Posts filed under 'Gaming'
So, the last two months have been incredibly crazy for me. To say that they haven’t been life changing would, quite simply, be profoundly incorrect. Alas, I wish I could tell you all about it right now, but I can’t. I don’t have the time for it, the chapter in my life isn’t complete yet, the story isn’t yet ready to be told, and quite simply, I don’t want to talk about it all just yet. So what the hell am I writing about?
Well, this! AllisBrawl.com
This has been a project I’ve been working on for the past six months or so. On and off for most of it, but pretty hardcore the last couple months. I’m very proud of my work on it and I think it’s phenomenal. It’s a new site dedicated to Smash Bros., particularly for Smash Bros. Brawl. Quite simply, it is the most full-featured and dedicated site for any one game made completely and entirely by less than a handful of fans.
There is nothing I can say here that can’t be accomplished by simply going to the site and checking it out, so please do so. It is the fruit of a lot of my effort the past few months, and will be the portal of a lot of my other efforts in the coming months. It uses some of the latest and cutting-edge technology available for web developers, and not only was it exciting, but it was fun! The site went live Monday, February 18th, 2008, a day that will go down in infamy. In only a week it has had over 400 unique visitors, and almost 60,000 pageviews. We hope you enjoy this, and look forward to your feedback! Welcome to the new face of Smash fandom.
February 26th, 2008
by Anuj
Smash got delayed. Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh thank you god. Ok, so I’m probably one of probably three people saying this in the world, but I have a lot of reasons to say so. Some of which I can’t say, some of which I don’t want to say, but I’m glad. There are some reasons I can say though. Like one, it was coming out at an inconvenient time. Two, I was going to be out of town and so I would be missing launch. Three, there are other games coming out around the same time that I want to play that I’ll now have time for relatively close to launch. And also, I wanted an excuse to post this video.
I guess I could talk about my trip out of town a bit more. Well, I’ll be going to India for a family wedding. I’d be leaving Friday Night Feb. 25th and returning Sunday Night Feb. 10th. It should be an amazing trip and I’m looking forward to it. To be honest, the time bracket in which it falls couldn’t be more inconvenient, but what are you gonna do. It’s all fun and good stuff. I remember about 6 months ago where for about 3 months straight I had something or another going on every weekend and it was all fun stuff, but I was getting exhausted not being able to just sit down and relax and play some video games. I guess we’ll have something like this going again… but I’ll definitely make time for video games.
January 15th, 2008
by Anuj
I found this great new game that I think everyone would find interest in if they are into this kind of thing. It’s called the simExchange and it’s like play-stock market for gamers… well more specifically for gamers that are interested in the “politics” of games. In essence it tracks NPD data for most games in the current generation on a monthly and a lifetime setting. It also tracks the Metacritic score a game will get.
So in essence you are buying stock in a game and investing in it. You play with play money called DKP where 1DKP = 10,000 sales of a game or 1 Metacritic score. If you think a game will do well, you buy buy buy! If you think it will do worse than it is projected at the moment, you sell sell sell! And like the stock market, it’s all based on “investor” interactions where the current “price” is based on their selling and buying tendencies; take a look at how Super Smash Bros. Brawl is doing right now! Anyway, it is a little complicated, and particularly more complicated than I just described, but it’s very addicting and a lot of fun! It’s something you can spend minutes a day with or hours with, much like the stock market! I recommend you all at least check it out. Also when you do create an account, feel free to friend me: AnujSuper9.
December 7th, 2007
by Anuj
So last night I noticed a dashboard update to the Xbox360 dashboard, which I thought was mostly pretty cool! Most of the changes seemed kinda pointless, but it did add efficiency and I’m always a fan of efficiency.
I guess they also took this time to unveil the new and highly talked about feature, which would be the “Xbox Originals,” which seems to be the ability to pay $15 for classic favorites on the Xbox and then be able to emulate their play from your hard drive instead of from your disk. If you ask me, this is a ripoff… you could find most of these games on shelves for under $15 bucks anyways, and you get no added features or support by downloading it, no 360 menus or dashboard options, no achievements, no content addtions or things via the 360Live system, not really anything new. I don’t really expect a whole new game with features that didn’t exist when the game was first released, but I expect some reason to pay for this.
Also, comparisons to the Wii VC are undeniable, but I think the comparison would be more fitting if you saw GameCube games on the VC for $15, and furthermore, it seems to me that Wii VC titles are a lot harder to come by, the prices are much more reasonable, and you’d actually have to connect another console to your TV to play these games, which, depending on the game, is reason enough (IMO).
Oh hey also, I got the Psychonauts theme which was awesome, and that’s probably the coolest thing about the new Xbox Originals update is that they are giving away themes for those things free instead of charging the dollar or two they normally might to especially rip you off. I’m sure it won’t be long before they add price tags to those things. But anyway, I did get the Psychonauts theme because Psychonauts is awesome. You can see it in the pictures I took with my cell phone above. But hey, you know what’s also weird, for some reason I’m getting my messages from other people in Spanish!
December 5th, 2007
by Anuj
You might see the title attached to this post and initially think that I must not have liked Portal, because pretty much everyone liked this game, and so for everyone to be wrong, the game must in fact in my opinion not be good. Well, that’s not what I am saying. Quite the contrary to that in fact, I am saying that Portal is fantastic, it’s great and it’s brilliant, and quite simply, Portal is just way better than you think it is.
Call my approach to sharing my opinion cocky, incredibly confrontational, or all too agressive, but alas, I was recently inspired by an occurence at Penny Arcade and the flak they were getting for sharing their opinions in a similar way, but I found myself not only agreeing with what they said, but moreso and more importantly, being really satisfied by the way in which they conveyed their opinions, so I would like to do no less. I’m starting this with Portal, which is sort of ironic because, amidst the plethora of situations in which I find myself having an opinion far different from the general consensus, bordering on opinions that are simply the polar opposite of each other, I choose to discuss a game that is roughly unanimously appreciated for quality. Alas, I generally find myself in the minority in thought, whether I do it to myself accidentally, or whether I really do just go against the grain instinctively, I do not know, but it really does happen to me all of the time, and Portal, an enjoyment I share with most people, is no different.
To elaborate though, people do enjoy Portal, but I hear many complaints from people, albeit minor, I do not agree with them, and furthermore, often times I feel that people missed the point and beauty and purpose of the game being done in this way, and thus found a point of complaint, when instead it should have been a new and inspirational look at game creation. I’m sure you’ve heard most of the same positive things I have, and as well as most of the same complaints I have, so I will quickly try to outline some of these.
First the mutually agreeable positive things about Portal. The technology is cool, the puzzles are fun and interesting, great replay value, amazing atmosphere and story, incredibly quirky concepts to give a life-long lasting appeal. And of course, the cake is a lie, and the ending credits theme, which really and truly tied the theme for the whole game together to give a deeper understanding to the development than most of what existed in the game to begin with.
Now, the complaints. Too short, not enough puzzles, no fighting enemy soldiers and AI and stuff, no other weapons, no “real story,” etc. Like I said, people enjoy the game, but they list these as reasons that keep the game from being an incredible game, or a “perfect” game, generally minor in complaint, but even still these should not be so. All of the complaints above pretty much translate to the same two things, too short and expecting a generic FPS game not Portal. Alas, for the gamer looking for the generic FPS and not Portal, they can thankfully appease their feeble mind by the Orange Box package as opposed to Portal alone, but that is an irrelevant point. On the other hand though, for the gamer looking for variety of gameplay options as well as a game with which they could spend a lot of time with, Portal alone is not the game for them, because I think it was simply designed to be the length that it is, and from beginning to end made with no intention to be more than what is given.
Portal gives you a technology, a system, a new and incredible gun. It gives you a fast learning curve into “thinking with portals,” and causes you to completely experience the phenomena. The game could have created another 100 levels introducing one new concept per stage, but that would add such an artificial length to the game, and would in essence kill the majesty that the story and length gives you otherwise. It gives you the Source Engine, and an idea on how to create good puzzles. Anyone can create a good puzzle for you if you want one, and you can try to create one for others as well, creating more puzzles on their end can truly be an unending process that conceptually would add no value other than more time to play, and would instead destroy so many other things. Why do you think you have so many people who have in fact completed the game, and so many people on the inside of the joke and able to snicker when referring to the popular line “The cake is a lie!” Would the mechanic not get boring and too tiresome and tedious for your average player? How much time do you think the average player interested in Portal will really have to spend thinking outside of the box?
Portal’s length allows it create a funny and entertaining story, and a game that can be enjoyed by anyone. It introduces and gets you familiar with the concept, it gives you the tools and means for anyone to create new levels, and it does it all in a movie-like single session play of a mere two to three hours. I remember back when I thought it was just going to be a trial of levels with no cohesive story whatsoever. Who in their right minds would have preferred that? Portal is a truly unique experience, and it’s something that can be experienced only in games and honestly would be a different experience if done any other way.
Call it personal preference if you disagree with me, and I’m sure there are actually a lot of you that agree even with me, and so saying “everyone,” is somewhat absurd, but alas, I think ‘everyone’ is far closer to being appropriate than ‘no one.’
November 29th, 2007
by Anuj
So, this post is entitles, Super Mario Happiness. Well, why is this? Well, I found it fitting on many levels. First, there is the “URMRGAY” amusing coincidence discovered about the letters that appear to have sparkles on them. Second, and by far most importantly, is the fact that, well playing Super Mario games just plain makes me happy, be it Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and no less, Super Mario Galaxy.
So, needless to say, I love this game. I did in fact play this game almost non-stop for the past two days (since it’s release), and I have in fact “beaten” the game (by which I mean, beaten the game first pass, which refers to the fact that I’ve beaten the game sans 100% completion… on which I’d like to add that I plan on doing it second pass later in the evening tonight.) The thoughts and opinions I am about to share came with much thought and insight, as such.
First of all, I love this game. It’s brilliant and it’s fantastic. So much platforming goodness. It takes me so far back, the feeling is so SM64. It feels so old school. There’s no stress about collecting this or collecting that, completing this objective, not screwing up this side-quest, blah blah blah, or anything like that, it’s all carefree and fun. It’s genuinely fun, at that; not like one of those things where you’re having fun going for a reward and a goal, and collecting the reward is fun despite the path their being riddled with bits of tediousness and the like, no you’re playing it for the pure joy and goal of playing it. It feels like SM64 in that the star is simply a hint at what you could try to do that might be a lot of fun.I love the new mechanics, the new gameplay, the visuals, the music, the powers, the level design, both aesthetically and functionally, the *snicker* voice acting, I love it all, and I love playing it on the Wii and with the Wiimote and Nunchuck. I feel it’s exactly what a Mario game should be. There were moments where I was surprised by what I was playing, where I for a fleeting moment thought that I was getting something below what I expected, but I found that they instead gave me what I wanted knowing more what would please me than I myself knew.
I’ve heard a lot of early critiquing for the game, such as the game being far too easy, well, I disagree with that notion. I think it’s the perfect level of dificulty: it starts out easy, gets more challenging, presents optional challenges for people not up to the task, and especially difficult ones for renown experts. Though, I rarely find a problem with difficulty in a game, or lack thereof… I know I’m pretty good at games, so expecting games created to give me a hard time would, in my opinion, be a game made far too difficult. Also I’d like to add, sure I could be one of the people boasting about only dying a handful of times throughout my entire adventure, but I’d be exaggerating for one, and two, the difficulty in most adventure games today can rarely be quantified by the number of times you were killed.
I’ve also heard some comparisons on the process of shaking the Wiimote to accomplish the spin when a button press could accomplish the same task just as easily. Well, after much thought, I think I prefer the waggling. It truly sends across the meaning of what you are doing in exerting the extra energy on your behalf to get that perfectly times spin and such. If it was just a button press, the action wouldn’t feel as significant, that little bit of energy that you have to yourself exert really truly makes the action feel so much smoother and better. And also, it really moves us into the new generation of timing movements of our body appendages along with movement of our thumbs/fingers/eyes/etc.My only “complaint,” which isn’t really much of a complaint, is that each “galaxy” has the luxury or being like a small level just connected with the launcher stars, so you don’t get to have those well designed large scale levels that you’d see in SM64. I mean, SMG has it’s own unique brilliant level design for sure, and it’s very impressive, and it’s at least as impressive, but I think it’s probably more challenging to do levels like you would see in SM64 than what you mostly see in SMG, which is the only downside to that thought.
Alas, I have not 100%’d this game yet, and believe me I will FOR SURE, but right now where I am with this game I will say this. I love this game, a lot, it is purely brilliant. It has some small flaws here and there that really make me wish for a teeny bit more. But anyway, this game is AMAZING, but it is not as good as SM64. Close, but not quite. Though it is the true sequel to that game in every way shape and form, and it is indeed SM64 reborn. To be honest, it’s almost everything I could hope for.
So, to describe a little bit of what I’m talking about, about doing more: I wish that you had to “earn” powers similar to how you would in SM64, which caused the powers to be unlocked all over the world. By this, new possibilities and areas would be opened in almost every world, giving you all sorts of amusing and interactive experiences. Also, as fun as the comets are, I wish instead that they were, “comet-stars” or something, and you could get one of each type on every level in the games, so like, 4 comet-stars per star basically. Sure, it’d be really hard, but it’d be for the uber-hardcore. And then instead of these stars-from-comets-stages, they had instead put in another 2 challenges on each level for stars, which surely they could have done. Though I must say, I’m glad the 100-yellow-coin challenges are gone. I never liked those.
Anyway, if I were to give this game a score, and though I choose not to do so, I would easily feel no regret about giving it a 10/10, but I feel a 9.5 is the score it deserves (hell, it’d be 9.9 if I believed in going by 0.1 increments)… which really makes me want to re-think the scores I’ve given other games in my mind. Honestly, it breaks my heart that this game has those shortcomings, because it really is so close to the perfect game, and having those extra little bit of tid-bits to make it that 10 really would have been a brilliant game to play, over and over again. Haha, I’ll be playing this one over and over for years to come anyway though. 
November 16th, 2007
by Anuj
Halo. I mean, you gotta be living under some kind of rock to not have heard of Halo. I mean, it really means something special when you as something of a hardcore gamer get messages from friends you haven’t spoken to in ages speaking random cryptic messages about a game that has yet to be released, yet to be played by more than a small finite percentage of the target audience. It’s really something when a game can impact our community in this way while still being positive, creating excitement and hype and happiness in something to look forward to, something of a global phenomena.
[pwning your mom’s face]
I personally enjoy Halo. I think it is a good game, it is fun, and it’s a game that provides a decent story, decent universe, decent characters, and really an amazing sandbox in which to enjoy an FPS. To say it is anything more is in my opinion something of a fallacy. As a game, I feel it is inferior to many that don’t get nearly the praise that it gets, and the praise that it gets is sometimes far greater than it deserves. However, when it comes to Halo, you can’t ignore the meta-game. I mean, there is no other game that really has and will have the player volume that Halo will have… and I don’t just mean good competition, I mean bad competition too. Players of all skill levels and of varying interests, hardcore players, casual players, friends, hell, family.
New Halo 3 "Being Hunted" TV Commerical Believe
I can’t help but give props to the incredible marketing campaign that has followed Halo since nearly the beginning and honestly I love people of all creative backgrounds being able to get into something that I’m interested in, just as much as me. I’m not one of the ‘haters’ of ‘posers’ or anything of the like. It’s all just a whole lot of negativity that I’m not interested in anymore. I look forward to Halo very much at the moment. Perhaps I may not enjoy it as much as most people out there but I think I will have plenty of fun with it. I saw this video online and it’s simply amazing.
Halo: The Future of Gaming
As a single-player/co-op game I don’t have high expectations (though I intend to play it co-op and not at all single-player like all of the other Halos) because the story and characters are just something I didn’t get into too much. I enjoy some of the rather static aspects of the characters and can appreciate some of the design for things that may not have been intended or were created in a juvenile mindset to still create something somewhat unique. I’ve heard that the games, when combined with a whole helluva lot of reading yields into quite an interesting story, and so I hope one day to have the interest in reading it, but in the meanwhile, I find then that it’s just such a shame that the games do such a poor job of it. But hey, it’s a game anyway right? Most people don’t even care about the story… it’ll be the ending that matters to anyone.
As a multi-player game, I have the same expectations I’ve always had with Halo. New weapons, new toys, new modes, new blah blah blah, and it’ll be a blast for me and my cohorts I play with for a good solid month probably. Then it’ll be fun off and on here and there for a while, and then I’ll stop and be done playing it for the most part. The dynamic environment of the game will be interesting though, much like Halo 2. When I played Halo 2 around launch-time, I found myself seriously just kicking ass. I would actually own fights and win left and right. About a year later when I played again, oh man, I just got my ass handed to me. There were still times when the game was fun, but no matter where I went really, it was just self-inflicted chaos really. Was it fun at that point… well I was playing with a friend and we were doing random stuff so I was having fun, but on the same note, being just easy prey wasn’t really fun either. But the point is that a game that can give and create an environment in which you can experience something like that in addition to a normal level of content can’t be ignored.
Anyhoo, as I said, I look forward to Halo 3 and I think I will enjoy it. When all is said and done it will probably leave a taste of being just slightly below satisfying I’m betting, because of major flaws here and there, but I think most of those will be caused by losing focus of the bigger scope of the game and really how difficult it is to do some of the things that Halo does so well not wasting time on some of the less significant points of the game that somewhat have become so important when considering the surface-value of the game. Anyway, more thoughts when the game is out and I actually play it. Also, I think the pricing plan of the “game(s)” is bullshit.
September 24th, 2007
by Anuj
What is the meaning of War? It’s rather cliche to begin a piece of writing by asking the definition of the topic for which the piece is being written, but I really cannot think of any better way to begin this piece.
[war-nado]
A look at a dictionary yielded an indredibly long list of definitions, a revelation that is somewhat depressing to think about… a fact that a word so negative can mean so many things and be used in so many contexts. The definition of ‘war’ in the sense I find it most fitting and appropriate, and the meaning which I find true to define any kind of war would be simply, “conflict that leads to struggle.” You won’t find this definition in so many words anywhere, but it is something of an amalgamation of most of the other meanings I found, and it represents best what I have in mind.
What leads me to this somewhat depressing and strangely repetitious chapter of humanity? Well a lot of things that have been going on lately that have led me to many interesting thoughts and I think it was just time I felt like making a post about it. The topic that more specifically led to my study of the semantics involved with said topic was a few of the more heated debates I find on gaming forums and even our very own forum, that being the everlasting console war. The console war is honestly a topic I and few others really care about, but then why does it yet find such a strange place in all of our minds? It’s a topic that I feel most of us believe truly pointless, but then why does it still incessently continue?
Console War. I think it’s aptly named that. As far as I know it hasn’t broken out into actual physical struggle or such, but isn’t that simply the next logical progression? I feel uncomfortable talking about War in general, especially that on a political level because I hardly consider myself as knowledgable on the topic as I feel I would need to be to qualify making claims on the topic, but then it occurs to me that when you consider the fact that it always boils down to conflict that leads to struggle, there really shouldn’t be much that one would need to know in order to speak on it. All war is relatively pointless when you consider it as a struggle that began from conflict. Is it so difficult to resolve a conflict without some kind of struggle? But then, it is the virtue of humanity to be able to have conflict and conflict is unavoidable, nor is a lack of conflict desirable. Conflict is what leads to the betterment of something, an aim to please higher than what is already there, and so we should embrace conflict, but embrace it as means of finding resolve and nothing else.
The console war (like all wars really), is a subject matter somewhat trivial, and certainly not something worth going into physical resolve about, but is it really a fire we should be feeding? Most people are capable of dismissing the conflict, but yet we find such amusement in continuing its discussion as well as creating feeding grounds from which it can spawn more followers and grow ever larger. I speak in part of most of the gaming internet, but more specifically the website that brought this idea to my mind. I was introduced to this site by Penny Arcade when they made a mockery of the site that is clearly a joke. Anyone can go there and see that it’s clearly meant to be condescending and amusing, but at the same time, too many people take it seriously and join forces or forge to fight against it. I think Penny Arcade approaches it well by simply making fun of it since I feel confident to say that that is entirely the purpose the site serves, but conversely, they must be aware they continually feul the fire. Though, I find it thoroughly impossible to not be amused and impressed by some of the things that spawn as a result of the console war.
But on the other hand isn’t that what the competition or the war is there for? And I mean, is acknowledging current preferences biased? And hell, is bias even wrong? I think the answer to both questions is no, the problem though is that far too often people’s actions make them both out to be yes. Anyhoo, like all Wars, I am interested to see how it will all resolve but it is something I wish not to contribute to or feed into. I’m not interested in sales, or numbers or anything, it’s really all about the games and I easily forsee myself needing at least all three consoles to play some of the awesome console exclusives. The real question is where and how I’ll actually manage to find the time/money to play all of these things…
August 19th, 2007
by Anuj
Wow. Just wow. GG everyone, gg indeed. You bet your ass it’s about damn time!
So, when I woke up this morning, or whatever day it was, that morning, when I woke up then, I’ll tell you want I expected. I expected rain, I expected to have to walk quite a bit, I expected to be running a little late, I expected to play some video games, I expected to read a bit, I even expected to maybe drink a little bit. I expected lightning to strike me and I expected aliens to crash land into our planet and thereby begin an intergalactic war of unending proportions. I did not expect news about StarCraft 2.
[gl and hf]
To a majority of people it means one thing, and then to a significantly smaller number of people, it means something else. What is that you ask, well, to the minority it means it’s just another game, meh, maybe kinda fun, something to look forward too, but nothing too significant. Well to the majority, abnormally myself included, I’d say it means, many a sleepless night playing StarCraft, spending hours looking at units and comparing times and build orders to find the best combination. Spending months and months and months spending every moment looking forward to the next time you can play StarCraft… and I mean that literally. You do know what I am talking about don’t you? You know that urge when you have a new game, a new TV show, a new book, a new friend/person in your life, or whatever new entertainment it may be, there is that urge of ‘as soon as you’re done doing whatever it is you are doing becuase you have to do it, you’re gonna go back to doing that thing?’ Most people have that many times in their lives, but rarely does it last more than a week or two, and rarely if it lasts longer than that does it involve doing what is seemingly the same thing over and over again, and even rarely still even after all that, remain to be something you were never ever tired of.
This is what StarCraft was for many of us, and to expect this of them again is hardly inappropriate. The same thing happened with millions with WoW, and pretty much any other game Blizzard has ever made… minus of course Lost Vikings, but Lost Vikings was badass despite not being the things described above. I find it very fitting that I wrote the Smash Bros. article directly before this one, and even more fitting still that it was titled the ‘inevitable’ Smash Bros. article. At the time of the writing, it was undoubtable that Smash Brawl was lightyears beyond any other game in terms of anticipation. It’s only fate that out of nowhere an announcement comes from Blizzard in regards to StarCraft 2. I never expected to wake up today, or any day really, and ever hear about StarCraft 2. As far as I was concerned, it had achieved the pinnacle godly status, and that being that, it was too large to have a sequel. What I mean is, is that it was so good that making a sequel only served to disappoint… but I think that is just the optomist in me; needless to say, I am so damned happy that they are making StarCraft 2.
If any game comes close in my anticipation to that of Smash Bros. it is StarCraft. It is easily my second most played game (behind of course, Smash Bros.) and it means almost as much to me as Smash does. And when I say almost, I do mean it. Smash does mean more to me and I have put in more to Smash and gotten out more from it as well, and that is something that probably shows. What can I say for what I see in StarCraft 2? I say, I see new graphics, tighter controls, being able to run in 1280×1024 resolution, I see awesome graphics and sweet animations, I see a continuation of the reasonably decent storyline, and I see more hijacking of ideas taken from other universes, but implemented so brilliantly that anyone the idea was taken from should be flattered that their creation could be so capably sculpted for the enjoyment of others.
Beyond that, I do not see myself being capable of disappointment from StarCraft 2. People have hundreds and thousands of reservations, and this may be despite the fact that they know they will be getting the game, and then continue to play it to near-death, but honestly I don’t feel most of these reservatsions. Even with Smash I have fear, but I know it is mostly because I know so much more about Smash, but we shouldn’t fear change, we should embrace it. The importance is in the concept that is being developed and having an understanding with the creator, and then having trust in creating something akin to what you fell in love with in the first place.
I can undoubtedly say that StarCraft 2 is my second most anticipated title. but I’ll be honest… although I can play Brood Wars to fend off my hunger for StarCraft 2, it’s much more painful a burden than playing Melee to fend off Brawl; the long long long wait for SC2 will be significantly more gruesome, I believe, than the wait till Smash… but then again, when they annouce a release date for either game, who knows what the hell I’ll be thinking… Haha, it’s amazing that two of my favorite games are each over 5 years old with no patch, sequel, expansion for about the same amount of time. Simply awe-inspiring game development.
June 11th, 2007
by Anuj
SUPER SMASH BROS. … WIIIIIIIIIIIII!!11one
This video is of a very cool animation I saw months ago and still wish to show now.
Btw, much love for Flint from Mother 3. 
Super Smash Bros Brawl Animated Trailer
Ok, so it was indeed inevitable. I could not go long without talking about Smash Bros. I mean, really it would be a travesty simply if I didn’t. Let me just say here and now that I love Super Smash Bros. and even moreso Super Smash Bros. Melee.
[more more more smash brootheeerrrrrrrrrsssss]
Yes, love, literally, love. It’s easily my favorite multiplayer game, and almost my favoritest game of all time and I will play it forever… yes, even after Brawl is released (much like I still play Smash 64 despite the existence of Melee). But coming upon the topic of Smash is a fearful prospect because it is a topic I have ventured upon many many times, with many many people, in many places… but alas, it would be a wrongdoing to myself to not venture there once more, especially in a time that was so pivotal, with people that I consider to be closest to me, in the place I consider to be my home.
So, Smash Bros., what exactly is Smash Bros. for those of you that might not know? Well, Smash Bros. is a fighting series, more specifically it is Nintendo’s fighting series. Amidst a world of 2D fighter clones, and a world of boring, terrible, 3D fighter clones, came a genius and new 2.5D fighter from Nintendo called Smash Bros., but I digress… for now. In the world of 2D fighters from Capcom in the Street Fighters and Darkstalkers and the half a dozen or so franchise 2D fighting games I’m not thinking of, and the cusp 3D fighting game boom came Smash Bros. for the N64. A game that was clearly a strong evolution of the original Mario Bros. arcade game (yeah, that’s the one with the POW! block in the middle), providing an incredible blend of Mario Bros.-esque platforming, combined with button/direction combos and timing of fighting games, with combat mechanics that had incredibly deep layers of depth.
Before I go into the combat mechanics and fun of the game, I’d like to give a bit of history about it. Super Smash Bros. for the N64 was created in 1999 by Masahiro Sakurai, one of my now-favorite developers. The man is, quite literally, a genius and a god… Anyhoo, the initial depth of the combat mechanic was to add four players to the mix into the then traditional idea of only 2 players (but that was more of a revolutionizing concept of the N64 itself rather than just the game), give everyone full control of the characters including moves, combos, strategy, etc., jarring the concept of life-bars and instead creating a clever blend of level design impacting combat and the ring-out system to earn kills, as well as add tons of fun items and easter eggs into the mix to just further develop the fun of Smash Bros. But this was simply the first step.
In 2001 came Super Smash Bros. Melee, the official sequel to Smash Bros. for the GameCube, released close to the launch of the system itself. While Smash 64 was popular, it’s easy to say that Melee is strongly the reason the game has such a HUGE following now. Developing every idea in Smash 64 from the item depth, to the level designs, to the easter eggs and collectibles, to the unlockables, to the menus, to the insanely developed combat mechanics and development of the psuedo-psyche-level of strategy and precision of the combat and control, Melee was, nay, is fantastic. And when I say ‘is,’ I mean, ‘is.’ People to this day, yes 6 years later, discover new tactics and strategies as well as new means of balancing characters, and in a world of patches and downloadable fixes and such, a game that is offline and has had no such thing, that is no small feat.
It wasn’t as popular for these reasons initially though. I’d say quite easily, I along with almost everyone else that played the game, played for random fun. Sure, we played to win, but it wasn’t competitive and we did all suck. We did stupid stuff, we lost control of what we were doing, we didn’t know what to do, we didn’t have strategy. We didn’t have combos, we didn’t have character play styles, we didn’t know how to kill someone. Well, thankfully, now is a different story. It is interesting though. Smash Bros. created, or creates, such an interesting environment. You’re looking at a game that almost every gamer has played, or at least heard about… a game that most people at least know how to move around in, and, a game that is almost intuitive, unlike most fighting games. And then you look at the deep deep deep levels of competition for this game, and the layers upon layers of skill that players have and the clear gaps that can define these layers of skill. I can say easily that no other game has a network of gamers like Smash Bros.
I can say this because I am in this network; you may have seen our logo for our crew on the right of the page. We call ourselves “Smashers,” and we do so because it is what we do, we play Smash… seriously. I mean, it is fun, and it is for fun, but we take it seriously. We play to get better and we play to win, sure we make lots of friends all over the world along the way and we have a blast doing it, but we will never say that we aren’t in it for the competition as well. It’s funny because, while most of us could walk into any locale and beat 99% of people that play the game, we choose instead to play with the 1% that can beat us, thereby causing us to never ever win despite our high levels of skill, but alas, so is our gift and so is our curse. I have never once regretting being a part of the Smash community and I forever condone myself to be one with it as well.
Being a part of the Smash community has taught me so much, that I feel I must save the writing of that article for another day, and for now I think I should instead go back to my writing about the game itself, and about my anticipation of Brawl… along with everyone else. I suppose I mention the community and my part in it to simply give understanding of my dedication and knowledge of the game, as well as understanding in the fact that there is a community of hundreds of people that feel similarly, and then another million or so people who are looking forward to Brawl about a tenth as much as we are.
So, what is Brawl? Brawl is the sequel to Smash Bros. Melee. It will be out for the Wii, and I hope to GOD, that it will be out this year. To say that this is my most anticipated game is probably an understatement, and to say that this is my most anticipated occurrence is perhaps only a slight overstatement. What can I say about Brawl that hasn’t already been said though? The truth is, nothing. Everything has been said, the kind of new characters people want to see, the new moves, the new depth to the combat, the new levels, the new items, the new stages, the new menus, the new, literally, everything!
And this is what scares me and makes me happy all at the same time. I along with thousands out there, want the game to only evolve, not change. I don’t want something more simplistic and intuitive, I’d be happy with something harder, more skill based. Hell, I’d be harder with more stages more characters, more everything, and then another layer of complexity and that’s it. To be honesty, I don’t want much Wii control at all. And you know what? I think that’s exactly what Nintendo will deliver.
This is what I forsee: Smash Bros. Brawl will be everything I just described but more. They will release a special White GameCube styled controller that plugs into the bottom of the Wiimote (similar to the VC Controller). It will have rumble and everything, and otherwise, be a GameCube Controller. This will allow you to have Wiimote-wireless, as well as Wiimote motion control of menus and such, and perhaps even some crazy items or stages, or camera or whatever that needs to/can be done while not into the thick of the fray. Otherwise, we will see new characters, more moves, more characters, more items, more stages, and less of everything too just to make Melee not outdated. I think there will even be new complexities in combat and such.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, if you go to smashbros.com you can clearly see that there is (from the time of this posting) 4 days till the launch of the new website. As discussed on the forums, while I don’t think anything monumental in nature will be revealed, the fact that there will be new info is undeniable.
I can’t wait, I know you can’t either. Woo, here’s looking forward to Brawl!
May 17th, 2007
by Anuj
Previous Posts
