North America on June 24.

I can understand press embargoes and such, but the fact that low-scoring reviews are primarily targeted has to be nothing but bad press for Atari in the end.