While innocently looking for some discussion and info on one of my recent Wii purchases (Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces), I came across a small error published on the site by Gamespot.

To those who haven't played the game, and for those that have but not the particular Mission that the screenshot relates to, there would be nothing out of the ordinary here. But for those who have played the game thoroughly, or those who have payed attention to the game in one of it's more elementary missions, it would be clear that there has been a strange error published by Gamespot.

The image in question is as follows (note the caption copied verbatim from the page):

Varied mission goals include that WWII flight-sim standby: dam busting.

So what am I on about?

Well, the caption is incorrect, and has the indication of being made up after the fact. For starters, there is no dam-busting in Sky Crawlers. None at all.

How could the reviewer of made this mistake? Dam-busting can't even happen as a side effect in the game - no stray bombing will bust any dams, and all scenary in the game is 'indestructible'. Naughty, mischevious players have little to do in this game (contrary to say, GTAIV etc.)

It seems to me that the caption writer is a seperate author to the review writer, and has simply 'guessed' what the screen-shot is about: ("OK, there's a big target, there's a dam, there's a plane... Dam-busting it is!") Even a layman can see that the 'target' is actually a view-finder for a camera, and the box to the side of the screen labelled "Shutter Chance" gives a hint as well. (FYI, the mission is about photographing facilities. No bombing occurs).

So what does this matter?

Well the some of the implications are as follows:

• The reviewer is mistaken in the caption, and may have never played the game properly enough to comment accurately
• The reviewer and caption writer are different people
• The caption writer is mistaken and probably never played the game
• The screenshot and caption were lifted from another, poorly informed source

In any event, the review seems somehow invalid no matter which option you select from above. Are there other undetected errors that others have seen like this? Just how does Gamespot author their reviews? I can't think of an answer that explains the erroneous caption (as trivial as it may seem) that doesn't harm the review integrity.