Posted on December 27, 2012
My Top 100: #41 – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
1998 – LucasArts (PC, Nintendo 64)
The end of ’98 was a pretty exciting time for games… well, for me it was, anyway. It was the year of Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007 and what I considered to be the long awaited “sequel” to Shadows of the Empire‘s Hoth level; Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
Throw in the fact that a new trailer for The Phantom Menace had just been released, and I was beside myself with excitement about Star Wars. I had no clue what the heck was going on in the trailer, or who anybody was supposed to be (“Just WHO is that clumsy lizard-like fella? He looks AWESOME!”), but it was definitely quite visually stunning.
I can only hope to feel that same giddy anticipation in 2015.
Anyway. 1998. I experienced the full range of angsty teenage emotions – my favourite driver had absolutely dominated the NASCAR circuit that season, high school was (so far) going much better and was way more interesting than junior high ever was, and my marks were better because of it… yet at the same time, one of my best friends was moving to Ontario, and two family members had died in the last two years. At that point, I really wasn’t sure how much time I had left to spend with the elder members of my family.
I tried not to be too bummed out about the negatives, so I focused on my hobbies, and finally re-arranged my bedroom to make it a gaming haven. Every one of my consoles, hooked up and ready to go at the touch of a few buttons! Not only that, but they were all hooked up to my VCR. This was something I had wanted since I was a kid, and setting it all up helped keep my mind off stuff.
The one thing I remember most about that Christmas holiday was how windy it was that year. We had pine decorations and bows under every window, and a big bow with a bell on our new front door… needless to say, it wasn’t long into that first night of howling wind that we took that particular decoration down. It was pretty wild for a few nights, but it finally settled down long enough for us to finish up the last of the Christmas decorations.
I helped my dad put some lights up, and when my part was pretty much done, I headed inside. I went into the living room to watch the tube, and I saw him put the ladder back up to make a few adjustments. He came back down the ladder, presumably to get something in the shed… and then the winds came. Quickly, and more suddenly and violently than I’ve ever seen it.
Thankfully, he wasn’t on it when it happened, but I watched in slow motion as the wind pushed the ladder over, slowly bending to the will of the wind – and then gravity took over. In the small seconds it took for it to fall, my thoughts flashed to our car, parked right there, at the end of our walkway.
It was like one of those hilarious slo-mo “fail” moments you see on YouTube, where people’s voices are slowed down with the footage.
“NOOOOOOOOO…. CRAPPP!!!”
I rushed to the kitchen door, sure to see some busted windows in that little Honda Civic of ours… but I didn’t. The ladder was lying on the pavement, right next to the car. Another 6 inches, and it wouldn’t have been pretty! Upon closer inspection, there was a chunk of white paint about half the size of my pinky fingernail that had been gouged out, replaced with a tiny blue scrape mark. The top part of the ladder had blue plastic grips, which was the part that slightly grazed the car as it fell.
Close call, indeed!
A couple days later, Christmas morning came and went. I got a few games, with NASCAR 99, GoldenEye 007, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the gold Collector’s Edition) and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron topping the list.
At first, the only game that truly captivated me was Rogue Squadron. Ocarina was going to take a while to get going, GoldenEye I had played plenty of already, but Rogue Squadron had that “pick up and kick ass” feel to it right away. Like Star Wars Trilogy Arcade before it, I immediately felt like I was behind the controls of an X-Wing, Y-Wing, or Snowspeeder. There was tons of spoken dialogue, which was absent from the Nintendo 64 version of Shadows of the Empire, and it actually felt like I was taking part in missions that had a place in the franchise’s Expanded Universe.
That wasn’t *quite* the case – most of the campaign felt like it was straight out of the Rogue Squadron series of novels I was reading at the time, but the mission showed us sides of the story we had never seen before. Still, the game’s final level is the Battle of Mon Calamari, which took place in the Dark Empire line of Star Wars comic books… that was quite the nice treat for the über fans like me.
Ignoring mission guidelines and stunt flying through Mos Eisley (or destroying as many buildings as you could before the “fail” screen appeared) was just a small part of what made Rogue Squadron so much fun.
Posted on December 18, 2012
Not back to the countdown yet…
…but this was so fascinating, I couldn’t help but share. I was mezmerized, from start to finish.
It takes about 50 seconds to get going, but it’s a video demonstrating the construction of Ms. Pac Man cabinets.
Posted on December 16, 2012
Mining and Crafting
Hey folks.
For all three of you that might be reading this blog, check out my ongoing Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition project.
In case you weren’t already aware, I’m a bit of a retro gamer. When Minecraft came out, I saw it as an opportunity to create statues dedicated to the characters I grew up with. It was a bit of a challenge at first, since finding the right tools for the job could be tough (damn you, Lapis Lazuli).
Fast forward a little bit, and I discovered a glitch that could duplicate whatever items I had.
Fast forward a little bit more to October, and Creative Mode was released in one of the game’s regular updates.
The majority of these were created before Creative, but after finding out about the duplication glitch.
Enjoy!
Posted on December 13, 2012
My Top 100: #42 – The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
2004 – Nintendo (GameCube)
I just did a quick count, and I see that there are a total of six Zelda games in my countdown, all of them in the top 45. I really made an effort to keep from including too many games from the same franchise on it, but when it all comes down to it, if they’re fun to play, they have to be considered. Thankfully, Four Swords Adventures is enough of a black sheep in the series to leave people scratching their heads, figuring out why I would include such a linear Zelda game on my list.
I know the love affair with Majora’s Mask confuses the heck out of me, but I won’t go there!
I initially didn’t even consider Four Swords Adventures to be anything more than one of those bad GBA-to-GameCube tie-ins. That concept never really sat well with me in the Pokémon days (mostly because nothing Pokémon sat well with me to begin with), and when Nintendo announced that the multiplayer aspect of the new Zelda game would incorporate multiple GBA’s and link cables, I had doubts. Big ones. As in, “why would I ever play THAT game” doubts.
I was wrong to think that I wouldn’t enjoy the game by myself, but the game’s multiplayer format is bad enough that I don’t anticipate ever trying it. Using a GBA as a controller instead of a GameCube one seemed like too much of a money-making ploy. *sigh* If only you could use a normal controller, this game would almost be perfect…
This is as close to a sequel for A Link to the Past as we’ve ever gotten. At the same time, it took the Zelda formula you knew and loved – the exploring, the items, the free-roaming aspect – and flipped it all on its head.
Instead of your typical menu overflowing with items, the four Links could only carry one extra item at a time. If you encountered (for example) a bow and arrow sitting on a pedestal, chances were pretty good that using it was necessary to solve the next puzzle. At the very least, items might also help dispose of large groups of enemies.
Speaking of enemies, there lies one of the more fun aspects of the game. There are often situations that, if Link were to encounter them alone in A Link to the Past, would be very overwhelming. It’s called Four Swords Adventures for a reason, though, and Green, Blue, Red and Purple can take on all comers with four different formations at the touch of a button; “Box”, “Cross”, as well as horizontal and vertical. It adds a nice layer of strategy to the game, and helps make you feel like an unstoppable force against hordes of enemies.
I think the majority of complaints about the game were about it being split up into actual levels. You find treasures and proceed like you normally would, but once the level’s boss is defeated, you pretty much start at square one for the next stage. Any experience points or items you had don’t carry over, which is the opposite of what Zelda games are usually about.
I didn’t mind that the game focused on simply ramping up the challenge with each level – I thought it was a nice change of pace!
The soundtrack has very little original music, opting instead for tunes first seen on the Super NES. Graphically, it’s almost identical to ALttP; the art style is quite similar, sure, but there’s much more detail, and subtle changes in animation (for things like NPCs, trees, and even water) are pretty cool. I’m not much of a fan of the way a Game Boy Player screen pops up when you enter a house or cave… it looks and feels quite different, so that’s a bit jarring until you get used to it.
Other than that, this is definitely a retro gamer’s dream come true!
An early WiiU? When you think about it, that’s pretty much what this was.
Posted on December 10, 2012
My Top 100: #43 – Call of Duty 2
2005 – Activision (Xbox 360, PC, Mac)
I know, I know, I know… “Andre”, you’re saying, “you piss and moan about how Call of Duty games are going to lead to the downfall of gaming as we know it, yet here you are, putting a CoD game this high on your countdown.”
Well, there was once a time where there wasn’t an over-abundance of war-based first-person shooters. EA had recently been getting into the swing of making good World War II shooters with Medal of Honor, and Infinity Ward hit it big with their PC installment of Call of Duty (although the console edition was only so-so). There were a few other attempts at making unique shooters based around major events in the war, Brothers in Arms being the most obvious one, so we weren’t being bombarded by the same formula over and over again.
Call of Duty 2 would be one of the launch titles for the 2005 release of the Xbox 360, and I wasn’t sure I’d be willing to fork out a considerable chunk of money to get one. I had just purchased my first vehicle, and that financial responsibility was nagging at my consciousness. I didn’t necessarily have to be cheap, but I had to be cautious about what I spent from that point on. Buying a gaming console around that time would just be too much, too quickly.
I made one of my regular trips to EB Games, and through the larger-than-usual crowd of shoppers, I saw a sharp-looking LCD TV playing some kind of action-packed shooter. It was an Xbox 360 kiosk with a CoD2 demo, being shown off in all its next-gen glory.
Any doubts I might have had about the 360 being a leap in quality were squashed, right then and there. The way the light was reflecting off those soldier’s helments, and how the frame rate was so smooth… how the hell was this possible?? I mean, yeah, technology was advancing like crazy, but we were a couple of years removed from the friggin’ N-Gage!!! Who was to say that “new” was automatically “awesome”?
Holy crap, though, this looked amazing, and ran so bloody smoothly. If Call of Duty 2 looked this good, imagine games further into the console’s life-cycle. The possibilities seemed limitless! AND OH MAN, PERFECT DARK ZERO WAS OUT TOO; OMIGAD.
I let go of the controller (although I didn’t really want to), moved to the right about three feet, and asked Shawn (the clerk) to sign me up for a pre-order. I was a bit late in doing so, and I’d be getting my own 360 whenever the “second shipment” came in, but I was fine with one last big investment before Christmas. I initially expressed some reservations about doing so, but I was surprised when both my mother and sister both said something to the effect of “you only live once!”
CoD2 was an eye-opening experience. Being a sniper in the snowy battlefields of Russia, scaling the rock walls at Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, and fending off hordes of Nazis under the hot desert sun in Egypt; they were all sides of the conflict we had seen before, but never had it been so immersive, so real. I can play this game now, and still have that awestruck feeling I had in those first few months of playing it.
It was new, it was refreshing, and it smashed any expectations I had for the new Xbox. This console might just do OK.
This isn’t my picture, or anything, but Tomb Raider was the only game I ever played on N-Gage, and I gotta tell ya… it was awful.
Posted on December 5, 2012
My Top 100: #44 – The Legend of Zelda
1986 – Nintendo (NES, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Virtual Console, eShop)
What can be said about The Legend of Zelda that hasn’t been said already? The number of innovations this title brought to the genre have helped cement its place in gaming history. The map was filled with secrets, and though you had to acquire certain items or accomplish certain feats to progress, there was still that sense of freedom that encouraged you to progress however you wanted to.
You could also start a game, explore for hours, then not have to worry about losing all your progress when you shut off your NES. Incredible!
Also, it was shiny. Shiny is always fun.
The first Zelda was one of those games that, even though I enjoyed it tremendously, I never actually asked for it as a present. Maybe I was too wrapped up in newer games, or maybe it just didn’t rank high on my G-A-S scale, I’m not sure. I did manage to snag a used copy when I was in high school, but the gold on the cartridge was in pretty rough shape. With all the black splotches on it, you’d think it had gone through a fire, or something.
At that point, my NES’ was wearing out quite a bit, and my N64 and PlayStation were taking up most of my time anyway. The used and abused Zelda cartridge would sit in my collection without getting much use.
Fast-forward to the end 2003… nine years ago. Gross.
As usual, I kept an eye on any interesting upcoming releases by going to the GameSpot website. One day, I saw the headline “Nintendo announces The Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition Bundle“, and my heart sank. I had purchased a GameCube only a few months earlier! Why couldn’t I have waited just those few extra months? Why—ohhh why did Nintendo do this to me??
I kept reading the article through my jealousy, and discovered that aside from being an exclusive pack-in with the GameCube, you could register certain games online – ones I had no interest in owning – or get a subscription to Nintendo Power, and get the game that way… hmm. That seemed like a decent option, actually.
Why the heck not??? I whipped out my credit card, dialed up the folks at NP and made sure I got hooked up with the Collector’s Edition disc. I barely cared about the magazines I’d be getting – I’d finally get to play Zelda on a platform that worked for me! No more ROMs for this guy! I wanted to play on a bigger screen, and it would look fantastic on the new 27″ TV in my bedroom. Whoo!
I got the disc (and my first new NP in years) in the mail that November, and I got a reminder of just how badly my 8-bit gaming skills had diminished. That didn’t matter to me – I was just so happy to hear that great music again, to find all the secrets I remembered, and to go through those challenging dungeons one more time. So happy, in fact, that I ignored that weekend’s NASCAR season finale and played the game all weekend long.
I finally got to experience The Wind Waker with the on-disc demo, and actually enjoyed it quite a bit! That was a shock, because I had never played a demo before that actually made me want to buy the full game. Well done, Nintendo.
It was also the first time I ever got to play Majora’s Mask, and… erm… while it’s certainly not bad, it’s definitely not countdown-worthy!
One of the most collect-ey things in my collection.
Posted on December 3, 2012
My Top 100: #45 – Star Wars Trilogy Arcade
1998 – Sega (Arcade)
Sadly, this is one of the few games on my countdown that I will probably never own. I might be able to pick up an old console here or there, and maybe a cartridge or two that I remember playing at some point… but paying thousands for an arcade cabinet like this, then finding room to put it? That’s not entirely likely to happen any time soon.
If you look at video games as being part of one big family tree, arcade cabinets would be situated at the very top as the family patriarch. If it weren’t for Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn putting that first coin-op Pong machine in that bar all those years ago, then reaping the benefits from all those quarters and bringing gaming to the masses, who knows how we’d be wasting our lives these days!
Then again, if that butterfly hadn’t farted in China all those years ago………. I won’t go there.
Anyhow, I’d see games like Centipede and Galaga at our local Co-Op store, but I barely paid them any attention until after my introduction to home consoles. There were the Contra and Arkanoid cabinets next to the Village grocery I mentioned, and countless games that would have come and gone at the Electronic Avenue arcades here in town (of which there were two). They had the occasional great beat ’em up, as well as a few interesting games that I couldn’t experience at home. Nothing that really rocked my socks off, though.
In grade 10, on the last day of school before exams and Christmas break, my friends and I walked to the Fredericton Mall – not the Regent Mall, but a smaller one located closer to school. My friend Melissa was holding a party that night, my first such experience since I started high school. I was in the double-digit grades now, man! It was time for me to let loose, and… go to a party where there would be no liquor… not that I would have had anything to drink, anyway… but still! It was gonna be a blast!
There would also be a few girls there, so I was in for a night with a wide array of confusing emotions.
First, it was time to down some quarters at the arcade, while we waited for her parents to pick us all up and head over for the party.
I saw this machine (the stand-up version, not the one with the seat), started playing it, and REALLY got into it… just as Mel’s parents arrived to pick us up. Damn! Defeating the Empire would have to wait, but I would play the hell out of it whenever I got back to it.
Every single time I went to the arcades, I started at the Battle of Yavin, then went to Hoth, and finally made my way through to the Battle of Endor. I friggin’ became Luke Skywalker! I was going to go through all the movie battles just as he did – there was no way I was going through the levels out of order, just to get the “hard” ones out of the way early.
Apparently, some players did just that! Weaksauce! The game’s not even that difficult, and I would often breeze through the entire thing on one credit.
There were two levels that I always had a rough time with, however. Thankfully, if you failed during either of the lightsaber battles (one against Boba Fett, and another with Darth Vader himself), you could still continue to the next stage. That was good, because as fun as those stages were, the controls could be a bit confusing.
RED arrow points to upper left corner for the block…
“OK… I have to pull TOWARDS me and to the LEFT… block successful!”
RED arrow points to upper left corner for the block, then GREEN to bottom right for the parry!
“OH CRAP MY HANDS HAVE TO DO THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE ARROWS ARE TELLING ME TO–aw, fail.”
Of all the times I played it, only twice did I ever successfully beat both the Fett and Vader levels on the same playthrough. They were tough as hell, but the force feedback on the joystick felt so good and natural in my hands (*snicker*), I could play with it all day (*snicker, again*). Much fun was had!
In the end, I daresay that Sega’s Star Wars Trilogy Arcade is one of the more immersive Star Wars games out there. It’s just a shame that it’s so damn short, and nowhere to be found anymore. Frowny face!
There may have been some of this going on at Mel’s party.
I cannot confirm, nor deny.
Posted on November 29, 2012
My Top 100: #46 – Spider-Man 2
2004 – Activision (GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)
I know what you’re thinking; a game based on a movie (that was more-or-less a simple cash-in) ranked higher on your countdown than a ton of gaming classics???
COUNTDOWN INTEGRITY GONE DOWN THE TUBES, MAN!!!
Well, I don’t exactly want to get into it too much, but games are only what you make of them. That’s it. Nothing more.
I can sit here and write paragraph after paragraph about what makes a game great, or you can read an internet review or watch a YouTube video that does much the same… but until you sit down and play the game, or until you have your own opinions about how the game feels, it’s pretty much irrelevant. Isn’t it?
That is one reason I have no shame whatsoever in enjoying critically panned video games or movies, all while hating some that are enjoyed by everyone. Call it being a fanboy, call it blind devotion, call it whatever you want – the bottom line is that, no matter how simple or downright terrible a game may be, someone out there is bound to love it. As much as I hate to admit it, that’s the case with music, as well.
Hey – if we all agreed on every tiny little thing, I think life would get a bit boring.
Now, about the game…
I’ve never had an interest in reading comic books, but if the Spider-Man movies are any indication, Peter Parker has a lot of crap brewing in his personal life. The poor guy’s uncle was murdered by a man he could have stopped beforehand, his aunt struggles to pay the bills, his best friend’s father was a deranged psychopath, and the girl he’s been head-over-heels in love with since youth is not really that interested in him.
Just a regular kid with problems like all of us, right? Well, plus a few enhancements, of course.
Spider-Man 2, based on the 2004 movie of the same name, gives players the freedom to explore New York City in its entirety. There’s a story mode and random (but somewhat repetitive) tasks like rescuing skyscraper construction workers, or stopping bank heists, among other things… they’re fun for a while, and the combat system flows well enough that it rewards both button-mashers and combo-seekers alike.
The true beauty, however, lies in the joy of exploration.
If you’ve had a long day at work, or you just wanted to block out any crappy thing that might have happened recently, there’s nothing more chillaxing than effortlessly web-slinging through NYC. The “webs attaching to the clouds” mechanic from other Spider-Man games was done away with for this one – Spidey’s webs actually have to connect to a building, bridge or any other solid object. Once you get used to controlling the various techniques, you may not want to do anything else!
Like your typical GTA-inspired environment, there are a bunch of bonuses to collect, as well as a few Easter Eggs hidden here and there. There are also special “courses” that you can run through that make use of all of Spidey’s special acrobatic abilities, and they’re challenging enough to be a great deviation from simply swinging from building to building.
I haven’t played the Spider-Man 3 game yet, but I do own it (where have I heard that before). Since I didn’t hate that movie like everyone else seemingly did, I’m sure the critical bomb of a video game should be fairly enjoyable as well!
Oh, my random memory about the game. Right. Almost forgot! The day I purchased this game was quite memorable, indeed.
It was a Sunday, a day I normally spent sitting in front of the tube watching a NASCAR race. It was an off-weekend for them, however, and I was at home, bored out of my skull. I had a serious hankerin’ for some Wendy’s (because it’s friggin’ delicious), and on my trip into town to get some, I stopped at EB Games to see what was new and exciting.
Spider-Man 2? Sure, why not! It sounded like a fun concept to roam around New York so freely, and the movie was great… I bought the game, got my Wendy’s, then headed back home.
When I got back, my sister was watching the Speed Network, a channel for racing junkies like myself. NASCAR’s biggest star, Dale Earnhardt Jr., had been involved in a wreck at an event in another racing series. The images on the special report were incredible – a yellow and sports sports car was engulfed in flames, and there was its occupant, right in the middle of the inferno. His burns were pretty extensive, and they weren’t quite sure if he’d be racing the following weekend. He’d be lucky not to miss the Pocono race I was going to in a few weeks, as well.
It was a pretty big story to us NASCAR fans, and the news had me glued to the TV for most of the afternoon.
I had a softball game that night with a team I had joined the year before, the Bears. It was a team run by an old co-worker, one I didn’t particularly get along with, to boot. I didn’t have a great night on the diamond, and even though it was a “just for fun” league, said co-worker was being a pretty big d-bag about it.
I alleviated a bit of my rage on the drive home that night by listening to some particularly angry music. I popped Spider-Man 2 into my Xbox when I got home, and just enjoyed the ride. The game just let me chill out even more, and gave me time to think… as I soared through the streets of New York, I simply decided that I had played my last softball game with “da Bears”. Let that guy be who he wants to be – I’mma just be over here, not there, and not playing a care-free softball game with his grumpy ass.
I just didn’t show up to any more games. Bygones were bygones. Saul Goodman!
Posted on November 28, 2012
My Top 100: #47 – Contra
1987 – Konami (Arcade, NES, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network)
I’m finding it somewhat difficult to come up with posts about games I’ve already written about – my first non-countdown post about Contra is here, if you’re interested – so I’m about to go a bit off topic for this one.
My first memory of playing Contra is much like any other person’s – playing the arcade version. When my mother and I would go shopping at Regent Mall here in town, I’d sneak away with a few quarters, and play whatever game happened to be sitting just outside the grocery store’s entrance. If I didn’t have the quarters, it was all good – I’d just pretend to play during the game’s attract mode.
I could barely reach the controls anyway, so I usually stunk up the show whenever I did play.
On a recent trip to that same, much larger and oft-renovated mall, I noticed that the brick wall the arcade cabinets were up against is still there; same colour, same bricks, same everything. There have been two grocery stores, two restaurants and two sporting goods stores (well, one company, renovated twice) to take up the space beyond, yet that old beige brick wall is still there.
For some reason, I find that sort of thing to be quite remarkable.
I walked through downtown Fredericton yesterday to go restaurant-ing with Anita (if that wasn’t a word, it is now), and I marveled at some of the older buildings on the city’s streets. If inanimate objects had eyes, and could tell a story, man… the stuff we’d hear from them would be fascinating. Two World Wars, the Great Depression, the groovy 70’s, the hairy 80’s… wait, that didn’t sound good. In any case, some of those buildings have seen it all.
When I was little, even the mall was vastly different than it is now. There was no H&M, there was no GameStop, no toy stores, or even a food court. There was a department store (Woolco) and a grocery store (Village), and a little convenience kiosk that sold magazines, smokes, candy, bottled drinks, whatever. There was no need for much else in between.
As time wore on, the mall grew, and began to take on colours that weren’t stuck in the 70’s – beige flooring and brown benches made way for sleek marble tile and turquoise benches to fit that new, hip 90’s style. The mall’s “back” wall was torn down, and two hallways filled with little outlets were added (one of them an ice cream joint, which was very exciting). A food court was eventually opened at the far end of the new section, and the growth eventually expanded outward from there.
Again, how does this relate to Contra? Well, it kinda doesn’t, but when I think of some games, I can’t help but think of how things have changed in those years since I first played them. In this case, I just think of the mall, and how it used to be.
I’m just nostalgic that way. Don’t mind me!
And by the way, Contra is awesome.
Regent Mall, Fredericton. Toys R Us is actually right next to Chapters – I made a mistake, but I’m too lazy to fix it.
Posted on November 22, 2012
My Top 100: #48 – Super Smash Bros. Brawl
2008 – Nintendo (Wii)
Remember what I mentioned about Rockstar slowly teasing information to the masses with the Grand Theft Auto games? They had evidently taken a page from Nintendo’s playbook, since they did the exact same thing in Japan in 2001 before the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee. Nintendo ended up doing it again leading up Brawl‘s release in 2008; new items, characters and stages were revealed daily on Super Smash Bros. Dojo, the series’ official website.
As time wore on and updates became more and more intriguing, it was obvious that this entry into the series would be the most epic one to date. How were they even going to fit this much content onto one disc??? Assist trophies, “Final Smash” moves, a level creator, online play, a new Subspace Emissary adventure, and tons of new characters – some from Nintendo’s storied past, and some from way out in left field…
Were they even allowed to have some of these new characters in the game?
If the first two games settled arguments over which Nintendo character would win in a fight, then the latest Smash Bros. game took the argument over into rival territory. Sure, Mario had recently battled it out with Sonic the Hedgehog in Beijing at the Olympics, but not quite like this. Fanboys on both sides of the fence could finally live out their fantasy of pounding the piss out of the mascots they had loathed for so long.
It wasn’t just Sonic joining the fray, however.
Metal Gear mastermind Hideo Kojima had always been a fan of Shigeru Miyamoto’s work, and had pleaded his case to Nintendo to get the iconic Solid Snake character into Super Smash Bros. Melee. The game was already too far into development at that point, and the plan was shelved until work began on Brawl.
As a long time gamer who had many childish arguments about the Sega vs. Nintendo rivalry, I was surprised to see that more excitement was generated by Snake’s official addition to the roster than there was for Sonic’s. I’m not sure if this was due to Sega’s departure from making consoles, or the over-abundance of bad Sonic games released in the last few years, but Snake’s inclusion was truly a surprise we didn’t see coming.
So, about the game. It’s pretty darn-tootin’ amazing.
The Subspace Emissary is my favourite game mode, just because it has some great cutscenes and blends every character’s universe together in a convoluted (but hilarious) way. The single player is awesome, if only for the sheer number of characters in the tournament ladder. There’s a challenge mode with various character scenarios to conquer, and I’m pretty sure I still haven’t even played them all, there are so many. I even tried my hand at designing my own stage, but I could never duplicate the awesomeness of ones that were already in the game.
The general complaint about the game was that the online side of things was poorly executed. Like other Wii games, playing with friends over the network was more of a hassle than it was really worth. Who wants to go through the process of adding a 12-digit code, waiting for your friend to stop playing long enough to do the same, only to meet up on one of the laggiest online servers you’ve ever played on?
The real beauty of Super Smash Bros. Brawl is one shared by every game in the series; playing local multiplayer with a group of friends, and experiencing that intensity and friendly competition first hand. With every game in the series, there were wickedly fun times that were had.
From the days of drama-filled high school parties, to the after-class gaming sessions in our university years, all the way to the more recent squeezing-in of gaming gatherings into our busy life schedules, there’s no better way to ward off everyday stress than a good Smash Bros. sesh.
“DONKEY PUUUUNCH!”