If you're a gamer - and if you're reading these words it's a fairly safe bet that you are - it's almost impossible to have missed the news that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is out today. Reviews for the game have been coming online over the last 24 hours, and by all accounts it's looking very good.

So where is Gameplanet's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare review? Initially, that was going to be the subject of this Editor's Blog and the answer is pretty straightforward, but as the team talked about it internally it dovetailed into another discussion altogether.

The short answer is that our review is underway now and we'll get it up as soon as we can. The reason many other publications have reviews up and we don't is because they got a significant head start by accepting an invitation to travel to the United States at Activision's expense and to review the game at an event there.

Gameplanet was also invited to attend but we turned the opportunity down. We've turned down similar trips for many years.

With that said, we've recently begun to debate amongst ourselves what might be in the best interests of you, our readers. Is it better to have an accurate review up in a timely fashion that helps you to make an informed decision as soon as possible, or is it preferable to produce a review late with the ironclad assurance that it was carried out in conditions similar to those you'll experience at home?

There's no easy answer. Taking a peek behind the curtain, the numbers strongly suggest you prefer "day one" reviews over reviews that come in late, but the numbers alone don't tell us everything. Not even close.

After much internal discussion, we've decided that we will begin to accept these invitations, but that we'll make very clear, highly visible disclosures whenever it occurs. In addition, we'll hold off on publishing or scoring a review if there are important factors that need to be tested outside of artificial event conditions, for example public server stability.

In fact, these kinds of disclosures are something we will be much better at going forward. Occasionally, Gameplanet is invited to travel internationally at a publisher's expense to look at video games before they're released, and I'm proud of the high-quality, fair content that Gameplanet writers have always produced on the back of these opportunities. Nonetheless we will now always disclose when a third party has paid any of our expenses, whether in part or in full. We've always stood by the veracity of our editorial, but by adding these clear disclosures wherever necessary you can be even more confident that your scrutiny phasers are calibrated to be deadly accurate.

You can read more about Gameplanet's editorial policy here.

Oh, and by the way, expect plenty more of these Editor's Blogs from both Matt Maguire and myself. We very rarely discuss what's going on behind the scenes at Gameplanet, and we intend to change that. We want you to know where the site is going, and we want to hear your views on it so that you can help us to shape its future together.

I really want to hear your thoughts on this subject in the comments below. You can also reach me directly on Twitter @CullinaneJames, or the entire team @Gameplanet. I'll also be keeping an eye on Facebook at Gameplanet NZ, and you can always drop us an email. If you have an opinion please share it with us. We want to hear from you.