Atari suing European gaming sites over negative Alone in the Dark reviews?

With so much riding on Alone in the Dark (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC), Atari seems to be doing all it can to ensure that the game becomes a success. But has the company really resorted to firing off lawsuits in order to quash negative reviews of the game’s Xbox 360 version? More in the full article.

Reports have come in saying that Atari has sued a German gaming site who published a negative review of Alone in the Dark (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC). The reason? Atari is reportedly implying that the review was based on a pirated Xbox 360 copy of the game.

4Players, the website that Atari is suing, published the review before the game’s June 20 European street date. 4Players has contended that it obtained a copy of the game early by way of a retailer. Atari has also reportedly canceled plans to run an ad campaign on the website.

Atari also made similar complaints to other European gaming sites. Gamer.no, a Norwegian site, was asked to pull its 3/10 review shortly after it was published. Scandinavian site GameReactor was also asked to remove its own 3/10 review of the game.

Dutch gaming site Gamer.nl was also asked to remove their own 5/10 review of Alone in the Dark. Atari reportedly contacted the site shortly after the review went live, claiming an embargo until Friday.

“Our review copy was sent directly to us by Atari and [was] not a pirated copy,” said Gamer.nl staffer Erwin Bergervoet. “They explicitly told [Gamer.nl] that they only let high scoring reviews break the post-release embargo date.”

Atari has refused to comment on the issue. The company has a lot riding on the success of Alone in the Dark, which so far has garnered an average review score of 69 based on six reviews according to Metacritic.

The game’s Xbox 360, Wii, and PC versions are slated to hit North America on June 24, with the PlayStation 3 version scheduled for Fall.

Via ShackNews