GENRE
	Fighting
	DEVELOPER
	Sora
	PUBLISHER
	Nintendo
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	Yes
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

November 18, 2001 -- Super Smash Bros Melee releases to high marks and sales, just two weeks after GameCube launches. January 2003 -- Melee becomes a Player's Choice title. 2007 -- Melee reaches a 3:4 software attach ratio, and many claim the title as the driving force behind GameCube sales. At the end of the GameCube's life cycle, Melee was the #1 title, selling an estimated 7 million copies worldwide. Now, six-and-a-half years later, the sequel to what most consider Nintendo's premier series is now here.

visuals

All your favorite Nintendo characters are lovingly rendered as bite-sized 3D models. Much like Melee, the animation is unparalleled, and acts not only as eye-candy, but also as a core gameplay feature, informing the player of each minute, precise movement. The 35 playable characters, new Assist Trophies, Pokémon, stickers, trophies, menus, enemies and levels all bear the stamp of the artist's hand, and each is filled with the outstanding attributes that define their own Nintendo niche. The cel-shading of Toon Link? Check. The epic space battles of Star Fox? Check. The entire first level of Super Mario Bros, complete with the hidden blocks? Check. Yep, Brawl's got it all.

audio

Over 250 tunes from over 30 renown composers are yours for the taking. You can listen to any song whenever you want. When you unlock a song, Brawl kindly lets you listen to the song right then and there. You can adjust the frequency a certain track will get played across each stage, and any tune can be attached to any stage you get to create in the new Create-a-Stage mode. And then there's all the unique sound effects for each character and item. Yep, just like Melee, Brawl is nothing short of a tour-de-force in its demand for your ears.

gameplay

If you want to go solo, Brawl's got you covered. Brand new to the series is The Subspace Emissary -- Brawl's very own 10-hour story mode, which has you saving the Nintendo universe from the Primid, an evil threat from another dimension. Characters from all over the Nintendo universe team up to save their home from destruction, visiting famous locales from many a Nintendo game. The story is split into dozens of levels, with a rendered cut-scene at the beginning and end of each. Most of these are cheeky jabs that poke fun at the quest as a whole and offers up absurd fan service of certain characters getting their game on with all sorts of weird, crazy enemies. Throughout the mode you will collect stickers, which can be applied to a character to power them up. This gives the story a very RPG-like feel that is both fun and creative. The story is a good one, and the developers have pulled it off admirably without any character uttering a single word. Very Nintendo.

Add to this Classic mode, Adventure mode, Home Run Derby, Target Test, Multi-Man Brawl, Boss Rush, Training mode, loads of Events and you'll find plenty to amuse yourself. All of these modes can also be played co-op with another player; and indeed, many of the modes change to feature all new challenges if you're going at it as a team. In addition, each mode has a selectable difficulty and will track your high score. As if this weren't enough, Brawl also offers you a stage creator that lets you create your very own stage and even send it to a Friend. It's a bit disappointing that the creator is fairly bare bones, only allows for the creation of very basic stages, and that computer controlled characters aren't all too bright on custom stages; but your dreams of being a Smash designer are now here. Suffice it to say, that for single-player content alone, Brawl is worth your $50.

One of the key features of Smash Bros is creating a profile. This saves your five-lettered name, basic customizable options and dozens of trackable stats all to one place. Whenever you play Brawl you can load up your profile to save your stats. Those who have been playing Melee for over the past six-and-a-half years know how much fun it is to watch your stats grow over the years; and this time around there's plenty of extra little things for you to obsess over.

In an innovative twist, Brawl features the ability to play with four different controllers: the GameCube controller, the classic controller, the remote or the remote and nunchuk. Merely plug in the controller of your choice, and you're good to go. Every controller can be customized to the scheme of your choice and even allows you to tweak such things as the c-stick and tap jump, something any longtime Smasher will be very happy about. The changes are saved directly to your profile so that whenever you've got friends over, all they need to do is bring a controller and load up their profile. This is a great new feature that allows new and old players to play together and is something Nintendo wisely looks to be continuing with its inclusion in Mario Kart Wii.

At its heart, Brawl is an encyclopedia of all things Nintendo. While playing the game you'll be unlocking all sorts of Nintendo memorabilia, most in the form of fully rendered trophies and the aforementioned stickers. The trophies can be organized how you wish and viewed from any angle; the stickers can be placed in your sticker book, and you can even take a picture of your stickers to send to a Friend. Each comes with a description of which game it is from and its role in that game. With nearly 700 hundred trophies and over a thousand stickers, it will take you a while to catch 'em all. What's great is that not only can you unlock trophies just by playing the game, but you can also unlock them in a highly addictive minigame called the Coin Launcher. This has you launching your collected coins (yet another unlockable you'll be gaining as you play) at various enemies in what amounts to a cross between pinball and a shmup. In addition to trophies, Brawl also comes with a chronicle that details all the software Nintendo has published since the '80s (and there's a lot of it); and in true encyclopedic fashion, Brawl also tracks when and how you unlock everything in yet another minigame involving the rare Golden Hammers you'll be lucky to snag as you play.

multiplayer

If you've played either of the past two Smash Bros titles, you know that Smash is all about the multiplayer. If you're new to the game, the premise is simple: get four players together and let them duke it out with their favorite Nintendo character until only one is left standing; all the while, the stage you're fighting on is constantly changing and items are randomly appearing to add to the chaos. Sounds crazy? It is. But it's crazy good fun that's unparalleled if you're playing with three other skilled players.

The speed of Brawl is slightly slower than Melee, but retains its predecessor's hallmark: the most precise controls around. The gameplay is more aerial this time around, with most characters more acrobatic and the ability to now air dodge multiple times. The new characters offer new possibilities, and all your old favorites have been tweaked to play to their strengths, while maintaining a much more level playing field. The camera scales better to the action onscreen, and the items are varied, balanced and more engaging than ever before. New moves include swimming, gliding, climbing ladders, clinging to walls, the footstool jump, crawling, the perfect shield, pivot grabs, rechargeable specials, tethered recoveries and many, many more.

A key new feature is the Final Smash item, which appears several times per match as a glowing ball that floats around the level. In order to get the Final Smash, you must attack the ball several times and break it, before you will be granted the super power the Final Smash bestows. The item has the effect of focusing the combat, and when it appears, it's a mad dash to see who can grab it first. Once you have the Final Smash, all you have to do is press B to unleash your super move. Each of the 35 characters has their very own Final Smash, which usually has the effect of spectacularly clearing the screen of your opponents; although, every Final Smash can be skillfully avoided with a bit of practice, and you can knock a Final Smash from an opponent's grasp with a solid hit.

Of course, the big new thing is that you can now Smash it out online. As this is Nintendo's first major online outing, it's a mixed affair. The evil Friend Codes are here to stay, but once you're over it, you and up to three of your Friends can Brawl it up with the rules of your choosing (loser's pick). Multiple players can be on the same Wii, or each can play on his own. Much like Mario Kart DS, you each get to select a stage, and the stage that will be played is selected at random from those chosen. As an added bonus, you get to write four short messages that will be displayed when you taunt your buddies.

You can also choose to Smash it up with random players either as a four-player Brawl or a 2v2 team battle. Random matches are, unfortunately, limited to only one player per Wii and 2-Minute Time matches, which as any Smasher will tell you, sucks. Stock battles are by far the preferred way to play Smash. You do have some say in being able to turn off items, which much like the stages, will be randomly based on all players' preferences. In another bad move, you can't play a 1-vs-1 match or just play with three players. The match is randomly set up, with any amount of players and randomly added computer players.

But the big problem with Brawl is lag. Unless you and all other players have good connections and are located in the same region, matches can sometimes slow to a crawl with button presses not being recorded at all. This can be especially frustrating, because as any Smasher knows, Smash Bros is the fastest, most responsive game around, and taking away any of that due to lag is taking away from what is the essence of Smash. To be fair, lag is an issue in every game across all networks, whether that is XBL, PSN, NWFC or the Internet. Latency is a cruel fact of America's poorly designed wired infrastructure. In many respects, it is much easier to compensate for the lag in a fighting game than it is the pixels of your reticle in some FPS. You can learn the timing of the lag, and still dominate your opponents by taking it into account. So in the end, Brawl is very playable online, but is nowhere near the bliss of a local Smash match with three buddies in your gaming room.

Brawl does bring some interesting new twists to the table. For one, while waiting for a match, you get placed in a practice stage complete with a sandbag for you to wail on. It basically operates like the Training mode, and allows you to practice your advanced techs and combos while you wait. Sadly, you can't grab the Sandbag or load in items. Added to this is the ability for the computer to seamlessly take over a character if a player drops out of a match without the match stopping. Much to many a fan's delight, Brawl now records up to three minute replays and allows you to take a snapshot of the action by merely pausing the game, both of which can be sent to your Friends. A new Spectator mode is also included, which lets you watch a random match and bet on it in hopes of unlocking some extra coins. But the crowning achievement is the ability to download a hand-picked, user-created stage and replay per day from Nintendo's servers, and the ability to submit your own in hopes that yours is just good enough to be passed along to thousand of players worldwide. It's quite a lot of fun getting a daily replay of someone beating the Target Test in seven seconds or some crazy, new stage to play a couple of matches on.

overall

There is far too much here for this review to give Brawl its justice, but the official site details all the information you will need. Many Smash fans may be disappointed that Brawl does not offer even more due to the fevered pitch the hype reached. But if Brawl has one big, glaring flaw it is this: loading times. Too long, Nintendo, way too long. But at the end of the day, no other game offers the wealth of content for a mere $50; and if early indications live up to their potential, we'll all be playing Brawl for another six-and-a-half years. Hopefully Sakurai makes good on that GDC comment, and we'll be seeing another Smash sometime in the future.

10/10