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New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Onitore launched in Japan today as a package and download release. Unfortunately, Nintendo encountered a few issues as it fully immersed itself into the digital space.

Both titles went on sale at 9:00, but issues popped up almost immediately. Nintendo’s server information page states services related to the eShop were facing issues leading to downtime between 9:00 and 11:30.

Everything appears to be and running now, at least!

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If you’d like to read more about Ringabel, check out this story.

The Japanese release of New Super Mario Bros. 2 comes with reversible cover art. Can any readers out there confirm if this is/isn’t the case with European copies as well?

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It’s an interesting thing to “work” (it’s hardly work- more of a hobby I suppose) in the video gaming industry. All of the things I had questions about five years ago- how people got free games, whether you ever get tired of free games (you do), whether people gouge review scores intentionally, and so on and so forth- have now been answered. And you know what the most striking thing that I’ve learned over the last four years is? How difficult it is to give a game a bad review score. You have no idea how much I struggle with it, or how much I’m willing to bet others struggle with it.

When you’re someone “on the outside”, you just sort of assume that if YOU were in a position to review games you would be brutally honest and never let anything sway your decisions into bias. But it’s not that simple. It’s really not.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, because what I really want to talk about are things I think a lot of gamers ponder: How honest are review scores? Do outlets ever fudge them to get favors from a publisher? Do publishers ever discriminate against certain outlets to avoid getting bad press? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone come out and just tell it as honestly as they can, so (hopefully!) I can do an okay job of just that.

What follows is some insight- as honest as I can put it- from my limited perspective (along with some helpful commentary from the other side, courtesy of our good friend Jools Watsham!), to hopefully answer some of those questions you’ve discussed on message boards or with friends, angrily coming to the conclusion that the reviewing system is biased and unreliable.

And guess what; it is! Sort of.

Onwards to page number 2…

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Well, you can’t get much bigger than the Olympics! Of course, not everyone watching would know that’s a 3DS… but it’s still neat that it made an appearance.

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I was just saying the other day how frustrating it is that we still don’t know much about Darksiders II (and other Wii U games) even though Nintendo has a new console coming out in just a few months. You guys probably feel the same way, and so does Vigil Games, the developer of Darksiders II.

In a lengthy exchange with VideoGamer, Darksiders II lead designer Haydn Dalton talked about how he wishes he could just come out and talk about Wii U. There’s other talk about the console as well – the GamePad’s screen, developers supporting it down the road, and more.

We’ve posted the full Q&A with Dalton below.

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