ugachaka :: Jacob was here

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

It looks like Nintendo is pulling a page out of the Halo book.

Smash Bros. Brawl will now allow you to build your own stages and upload them to share with the Nintendo universe.

One-upping itself once again, SSBB is going to let you share those custom maps, and your friends won’t be the only ones seeing your work (though that is an option). You can also send your maps to Nintendo, who will then select one map daily to send out to all players. That’s right: You’ll not only have a chance at map stardom, you’ll be receiving a daily infusion of new content.

If that doesn’t sound familiar enough, Nintendo is also adding the ability to save films and share them with your friends. You can save clips up to 3 minutes in length.

“This time, you can view replays,” read the post. “What this means is, the game records what you did in brawls or in Target Smash and lets you review it.” You can record around three minutes. Also revealed is the ability to share replay data with your Wii friends, though all allusions to sharing replays specifically reference Target Smash so we’re not sure if sharing brawl-related replay sharing will be an option.

Oh, and the biggest news of all, of course, is that King Dedede will now be available for slaughter.

Pretty cool features if you asked me. I don’t even feel bad at all if they are ripped from the Halo playbook–not one bit. Smash Bros. is my favorite multiplayer game to date with Halo coming in second place–as it rarely does.

Regardless of Nintendo’s secretive marketing practices, one game that I have heard loads about for this holiday season is Super Mario Galaxy. This time around, Mario is planet jumping all over little creatures and wearing a bee suit.

The game offers some cool features and I am definitely going to snatch it up and fire up the Wii again when it hits stores.

Kotaku got to go hands on with it, and Ain’t It Cool News’ Monki checked it out at E for All. I’m jealous. Super Mario Galaxy is definitely top of my list for Wii games this year, and hopefully, it will keep me playing the Wii until Super Smash Bros. Brawl fills my heart with joy in February.

I really am upset. Super Smash Bros, the first edition of the game for the Wii, has been delayed past Christmas. It’s horrible. I was planning on being able to dominate my friends in online play and unlock all the new characters by New Years. Now I have to wait. Lame.

The new ship date is February 10, 2008. I think that’s a Sunday. Maybe they wanted to keep the holiday spirit alive and be a little religious. I’ll just call that day “Second Christmas.”

This delay may also open the door for Microsoft to seize the prize of having the best console Christmas.

I am definitely still buying it.

If you haven’t heard about the controls offered, check out the somewhat confusing-looking Wiimote controls. MTV tried it out with both the Wiimote and Classic controller.

The game has also been seen in it’s natural habitat by Joystiq and Kotaku who both had very good things to say about it.

So as not to seem like a Halo 3 fanboy–since my last weeks of posts have been nothing bu Halo hype–let’s talk for a bit about Smash Bros.

The latest and greatest news is that Snake is in the game with special attacks using his missiles and even a cheap ass hanging-from-Cypher-the-flying-camera move to recover from falls. His addition to the pack should be interesting since he is a controversial character to bring into a Nintendo powerhouse game. It is interesting that they chose to pull one of the Sony fanboy heroes into the series but might this move be something to drag the PS2 gamers who haven’t bought a console of the next gen over to the Wii before they dabble in any PS3 bundles?

Smash Bros. is hitting long before the new edition to the Metal Gear Solid series hits the PS3, so if you are craving some Snake, that’s where you gotta go. I think that might be one of the most sexually suggestive sentences ever written on this blog–what I just wrote like there.

There were a few other occurrences this week in the world of Smash Bros., but what are you doing looking at anything but Halo 3? Crazy kid. I have a hard enough time trying to follow all the Master Chief documentary specials that Microsoft is releasing and their more hilarious counterparts. You must have more of a life than me.

With all this Halo 3 action, I have neglected my favorite Nintendo obsession from the Gamecube days…Super Smash Bros.

The latest updates that you may or may not have heard….

A new video highlighted the awesome new singleplayer story line that will be part of this new title. The plot of previous Smash Bros. games has not been too thick–mostly just a series of missions where you must kill 1 to 600 opponents before time runs out or your lives run out. That’s good news.

New characters have also been announced. Ike from Fire Emblem, Pokemon Trainer (who fights with Pokemon and Diddy Kong have all emerged onto the new battlefield.

You can read the postings about their announcements, but I can’t say that any of these characters really excite me that much. Where’s the meat, Nintendo? It’s what’s for dinner!

Profiles of the newbies:
Ike
Pokemon Trainer
Diddy Kong

Destructoid posted a little op-ed about how silly it is that gamers are complaining about the number of dollars being dropped into casual gaming with the success of the Wii.

Casual gaming is a GOOD thing. It means the government might back up off on making games as hard to buy as illegal drugs in this country. Some hardcore gamers may not like that soccer moms and grandmothers now own Wiis and play a hoola-hoop game, but at least gaming is spreading to new circles.

Nintendo has a great strategy. By going after the casual audience, they are generating a huge install base that might even take some casual gamers or perhaps at least the children and relatives of casual gamers into the more hardcore market. Which means…more n00bs on Smash Bros. when it finally hits. YES!

With any E3, even the dismal boring, business one that was this year’s event, the talk as soon as the final press conference ends is always who won. Really, there is no metric to measure which big console-making publisher brought down the house.

This year, without the crowds of excited fan boys, all the press conferences seemed to be a slightly uneventful presentation. The slight woohoos and yeahs from the crowd were weakly scattered between awkward long pauses by the speakers. Game journalists just don’t hoot and hollar as much as the fans did last year, and, of course, there are less people around.

Kotaku believes the winner was Nintendo. They definitely put on a good show this year and will no doubt catch a lot of attention from the casual gamers and consumer media outlets for the Wii Fit reveal, but the hardcore gamers of E3 found little be excited about in the new announcements. The only item of information I found worth noting was the announced release date of Smash Bros. Brawl.

Microsoft’s conference was just focused on announcing games coming out this year. As many game journalists commented, this marketing move was intended to make PS3 and Nintendo look behind by comparison since the Xbox 360 is a year ahead as far as software development and happy to brag about it. This focus took away from the norm of E3 though since no surprises–besides a clip of the next Resident Evil–really jumped out at anyone. Everyone already knew about the titles coming out of good old M$.

Sony had a lot of ground to cover and came in with a price drop looming over their heads. After presenting their press conference in a very casual and unimpressive forum, they also didn’t have many more games and surprises to throw at us this year.

So the final verdict? I didn’t see a clear winner out of any of it. While Nintendo may get the most press from their announcement, I think Sony made the most progress in changing their image and generating an increase in excitement. They had a lot of room for improvement since there was almost no excitement going in Sony’s direction this year after all the trouble they have had with the PS3. I still don’t even like Sony, but I hate to say that I think they did the best job in making the most of E3.