Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Exclusively for the Nintendo Wii
Rating: 5 stars

When the Wii came out in November 2006, we know it was only a matter of time until Super Smash Bros. would becoming to the Wii. Sure enough, in March 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii. Brawl makes the improvements that Melee failed to make, making this an excellent game.

First of all, no one could say this game wasn’t an improvement unless new characters were added, and sure enough, they were. The number of playable characters goes from the 26 in Melee to the 35 in Brawl. But it’s not just simple to say they’ve added 9 characters because Dr. Mario, Pichu, Roy, Young Link and Mewtwo don’t reappear. Is this heartbreaking? I wouldn’t say so. As I said in my review of Melee, Dr. Mario is really just regular Mario, and Pichu is just like Pikachu, so there’s nothing missing out. Truthfully, they are the only ones completely gone. Roy and Mewtwo are replaced by Ike and Lucario respectively, and they virtually have the same attacks and same powers, so it seems to be the same characters with a different look. And I truthfully think that Young Link and Toon Link look the same, act the same, so it’s not really a replacement. It’s just a different name. I liked how Nintendo picked more characters from their already used Franchises, like getting King Dedede from Kirby, Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong and Wolf from Star Fox. I really liked how they went to other franchises like Wario from Warioland and Olimar from Pikmin, but went even further back to Pit from Kid Icarus. But the most impressive was getting third party developers to agree to lease their characters to this fighting game. The headliner characters for this game were Sonic, from Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series and Snake, from Konami’s Metal Gear Solid series. The abundant choice of characters is enough to make every Brawl you have a new game. But that isn’t the only thing.

Brawl wouldn’t be an improvement without new stages. Brawl has a total of 41 stages. The reason it may have so many is that most of the stages from Melee have transferred over to Brawl. So you won’t be missing out on any of the old stages. A new feature added to Brawl is the stages become interactive with the characters. Some will move around, some will change between day and night, others will float, others can be destroyed, and still others can do a whole slew of things. But even if you don’t like any of those stages, Brawl offers a stage creator, and as its name suggests, you can build your own stages to have Brawls in. With 41 new stages, plus being able to make your own stages, where you battle never becomes stale.

With these new characters on these new stages, you once again have your same Brawl modes. You also have your special brawl, which in a way is the same as Melee, but is also updated. In Melee, you could only choose one special feature, but in Brawl, you can choose multiple features. So if you want a brawl where all the characters are giant, metal, on fire, with a bunny hood, go ahead. Once again, it makes Brawl fights seem newer every time you play.

Items are back in Brawl. You have all your old items returning, as well as have a bunch of new additions. I could go on and on about all the items, but the one most important to game play has to be the Final Smash Orb. This colorful orb that is in the same shape as the Super Smash logo is a slippery one to get, but worth it. Once you have it, all you have to do is press B and your character unleashes a unique attack that packs a powerful punch and is hard to evade. One last thing I will say is items and item quantity is customizable. You can choose for an item often, seldom or not at all. So if you don’t like an item, you can turn it off. But if you want to let the Final Smashes fly, you can select many of those.

But if you don’t have the friends around to play multiplayer, Brawl brings back the 3 solo modes that Melee introduced. Classic mode is back and it hasn’t changed since the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. All-Star mode hasn’t changed since Melee. If there is change, it’s longer because there are more characters. But the best improvement was on Adventure Mode. The Adventure Mode is a legitimate Adventure Mode. It is literally an Adventure. It has a name (“The Subspace Emissary”), a plot, cut scenes, a unique villain with unique henchmen. This is everything a true Adventure mode needs. Sure it made some characters bad guys, and sometimes it was mere platforming, and yes, you virtually have to play through it twice, but it does a good job of meshing the characters together. You do have to play as every character (or at least given the chance to play as every character). The story even provides plot twists here and there. For a story that sometimes seems thrown together, it’s pretty good.

Training mode brings back a few of the training features, updated to the Brawl, but also a new feature in it. First, Target Smash is back, and is updated for the Wii and its new characters. Once again, Home Run Contest is back to see who can hit the sandbag the furthest, now improved, such as Captain Falcon being able to swing. The Multi-Man Brawl is back, yet the characters are updated again, and for the better. In the original, it was polygons. In Melee, it was wire frames. In Brawl, it is alloys, made up of the Wii’s finest graphics. In the old game, the multi-man was limited t 10-man and 100-man. Brawl has not only those 2, but also 3-minute Brawl, 15-minute Brawl, Endless Brawl (you don’t stop until you die) and Cruel Brawl (hardest difficulty, no items). The last training is Boss Battles, taking all the main enemies from the story mode. Even Training mode is new and improved, giving another thing for the player to do.

For the gamer who needs to unlock and collect things, Brawl provides plenty of that for you. Players can unlock characters, trophies, stickers, music, stages, even Virtual Console demos. But some of this can be a pain in the neck. Only half the characters are available for play right away. Same goes with the stages. Only about half the stages are available, and the other half you have to unlock. And some of the unlocking can be crazy. To unlock the rest of the characters, you have to play the solo mode. It can simply be done in the Adventure mode, but that’s still going to a 7-10 hour play through. So you don’t want to bring this game right off the shelf to play with friends. Unlocking trophies and stickers can be found brawling in both solo and group brawls, but it can take a while. Remember how last game had the gumball machine that gave trophies instead of gumballs? In its place, Brawl has made up a minigame where you shoot your earned tokens to hit trophies and stickers to unlock. While it may sound fun, the problem is it is easy to repeat trophies and stickers. At least with the “gumball machine” you didn’t have to worry with repeats to a point. For all the others things that need to be unlocked, there are challenges to be done. Some of them are simple, like playing on a certain stage a number of times, but some of them can be downright ridiculous, such as bringing every character through All-Star mode on the hardest difficulty. This might drive the collecting gamer insane. Well, if they have to do it over time, Brawl has a nice way of sorting this out. Brawl has kept this nice and neat for the player by giving the player a trophies tracker and challenge wall.

Despite the graphics pretty much staying the same from the GameCube to the Wii, the graphical design for Brawl has seemed to improve. As I said before, the generic multi-man brawl going from wire frames to alloys demonstrates this alone. But character design is carefully drawn out. You can see everything in detail, from Zelda’s hair to Mario’s overalls. For characters that have had a continuing role in the Nintendo world, all of them kept up-to-date with their looks. The attacks and explosions can be very colorful experiences, too.

The one thing that does baffle me is the controls. Now Brawl was smart by allowing four possibilities for controllers: Wiimote alone, Wiimote with nunchuck, Wii Classic Controller, and GameCube controller, my personal favorite. They were even smart by allowing customization of buttons. But there’s one thing I don’t get. We all know the Wii for being the frontrunner for the motion controls. Yet no motion controls can be used in this game at all. Heck, you can’t even use the Wiimote pointer to run through the menus. You have to use the control pad or joystick. Yes, I know it’s probably because they wanted to allow other controls without motion censor to be used, but this can be easily fixed by replacing the motion control action with a button. Wii games have done this. The first examples that come to mind are Dragonball Z and Mario Kart Wii. I think the only thing that could have made this game better would be motion controls.

Besides that, I think this is a wonderful game. Brawl made every improvement they needed to make from Melee. This game can be played solo just as much as multiplayer. With a plethora of characters and stages, every game feels new. The avast amount of collectables not only satisfies the collector gamer, but also keeps you playing over and over. Customizations make the game your own. This game was everything Melee was, and more. One last thing I want to mention is this game fully catalogs the Nintendo games and Nintendo franchises. This game is definitely needed in the library of anyone who calls himself a Nintendo fanboy. With a new system on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what new, great improvements the next Super Smash Bros. will have.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I would call myself a Nintendo fanboy because ever since my first video game in 1991 (that's 19 years); it's always been a Nintendo system. Surprisingly, despite having a Nintendo for 19 years, I had never ever played a Zelda game, an important franchise in the Nintendo world. So when my roommate brought Twilight Princess for the Wii to the dorm, I thought I make it my first Zelda game. Twilight Princess was one of the last Game Cube games and one of the first Wii games. When the Wii first came out, all it had was games that were demos to the Wii's abilities, like Wii Sports and Wii play. But it needed a serious game. What a better way to start off with a familiar franchise like Legend of Zelda.

So naturally I got to start with talking about controls. I think they did a good job transferring over controls from the Game Cube to the Wii. They did such a good job. I can't tell how they would do it on Game Cube. The control pad is treated like buttons. Left, right and down are all your quick-access items and weapons. Up is access to Midna for teleportation and hints. The Wii's abilities are used well. The pointer is used for picking items, but has more important uses, like aiming your bow and arrow and aiming your slingshot. When it's not in use, your pointer cursor is the infamous fairy, which many fans will like. The Wii Motion is used with the sword, but it's simple. Move wiimote = swing sword. Not the 1:1 ratio of motion like Skyward Sword. But that doesn't really bother me. Some fans might be bothered that Link, who is canonically left handed, had to be made right handed since most people in this world are right handed. But that makes sense, and a lot of the controls make sense with the weapon at hand.

And controls, items and weapons are all used very well in the game. If you gain a new item, it most likely means you'll need it to complete most of the level, especially for the boss at the end of the section. But that doesn't mean it will never be never used again. It can be quite convenient in other places. When you get near the end of the game, you find out you're using all your items, all your weapons and all your skills. It all comes together well.

The basis of the story is the kingdom of Hyrule is being taken over the twilight realm. Link starts out as cowboy rancher, whose only involvement in fighting the twilight is saving people from the twilight. But when link ends up in the twilight territory of Hyrule, he transforms in a wolf. With this, Link is chosen by the gods to be the hero of time, the hero dressed in green. In the Twilight territory, Link teams up with Midna, the princess of the Twilight. Midna has been de-throned by Zant. Link and Midna team up to help each other, so Link can rescue Hyrule from the Twilight, and Midna can reclaim the Twilight world. The story objectives starts out in typical Nintendo fashion: seeking 3 pieces of artifact. But when gather all 3, you realize you're only halfway done. A perfect plot twist happens, reveals more story and more plot, and before you know it, you're searching for another 3 pieces of another artifact to finally bring the story to close, which involves a final boss fight in, you guessed it, 3 phases. The story is well put together. I really liked the parallels between the world of Hyrule and the Twilight world: Zelda and Midna, Zant and Ganadorf, Link and the Wolf (even thought they are the same). There is an even play between Hyrule and Hyrule's Twilight territory. In the beginning, you play as Link in Hyrule and the Wolf in the Twilight areas. When you get the Master sword, you can transfer between Link and Wolf on your own, but you need to learn when to use it accurately.

Graphics I can't talk about much. If you don't know this, the graphics card used in the Wii is the same as in the Game Cube. So there is no change in graphics, which also means they are on the same level as Game Cube. But from what I can tell at looking screenshots of previous games, this is the best graphics for a Zelda game.

So for being my first Zelda game, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It makes me want to go back and play older games, and even makes me consider buying Skyward Sword when it comes out. I give it 5 stars, the best rating. But hey, I may not truly know better because I've only played one Zelda game.

Welcome to the Spoiler Review!

These past 2 1/2 weeks I have been unemployed, between filling out applications, I have done what else but play hours upon hours of video games. Right now it's mostly been the Rock Band series, but I have also indulged myself in Haze, Fable 3 and Jeopardy for the Wii. While in terms of achivement points and advancing in these games, I've got a lot done, but I'm not sure I would call it "productive." I've always been one to want to be intellectually inspired and entertained, and many times, video games do that for me. But I've played so much Rock Band, I can play without thinking. I've played enough Fable 3, I'm now doing random sidequests, which are boring me. I'v created such a strong deck on Yu-Gi-Oh! that I always win. So what can I do to intellectually inspire my video game playing? Write about it, of course! So without further ado, I introduce to you my video game blog, The Spoiler Review. The Spoiler Review will be mostly reviews of video games, but also just general intellectual discussion of view games.

So let's start off with the title and what it means. You're not going to find the answer in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, but you will find it in the Urban Dictionary. Urban Dictionary defines it as "When someone reveals a previously unknown aspect of something which you likely would have rather learned on your own, such as discussions of art media such as video games, movies, etc." I'll give you a few examples from movies, and I'll even be kind and give examples from movies over 10 years old, so if you haven't seen them, well, it's your fault, if you you haven't been spoiled already. A spoiler would be telling you that Rosebud is the name of sled before you watch Citizen Kane. Another spoiler would be telling you, before you watch Soylent Green, that Soylent Green is people. If I told someone who has only seen Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope that Luke's father is Darth Vader, that would be a spoiler. If I told you Bruce Willis's character in Armageddon dies in the end and his character in Sixth Sense was never alive, those would be spoilers. Spoilers aren't just in movies; they are in video games, too. I would say that is because video games are becoming more cinematic, or more like movies.

If you haven't play or seen a video game recently, video games are becoming more and more cinematic. This is why cutscenes can be up to 20 minutes long in a video. This would also describe the success of the game Heavy Rain. Heavy Rain was a game where all the action was quick time events. For those of you who don't know what a "quick time event" is, it's a action-packed cutscene sequence in which, in order to perform correctly and move on, a certain sequence of buttons must be pressed. The whole game was this! Some would say that is boring, as if this video game were just one of those "choose your own adventure" stories. So what made it so good and so popular? It was a good story. The characters were well developed, the player was immersed in the setting, the plot developed to a climax which had closure in the end, and a fair amount of plot twists were sprinkled about. You didn't need to do a lot to feel like you were a part of the game.

Story has more of a stronger role than it did 30 or 20 years ago. In the 1980s, we were so enthrawled with the fact we could control what was on the TV or computer screen, we didn't care about story. In the 1990s, we oohed and awwwed at the improving graphics that we didn't care about story. But once we entered the 21st century, the graphics improved to a point where there was little room for improvement. And while Wii motion, Kinect and Move brought a new way to control the icons on the TV screen, we already knew it could be done. So now we wanted story. We wanted to immerse ourselves more in the game than motion controls ever could.

A few days ago I was listening to a gamer on YouTube complain that video gamers have been too concerned about story. He argued that all we need to care about is the gameplay. His example brought him back to the old school Mario game. He claimed that back then we didn't need the back story or Mario, Bowser or Princess Toadstool. He claimed we didn't need conflict or setting, but rather just play. I would agree to an extent. After all, a game usually starts with a gameplay idea, not a story. But he's missed two important aspects. The first aspect, as I told you, the reason we didn't need story was the the technology awed us so much we didn't need it. The second aspect is that he missed that Mario does have a story. It's a simple story, but a story nonetheless. The Princess of the Kingdom that Mario (or "Jumpman" in the original Japanese), a plumber (or carpenter in the original Japanese), lives in, has been kidnapped by Bowser in order to take over the kingdom. Mario has to rescue the Princess while trying to stay alive in a kingdom infested by Bowser's henchmen. It's as simple as that. Actually, it's sets up the short-term goal and long-term goal. The short term goal is to survive with the highest score. The long term goal is to save the princess. Both of those stemp from the story. Story and gameplay go hand-in-hand.

This is why story can now ruin a video game, just like it can ruin a movie. If a video has great graphics and great gameplay, but if the story is lacking, it can ruin the game. This is especially true for the ending. Ever watch a movie, and the ending ruined it? It was a good movie...until it got to the end, and then it was ruined. Most of the time it's due to bad closure, but it can be other factors as well. You can probably think of movies where this happened. I know of video games in which this has happened. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed had two bad endings that ruined the feeling of being a jedi, and it only led to a bad sequel with an even worse ending. A friend of mind hated a Prince of Persia game for the way it ended, even though the gameplay was great.

And this is what The Spoiler Review is all about. In my reviews, I do review the game fully for its graphics/asethics, its gamplay (including controls), but also the story. And that is why I talk about the end of the story, even if it "spoils" the story itself. A game can be ruined by the story, and the story can be ruined with a bad ending. I believe a video game cannot be properly reviewed without the full story, including the ending. So this blog is not for those who do not want to be spoiled. This is your big SPOILER ALERT! Now I will try to be fair by reviewing older games. (I believe revealing the end of a game over a year old is not a spoiler. You should have gotten the game within a year's time if you really wanted to play it.) But if you don't want to be spoiled, do not read on those games. I'm looking foward to intellectual chats on video games that will stimulate, entertain and inspire.

(P.S. For future reference, you might hear me talk about two of my favorite video game reviewers and critics. They are both found on the Escapist Magazine, an online magazine. The first one is Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, a British-born, Australian-residing video critic. Every Wednesday he posts a video review called "Zero Punctuation," named so after his fast talk. I will warn you he uses vulgar language, but if you can get past that, he's got a lot of good reviews. The second is "Extra Credits," written by the team of Daniel Floyd, James Portnow and Allison Theus. These 3 do not review video games, but instead look at video games as a whole, as an art, from every aspect, from how they are made to the future of gaming. I will put both URL below if you want to check them out. I highly suggest you do.

Zero Punctuation: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation
Extra Credits: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits