Maybe We Should Start Issuing More Press Releases

what on earth can they possibly say in ten pages about a super mario game.?

When I was a kid I would have eaten something like that up, because I couldn't afford the games, so I'd live vicariously through the magazines.. Yea.. that's pretty sad, but that's how it was.

10 pages? That must be some huge font. Does the nintendo fan base even have that kind of attention span? I know I don't.

So... I'm assuming they liked the game?

" Reminds me of the time that that one site ran a whole BUNCH of advertising for a game and some reviewer gave it 6 out of 10...   Keep fighting the good fight, Jeff. "

You should know this, Jeff Gerstman. Giantbomb reviews will only matter if you write 10 pages AND if you let everyone know in advance about them in a FANTASTIC PRESS RELEASE. More press releases please.

FINALY PROOVEN ONCE ND 4 ALL THAT GISNT BOMB IS BIAS AGAINST NINTENDO!
 
Seriously though, this is pretty awesome.

wow, can't imagine them ever giving anything Mario related a review below an 8/10

Mario pays our bills, Mario is amazing.

C'mon Jeff, be fair.  It's an 'official' publication and this kind of PR bullshit has been going on for ages.  Yes, it's overhyped and yes it's annoying but the industry needs PR just as much as peer review.

Before you judge others, improve your own work, please. Bias goes both ways, not only the positive side, and judging colleagues in this manner is pretty poor form and sounds like a desperate attempt to go all "look at me, I'm objective, they are not" similar to the whole GameSpot fiasco which you offer no details on yet are happy to let people think it happened one way or another to promote your new work (as if that would have been the very first and only instance you were asked to change a score in your long history there, if it really happened at all). Let the audience be the judge of who is or isn't objective and do your job, which is games coverage and criticism, not competitor/magazine criticism. That you've barely covered Galaxy 2 in the past, with just one (article) instance in its forum (that is actually about the game, unlike this piece) and that this is a most frequent occurence for plenty high profile Wii titles (hey guyz, Sakaguchi & Mistwalker are working on an RPG for it, and Monolith Soft on another, and we've known and have gotten information for them for months, and for the latter even already have had 4 trailers or so) tells me more about this place than the official Nintendo magazine covering Galaxy 2 a lot. Shit, it's a Nintendo magazine. Did you expect them to ignore it like you've been doing? Any Mario release is an event for all gamers, let alone those who are meant to thoroughly cover Nintendo. At the very least there are plenty more games and news (for all platforms) to cover before you should feel confident in having time to spare by trashing colleagues.

Not to mention your FAQ says you only "highlight the stuff that we feel is significant" so I guess I don't need to read your articles either, only the headlines and go "oh, that's significant" then, right? Or like when you said that you'll only have ads for "good" games, I guess when/if we see an ad on here we won't need to read a review, we'll just know it's a good game, eh? I mean, that's what you're implying here, that they hype it so much so we don't need their review to know their opinion, right? Duh, everyone knows SMG2 is going to be a great game, but given the review will be out earlier, people (not me personally) will read it to find out more about it and get themselves more excited and pass a few more minutes pleasantly happy about what's coming to them, not to know if it's going to be a game worthy of purchase. It's Super Mario Galaxy 2, duh. Anyway, I take it that when you get any kind of (timing based or not) exclusive coverage of anything at all, if anything at all, you won't urge people to pay attention because that's so totally outrageous to do, eh? Okay then, I look forward to not seeing that! Again, yes, they have hyperbole in their promotion, but it's not your place to judge that since there's a certain conflict of interest going on. Let the audience judge.

Obviously the magazine should give it a 7.7 and have an urban dictionary definition written about them, that is what the cool kids do

" possibly one of the first game I'll get on the Wii since it's release lol "

 Heck, for a release this monumental, they might as well just devote the entire book to it this month. And next month.    

This reminds me of reading a, like, six page review of Halo 2 in OXM back when I was in eighth grade and Halo 2 was coming out and holy shit it was the greatest thing ever. I enjoyed reading the review at the time, where Halomania (totally a word now) was at its peak. Then I played the game, and thought it was the best thing ever, and then, a couple years later, wanted to go back in time and punch my past self for being so foolish. Not necessarily because Halo is not as awesome as I thought it was back then (that too, though), but because I bought into the whole terrible mainstream "review score" thing.
 
What I'm trying to say is, while I agree with everything you wrote, Jeff, and I'm right there with you, 100%... think of who this is targeted at: the kind of people who staunchly defend the Wii as the greatest thing ever, were mostly born at least after the SNES came out, if not the N64, but wear triforce, NES controller "old school," and Super Mario Bros. 3 t-shirts from Hot Topic, and, who... well, got mad at your second-most-infamous review. These are the kind of people who will buy all six covers, read the entire ten-page review over and over and over until the game is released, play the released game once it comes out, and declare it to be the greatest thing ever. Anything less than the highest number on a given review scale will be considered heresy, and they will lash out against those who do so. 
 
Disclaimer: I've never played Super Mario Galaxy, but I'm sure it's pretty good, and the second one will probably be even better. Hell, now that I have a Wii, I may even pick it up. 
Another Disclaimer: It's after midnight here right now, and I'm prone to rant on the Internet during this time. Apologies in advance.

" Before you judge others, improve your own work, please. Bias goes both ways, not only the positive side, and judging colleagues in this manner is pretty poor form and sounds like a desperate attempt to go all "look at me, I'm objective, they are not" similar to the whole GameSpot fiasco which you offer no details on yet are happy to let people think it happened one way or another to promote your new work (as if that would have been the very first and only instance you were asked to change a score in your long history there, if it really happened at all). Let the audience be the judge of who is or isn't objective and do your job, which is games coverage and criticism, not competitor/magazine criticism. That you've barely covered Galaxy 2 in the past, with just one (article) instance in its forum (that is actually about the game, unlike this piece) and that this is a most frequent occurence for plenty high profile Wii titles (hey guyz, Sakaguchi & Mistwalker are working on an RPG for it, and Monolith Soft on another, and we've known and have gotten information for them for months, and for the latter even already have had 4 trailers or so) tells me more about this place than the official Nintendo magazine covering Galaxy 2 a lot. Shit, it's a Nintendo magazine. Did you expect them to ignore it like you've been doing? Any Mario release is an event for all gamers, let alone those who are meant to thoroughly cover Nintendo. At the very least there are plenty more games and news (for all platforms) to cover before you should feel confident in having time to spare by trashing colleagues.Not to mention your FAQ says you only "highlight the stuff that we feel is significant" so I guess I don't need to read your articles either, only the headlines and go "oh, that's significant" then, right? Or like when you said that you'll only have ads for "good" games, I guess when/if we see an ad on here we won't need to read a review, we'll just know it's a good game, eh? I mean, that's what you're implying here, that they hype it so much so we don't need their review to know their opinion, right? Duh, everyone knows SMG2 is going to be a great game, but given the review will be out earlier, people (not me personally) will read it to find out more about it and get themselves more excited and pass a few more minutes pleasantly happy about what's coming to them, not to know if it's going to be a game worthy of purchase. It's Super Mario Galaxy 2, duh. Anyway, I take it that when you get any kind of (timing based or not) exclusive coverage of anything at all, if anything at all, you won't urge people to pay attention because that's so totally outrageous to do, eh? Okay then, I look forward to not seeing that! Again, yes, they have hyperbole in their promotion, but it's not your place to judge that since there's a certain conflict of interest going on. Let the audience judge. "

I hate the idea that individual platforms have their own magazines. It's a gigantic conflict of interests. Personally it should be illegal. Kids are going to read the review and think it will be a serious and objective article, and will be totally unaware that the review was bought long before the game was even announced.

" Before you judge others, improve your own work, please. Bias goes both ways, not only the positive side, and judging colleagues in this manner is pretty poor form and sounds like a desperate attempt to go all "look at me, I'm objective, they are not" similar to the whole GameSpot fiasco which you offer no details on yet are happy to let people think it happened one way or another to promote your new work (as if that would have been the very first and only instance you were asked to change a score in your long history there, if it really happened at all). Let the audience be the judge of who is or isn't objective and do your job, which is games coverage and criticism, not competitor/magazine criticism. That you've barely covered Galaxy 2 in the past, with just one (article) instance in its forum (that is actually about the game, unlike this piece) and that this is a most frequent occurence for plenty high profile Wii titles (hey guyz, Sakaguchi & Mistwalker are working on an RPG for it, and Monolith Soft on another, and we've known and have gotten information for them for months, and for the latter even already have had 4 trailers or so) tells me more about this place than the official Nintendo magazine covering Galaxy 2 a lot. Shit, it's a Nintendo magazine. Did you expect them to ignore it like you've been doing? Any Mario release is an event for all gamers, let alone those who are meant to thoroughly cover Nintendo. At the very least there are plenty more games and news (for all platforms) to cover before you should feel confident in having time to spare by trashing colleagues.Not to mention your FAQ says you only "highlight the stuff that we feel is significant" so I guess I don't need to read your articles either, only the headlines and go "oh, that's significant" then, right? Or like when you said that you'll only have ads for "good" games, I guess when/if we see an ad on here we won't need to read a review, we'll just know it's a good game, eh? I mean, that's what you're implying here, that they hype it so much so we don't need their review to know their opinion, right? Duh, everyone knows SMG2 is going to be a great game, but given the review will be out earlier, people (not me personally) will read it to find out more about it and get themselves more excited and pass a few more minutes pleasantly happy about what's coming to them, not to know if it's going to be a game worthy of purchase. It's Super Mario Galaxy 2, duh. Anyway, I take it that when you get any kind of (timing based or not) exclusive coverage of anything at all, if anything at all, you won't urge people to pay attention because that's so totally outrageous to do, eh? Okay then, I look forward to not seeing that! Again, yes, they have hyperbole in their promotion, but it's not your place to judge that since there's a certain conflict of interest going on. Let the audience judge. "

You are being a dick but its well warranted and a funny read so no harm no foul.

JOURNALIST FIGHT!!!
 
I certainly don't envy the position of running a company-specific magazine, but I also wouldn't go as ridiculously far as ONM have.

Wow what a pile of dicks. Then again it's not like they make any claim to being non-partisan.
For funsies pretend that instead of SMG2 their talking about Wii Music.

Al3xander: +1. Well said.

So it's late at night and I just read a stupid forum post and I'm going to respond to it, bit by bit! 
 
@Al3xand3r said:

"Before you judge others, improve your own work, please. Bias goes both ways, not only the positive side, and judging colleagues in this manner is pretty poor form and sounds like a desperate attempt to go all "look at me, I'm objective, they are not"

"similar to the whole GameSpot fiasco which you offer no details on yet are happy to let people think it happened one way or another to promote your new work (as if that would have been the very first and only instance you were asked to change a score in your long history there, if it really happened at all)"    

"Let the audience be the judge of who is or isn't objective and do your job, which is games coverage and criticism, not competitor/magazine criticism."    

"That you've barely covered Galaxy 2 in the past, with just one (article) instance in its forum (that is actually about the game, unlike this piece) and that this is a most frequent occurence for plenty high profile Wii titles (hey guyz, Sakaguchi & Mistwalker are working on an RPG for it, and Monolith Soft onanother, and we've known and have gotten information for them for months, and for the latter even already have had 4 trailers or so) tells me more about this place than the official Nintendo magazine covering Galaxy 2 a lot."    

 "Shit, it's a Nintendo magazine. Did you expect them to ignore it like you've been doing?"    

 "Any Mario release is an event for all gamers, let alone those who are meant to thoroughly cover Nintendo. At the very least there are plenty more games and news (for all platforms) to cover before you should feel confident in having time to spare by trashing colleagues."    

 "Not to mention your FAQ says you only "highlight the stuff that we feel is significant" so I guess I don't need to read your articles either, only the headlines and go "oh, that's significant" then, right?"    

 "Or like when you said that you'll only have ads for "good" games, I guess when/if we see an ad on here we won't need to read a review, we'll just know it's a good game, eh?"    

 "I mean, that's what you're implying here, that they hype it so much so we don't need their review to know their opinion, right? Duh, everyone knows SMG2 is going to be a great game, but given the review will be out earlier, people (not me personally) will read it to find out more about it and get themselves more excited and pass a few more minutes pleasantly happy about what's coming to them, not to know if it's going to be a game worthy of purchase. It's Super Mario Galaxy 2, duh."    

  " Anyway, I take it that when you get any kind of (timing based or not) exclusive coverage of anything at all, if anything at all, you won't urge people to pay attention because that's so totally outrageous to do, eh? Okay then, I look forward to not seeing that! Again, yes, they have hyperbole in their promotion, but it's not your place to judge that since there's a certain conflict of interest going on. Let the audience judge. "

Cripes... 10 pages about a fucking Mario game? Why would anyone bother to even play the damn game at that point... it sounds like they're going to describe it in excruciating detail.  
 
10 pages of review... well now I'm curious what the word count is going to be. It'll either be 1000 words and a fuck-tonne of pictures, or 5000 words of shitty filler where some guy tries to say it's the video game equivalent of Casablanca. This madness needs to stop. 

lol, I like articles like this.

@takua, company specific or not, they're all 'journalists' in the same field, gaming, striving to keep a readership. Thus, they're competitors. Especially when we hear of so many mags closing down as users favor the free online media and we now have parts of said online media criticising print mags?

@twolines, I addressed that part as well.

@bones, what are you talking about? You do know the same company that publishes official nintendo mags has mags for all the companies as well as non-specific gaming mags, and the staff's paychecks don't come from Nintendo and the other first parties but from said company (which may, or may not, have agreements with all the first parties behind the scenes)? This isn't necessarily a "campaign" for the game, it's a campaign for the magazine, because said magazine needs a readership as well, thus they use a high profile title to attract readership. That is outrageous how? Because they have different covers to choose from and claim their mag/review is awesome? Wow, what a crime, noone else would ever think of pimping his product. Like Jeff said, they really want you to read it, ie buy the magazine, ie, ensure their paychecks, just like GB wants you to keep clicking these here pages. Again, everyone kows the game will be great, people like reading shit about shit they like and the mag is trying to offer that to keep running like any mag out there.

" @takua, company specific or not, they're all 'journalists' in the same field, gaming, striving to keep a readership. Thus, they're competitors.  

@bones, what are you talking about? You do know the same company that publishes official nintendo mags has mags for all the companies as well as non-specific gaming mags, and the staff's paychecks don't come from Nintendo and the other first parties but from said company (which may, or may not, have agreements with all the first parties behind the scenes)? This isn't necessarily a "campaign" for the game, it's a campaign for the magazine, because said magazine needs a readership as well, thus they use a high profile title to attract readership. That is outrageous how? Because they have different covers to choose from and claim their mag/review is awesome? Wow, what a crime, noone else would ever think of pimping his product. Like Jeff said, they really want you to read it. "

Nice response in theory but as you haven't even read the review, and neither has jeff, or bones, how could this be what he and you lot are against with these posts? How do you know the review has nothing but praise? How do you know that, if it does have nothing by praise, the game's not actually worthy of it? The first certainly was, for most people, and for those it wasn't I'm sure they could at least understand why it was to others and thus not blame them of fanboyism for enjoying it that much. In any case, if that is what you want to be against, you'd think you'd have to both read the review and play the game to know that they are conforming to beliefs you do not approve of BEFORE publically accusing them, as even if you end up being right in the end, you went about it the wrong way.

And what is console warsy about their magazine and in particular this promotion? Do they trash other companies or call you a loser if you don't have a DS or Wii? As people with actual experience with the mag said, it's far from fanboyish despite paying for the right to be called "official" (unless there are shady deals behind the scenes, that's the extent of such relationships usually), but hey, they tried to pimp their Galaxy review so that apparently warrants such bashing from Jeff, you and bones, eh? The only console warsy stuff I see is from people who respond to this comments section that apparently believe the game's not worthy of praise (praise they have yet to read, even) without playing it, which means that the magazine's review (still unread, as said already) is biased.

Edge gave the game a 10/10, are they biased as well, are they off the hook because they don't have Nintendo in their title, or what? As for your last paragraph, eh, what did you want them to do? You wanted the Official Nintendo Magazine or whatever it's called to NOT review Super Mario Galaxy 2 because everyone knows it's good? Or did you want them to not put it on the cover but just stick it in a little corner and not mention it? It's a big game, people like reading stuff about big games, mags and websites try to offer that to get a readership. Just like GB posts the "significant" stuff only (like this article, lol).

"This is why I love Giant Bomb and Jeff Gerstmann. Every Nintendo and Zelda fan is going on and on about Twilight Princess, and saying "best game ever, 10/10, 100%," and Jeff has the balls to say "Uh...no? It's seriously about... an 8.8 or so." Or take the Kane & Lynch thing. Gamespot had fucking full-page ads everywhere for the game, and, when it comes to review time... "Eh, the game kind of sucks, really. I didn't much care for it."

1. How are you seriously misunderstanding what I'm saying. Maybe I went too far in saying "every" fan, but every fan that was attacking the score was saying how it was heresy and the worst thing ever and how could you say that a game this great could only warrant a mere 8.8? (And who disliked WW? I'm no Nintendo follower, but I played WW and liked it a whole lot. Anyone who didn't at least like that game a little bit is truly crazy.)
2. I KNOW! This is what I am saying! This is what I love about Gerstmann! "Yeah, the game was pretty good, but definitely not the greatest game I've ever played or anything, and it has its flaws, so... 8.8/10." A perfectly valid position to be in, which is why the people attacking that situation were wrong, and dumb, and these are the sorts of people who will read ONM like this. 
3. If you see anything at all wrong with getting paid to pimp something that you think is cool, please, do tell. A few posts up I wrote this, but I guess I'll have to write it again: Publisher tells website to advertise game to users. Website likes game, agrees to do this. Website gets money, Publisher sells games, gets money, users, who have similar interests to website buy game, finding it to be good. Everyone wins! 
4. Okay, now you're either really, really thick, or just trolling. I was putting myself in the shoes of the sort of person who would pick up this ONM, and be drawn in by what they're doing (six covers, ten-page review, etc.), by using a game that I feel comparably excited for, and have comparable fanboyism for. I was explaining how that, given that situation, I would find the magazine's attempts to further foster my fanboyism and profit from it to be absolutely reprehensible. 

1. So every fan who was displeased with the score was a fan displeased with the score. Ok, lol.
2. Great, I'm sure he loves you too.
3. Lol, nope, nothing wrong with that. Unless they have Nintendo in their title and write more pages than I care to read. I guess.

Get used to Ninjaing, I don't change my points, just add to them, or edit for formatting purposes. Anyway, I'm done here. I stand by my first post and do not feel you or the others said anything meaningful against my original points. Feel free to disagree, have fun with what you do.

Damn, shit got heavy in here.

I'd just like to point out that these are basically paradigms of games magazines. Phrases like "the only review that matters" and stating a basic opinion on the front cover is something that occurs a lot. Just look at GamesMaster, or any console dedicated rag for that matter.

The UK Official Nintendo Magazine does give away some sweet swag with each issue though. Sod the magazine content! Gimme Nintendo fridge magnets!

" I'd just like to point out that these are basically paradigms of games magazines. Phrases like "the only review that matters" and stating a basic opinion on the front cover is something that occurs a lot. Just look at GamesMaster, or any console dedicated rag for that matter. "

And the month after, they will release a special edition of the magazine about just how awesome that 10 page review was. It will review that 10 page review in 20 pages, and there will be 6 different versions of that review of the review, each using a different icon for scores, like 5 of 5 mushrooms, turtle shells, stars, Mario hats, Princess Peach's Panties,  and most importantly, 5 of 5 power-gloves stroking a dick (which will look animated on the magazine if you tilt the fucker) indicating how big, superfluous and laughable a fucking circle-jerk this whole affair was.
 
Congratulations, Nintendo, (or to be fair, Nintendo's marketing/PR division), now go sodomize yourself, preferably with a fishing-rod shaped WiiMotion Plus controller and know that this shit didn't make me care one bit more for the shit you're putting out there.
 
Which doesn't mean I'm hating on Nintendo games per se. I'll happily try out Mario Galaxy some time and if it's anything like the previous title, it could be a lot of fun.

A staff member at Official Nintendo Magazine has responded in this thread: 

"Meh, whatever.

We'd rather wait for the opinions of people who actually read the magazine and then tell us if it's any good, rather than anyone giving the typical "official = biased lolz" reaction before the magazine's even out yet. I'd respond further, but we at ONM actually care about professionalism and so it's not our place to comment on other sites or magazines."  He has a point, you can't judge something that you haven't read. "

 @Jeff said:

"Lots of pointless stuff and this:  
Be sure to keep all that in mind when all of the other completely useless, unofficial, and non-exclusive reviews start hitting closer to the game's May 23 street date. "

What exactly is the point of this thread?  

Screw you all, I'm gonna write the only review that matters. And I don't even own a Wii.