Games Radar's Driver 3 review: a mini mystery
Return to Driver 3 II: Electric Boogaloo
As you might recall, one of Future's responses to Drivergate was to block all robots and archivers from Games Radar. For technical reasons, the earlier version of Games Radar (which was hosted on msn.co.uk for promotional purposes) escaped the ban. Tragically the forum post-dates the msn.co.uk incarnation, but I did find something bizarrely intriguing.
Shortly after publication in Official Playstation 2 Magazine, the review (as was customary for big name titles) was posted to Games Radar as its front page feature. Strangely though, if you examine the link ("Driv3r: the verdict") before clicking it, you'll see it isn't direct to the review but goes via advertising network ad.doubleclick.net.
The Doubleclick link itself is long dead (you can bypass it to reach the exclusive 90% review) and it's conceivable this was some kind of harmless counting mechanism, assuming that was one of Doubleclick's services. The Doubleclick element remains in the link for the whole time Driver 3 is the lead feature, so it's extremely unlikely to be a page design typo. But I've examined the MSN-Games Radar archive for several weeks from Driver 3 in both directions and can find no other example of an article link going via advertising network Doubleclick.
If anyone can help solve this mini mystery, write in (removing the falsebit).