As of today, Kojima Productions has announced that reviewers can disclose the length of cut-scenes and hard drive installation times in “Metal Gear Solid 4.”

Stephen Totilo revealed last week that several outlets were asked to sign NDAs forbidding them from discussing certain topics to play “MGS4″ ahead of release.

The news arrives from a letter sent to Kotaku from Kojima Productions assistant producer Ryan Payton. Reviewers are still asked to refrain from discussing specific plot points and not disclose certain product placements (i.e. Apple’s iPod).

“As a former writer, I’m proud of the discussion this topic has sparked,” he said. “I hope Adam [Sessler], [Stephen Totilo], and everybody else who covered this issue continue to be diligent about restrictions placed on media outlets.”

That said, Payton said the restrictions were for the fans. “I do, however, hope gamers can appreciate the efforts we go through to keep them protected from reviewers that could spoil some of the “MGS4″ experience,” he concluded.

Readers, are you happy with Kojima Production’s decision?

I thought it would be a fitting coda to my series on game reviews last week to share some thoughts from some top reviewers about second-guessing.

Could you imagine reviewing hundreds of games, filing each review just hours or maybe one day after finishing the game you were scoring? Don’t you think you’d second-guess yourself?

Well, the death threats used to give current Giant Bomb reviewer Jeff Gerstmann pause. And former GameSpot reviewer Alex Navarro, who said he has written about 700 reviews, could give me the number of reviews he regrets.

But, no, they don’t really second-guess.

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Since breaking the news on Friday that Konami was asking some reviewers of “Metal Gear Solid 4” to refrain from mentioning some technical details about the game in their reviews, I’ve been told that these requests were not made to all reviewers.

The editors of Game Informer and PlayStation: The Official Magazine have contacted me to say the Konami requested no restrictions of their reviewers.In both cases, an absence of any note mentioning these restrictions should be seen simply as a sign that no constraints were requested or agreed to.

Rob Smith, editor in chief of P:TOM told me some people have been skeptical about his outlet, since they ran the first “MGS4″ review, but he assured me they encountered no Konami constraints.

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The subject of how game companies communicate with game reviewers came up a few times while I interviewed former GameSpot reviewer Alex Navarro. And wouldn’t you know that, without missing a beat, he was able to produce a memorable note he received a couple of years ago.

This, he said, demonstrated the way the communication sometimes works. “I have a note in my hand that came from a PR person surrounding a certain Wii launch game,” Navarro told me. 

This is the note he was sent by a publicist whom he declined to name:

If the review is 9.0 or higher you can post immediately. Lower than 9.0, could you please hold until launch day, November 19th? Thanks.

“And that’s not the first time I got something like that,” he told me. Navarro said GameSpot ran their review for this game based on a copy bought in a store. And they panned it.

For much more about game reviews, check back all week to follow my reviews series here at MTV Multiplayer. Got a comment you can’t bring yourself to share below this post? Drop me an e-mail.

About a month ago I started interviewing people in the gaming industry about reviews. I’d read plenty of rants about the state of game reviews. But I wanted to know more. I wanted to do some reporting.

I wanted to ask some big questions:

• How much do game reviews matter to the people who make games?
• How exactly do bad game reviews affect the business of game making?
• What are the biggest problems reviewers face while doing their jobs?
• Why didn’t anyone — well, just about anyone — review “Ape Quest“?
• What’s the most ridiculous thing about the games review process?

I asked a lot more than that. And I found out plenty of information which I’ll be sharing all week. Read on for a schedule of the posts to come and some initial findings.

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Over the last couple of days, I exchanged a couple of e-mails with Jeff Gerstmann, former editorial director of GameSpot. His name has been big in the news ever since this last Thursday, November 29, when his dismissal from his decade-long tenure at site became public via Penny Arcade and Kotaku.

Gerstmann and I talked editorial standards and the extent to which he thinks gamers should expect advertising and editorial to be kept apart. And he indulged in my effort to do a little digging, urged on as I was by readers of this blog to find out if there has been a pattern of GameSpot reviews clashing — or, potentially worse, not clashing — with high-profile ad campaigns.

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation I had with Gerstmann:

If you’re running a publication and you’re comfortable running infomercials and advertorials, they should be clearly marked as such. If you’re covering a game that you have a vested interest in, that should be disclosed. And I think if you’re striving to deliver unbiased, honest coverage of an industry, you should spell out the policies and processes that you use to meet that goal.

We were talking about these things, of course, because the rumored reason for his termination from the company is that his unflattering reviews of games such as “Kane & Lynch” got him in hot water with his bosses. About that, he told me what he told Joystiq, that he cannot comment on the reasons for his dismissal.

And for the record, the reasons for Gerstmann’s dismissal are still just rumors. GameSpot parent CNET won’t comment on their current or former employees. A CNET spokesperson addressed my question last week about advertising pressures playing a role in this situation by stating, in part, that “For over a decade, GameSpot and the many members of its editorial team have produced thousands of unbiased reviews that have been a valuable resource for the gaming community.” My follow-up in which I re-asked whether “Kane & Lynch” publisher Eidos had any expectations for a favorable review has not been responded to, nor have repeated inquiries to Eidos. (I suggest checking out Kotaku’s latest reporting on this, in which they have an insider weigh in on what may have really happened).

Read on for the rest of my conversation with Gerstmann.

Also, see that chart up there? That’s the estimated traffic performance of GameSpot over the most recent seven-day stretch that the figures are available. Remember, this story broke on Nov 29. That’s when people on the Internet started talking about blacking out the site.

Note the lack of a dip.

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