Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)

I'm going to be very straight forward. I didn't like Smash Bros on the Gamecube. It didn't really click with me like the Nintendo 64 edition of the game did. I owned a copy of Melee right from launch but it never had a lot of play time on my console. So when Brawl was announced I was skeptical. I didn't think I would bother picking it up, maybe rent it once or twice and that would be it. So its been a week since launch and here's what I think so far.

I luckily used my 'inside connection' at a local rental store to get my hands on their copy of Brawl before anyone else. I took it home that afternoon and by the end of the night I had decided I would take Brawl back to the store the next day. Simply put, I needed to own a copy of the game. While Melee had not held my interest, Brawl grabbed ahold of me and I've logged a ton of time in the past week beating up Pikachu, Donkey Kong and more.

So why buy Brawl instead of rent? I'm told that the game mirrors Melee identically - though I think it plays smoother than ever before. Other than the graphics upgrade, obviously all the new unlockables (Characters, Levels, Music, Virtual Console Demos, etc) are the big reason to buy SSBB. There is simply so much unlockable content that players will need several days to unlock all the new content. The new singleplayer experience, the Subspace Emissary is just a rehashed adventure mode, but the cutscenes are funny; playing through SSE unlocks more content as well!

Online play is another new addition, however the few times I've connected online to play its been really lagged, disconnects and just a bad experience. When I played against someone locally it was smooth as if we were in the same room. I hope this is just first week jitters (much like the Mario Strikers title) but I still think Nintendo is looking for the "in the living room" experience with friends, instead of online. On that note, the "Friend Code" system is annoying and a serious pain in the ass. I know Nintendo is trying to protect the kids that are buying their games, but there should be an 'advanced user' setting that lets players connect with a single username instead of these 16digit codes.

Overall Brawl follows the Melee format that made it popular, throws in a bunch of new characters and levels, online play (that kind of works), a new adventure mode and a fantastic multiplayer experience. If you don't own this game already, you need to go and buy a copy now.

Overall Score: 95%

Pros: Lots of control options, tons of unlockable content

Cons: Online play doesn't work properly all the time.