Well, Brawl's finally here. Smash fans have been anticipating this game for almost seven years now. Before it was even announced, fans dreamed of a sequel to their beloved Melee. Was the wait worth it? You bet! The newest family member of the Smash Bros. franchise has 35 characters compared to the 24 that Melee has, 41 stages while Melee only has 29, and not to mention Brawl has over 350 unique songs. Brawl seriously has content out the wazoo. So much that the developers needed to make the game use a dual-layered disc to fit all the stuff. Unlockable songs, characters, stages, modes, you name it. It's not hard to imagine that players will still not have unlocked everything several years from now.


Gameplay wise, Brawl is still all about hitting your opponents off the screen until you're the last one standing. I'm going to assume you know how to play a Smash Bros. game for the duration of this article. If you don't, the official Brawl website has some tutorials. While the basics are still there, Brawl has completely different physics than its predecessors. The most noticeable difference is the overall slower speed. It's still incredibly fast-paced and just as hectic, but if you play Brawl, then play Melee right afterwards, the difference is clear. Characters also fall slower than they did in Melee which leads to much more mid-air combat. It's not a huge change as characters don't fall that much slower, but the physics differences will require some getting used to for veterans.

The stages in Brawl are a step up from Melee. Not only are there much more, but they're all excellent stages that show off a lot of creativity. Your favorite areas of classic games are all represented here. Shadow Moses Island, Fire Emblem castle, the Animal Crossing village, and even faithful remakes of both the first and second level of Super Mario Bros. are just a few of the varied and great stages in Brawl.

Another thing Brawl has in abundance is playable characters. They're all varied and have their own unique playstyles and each franchise is represented by at least two playable characters. There were some concerns before release that the characters would be unbalanced much like in Melee, but those worries can be forgotten about. Characters that were weak before have been buffed and vice-versa. You won't need to worry about who's the best character--just pick your favorite and you'll be fine (unless your favorite happens to be Yoshi).

For the first time in Smash Bros. history, Brawl introduces online play. That's right, you can finally play against your fellow Smashers all over the world. You can battle against your friends or you can seek out random people for a timed match. Unfortunately, your options are limited when you're not playing against friends. With random people, you're forced to fight with timed matches, whereas you have a plethora of options when facing off against your friends. On the technical side, the online works well. There's usually not very much lag (save for the half-second delay between pressing a button and the game responding), and it's almost like playing against people in the same room as you. I'm very impressed with the online and I'm sure you will be too. Plus, it's online Smash Bros.! That alone is awesome.

From the thirteen hours I've spent with Brawl, I'd say it's the best Wii game even beating out Mario Galaxy. It's crammed with content, the gameplay is just as addicting as before, there's a wealth of new characters and stages, and it has online play. Brawl should be at the top of every Wii owner's "to buy" list.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the latest installment in the acclaimed turn-based strategy franchise that started way back on the NES. Since then, AW has undergone some relatively major gameplay overhauls, but the plot has always been up-beat and cheery. A trait many people found unsettling as the game revolved around war. Days of Ruin changes that. In this entry, the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Most of the earth's denizens have been wiped out by meteors and diseases, and only a handful of military-trained soldiers survive. Players will encounter a good amount of twists and turns, so the plot isn't completely linear. At the same time, it doesn't begin to approach the depth of tales weaved by Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy. Hardcore fans may dislike the darker and more 'epic' plot, while others will love it. Then you may fall into the middle like me. I am quite a fan of the previous game's bright and cheery story, but I do appreciate the new approach that Days of Ruin takes.

Days of Ruin doesn't really change from its predecessors outside of story. The gameplay is much the same with a few minor tweaks. For one, units will now level up in a 'sorta-kinda' way. Every time a unit scores a kill, it will gain a level and its power and defense will go up. Units can only gain three levels before they stop gaining levels, however. So do not fret--the strategy is still as prominent as ever. There are also several new units. In my play sessions so far, I have encountered Bikers, glorified infantry units with a larger movement range, and War Tanks, enormous tanks that rip apart almost all ground units. However, there are more as videos and screenshots have shown. The added units add more strategy and offer some unfamiliarity to hardcore fans.

I have yet to test online (well duh, the game isn't out yet), but I will have a chance tomorrow as I received a letter with details of a journalist tourney of sorts. Various game journalists will all hop online at the same time and we will test our mettle against each other. The online looks very promising as you can voice chat with anyone you battle online and there's a robust map creator with which you can make maps and put them up online for anyone to download.

From my short (so far) playtime with the game, Days of Ruin is fantastic. It isn't the best game for the DS, but it may very well be the best Advance Wars. If you asked me for my score right now, I'd give it an 8.7. It really is a great game.

Mark Haigh-Hutchinson died yesterday afternoon when his pancreatic cancer got the best of him. Haigh-Hutchinson worked on Paperboy before joining LucasArts in the '80s where he developed several Star Wars games for PC and N64. He then joined Retro Studios shortly after the Texas-based company was formed. He was moved to senior engineer of the Metroid Prime games and served an integral part in all three game's development.

RIP

Source

Do you want to relive every frustrating moment of every video game ever? DO YOU want your once most favorite video game music tracks to become your most hated? Do you want to see your character explode into tiny red pixels over and over again? But most of all, DO YOU WANT TO BE THE GUY?!

IWTBG is a freeware side-scroller for the PC. Any computer made in the last ten years can run the game. But the game is incredibly hard. You WILL die over and over trying to get past just a single part of the game. There are few rest points, but save points are plentiful. You must be careful, as the game will trick you. NO room is empty of traps even though it may seem that way. Pixel-precise jumps and a severe case of paranoia are needed to be The Guy.

More info and sign-ups here.


Download link

I hope to see you participate!

If you've been reading gaming forums heavily for the past week or so, you have probably heard of the problems that XBox LIVE has been having. Stuff like crashes, game booting, lost gamertags, and even erased game saves. Yeah, erased game saves. Some people have gotten all of their save files wiped. LIVE is great when it's working, but this shit has been going on for the past week. Probably more. Microsoft has chalked it up to increased server traffic from Christmas, but I feel that's no excuse. When you're paying $50/year for online, you expect it to be up 24/7, even with increased traffic. Plus, it does not take a rocket scientist to expect increased volume around the holidays. Microsoft should have been prepared and this crap shouldn't be happening.

Microsoft announced that they will be offering a free XBLA game. Personally, I feel users should get a free month. It's completely unacceptable when everyone is having problems of this magnitude. The latest problem is that everyone's gamertag has mysteriously vanished. I mean come on. Completely and utterly unacceptable.

All my life, I have only gamed on Nintendo consoles and handhelds. Except for rare bouts of Star Craft on my PC, it's always been about Nintendo. After all, I grew up with them. I can't possibly miss a system in exchange for a competitor's console. Recently, this all changed. I had been reading up on the XBox 360 for a long time. After reading glowing reviews of titles like Halo 3 and Bioshock, and of course hearing about the wonders of XBox LIVE, I decided it was officially time to jump in. Cut to today, and I am a proud 360 owner. While I have only owned the console for nine days now, I surmise I have clocked in close to the total amount of time I have spent with my Wii. I have been sucked into the world of Halo 3 and Viva Pinata, and I have already spent $40 on downloads from the LIVE Marketplace.

I've been accustomed to the Wii for so long. I think because of that, my appreciation for the 360 has been heightened. I am certainly not jaded to the features that the 360 offer. XBox LIVE is the greatest online infrastructure ever created. Leaderboards, voice chat, and a great friend list system--these features are noticeably absent from the Wii's online service. While LIVE does require a paid subscription, I fully feel that I am getting the most out of my $50/year. However, the Wii does trump the 360 in one online area. The Virtual Console. Wii offers a plethora of great classics for cheap, and it is definitely Wii's best feature. The 360 does have the LIVE Marketplace where users can download games that are specially-made for the service, but it simply doesn't compare to the Wii's catalog of fully playable retro classics.

As for games, I am torn between the selection offered between the Wii and 360. The 360 has great games, no doubt. Bioshock, Halo 3, Blue Dragon, Orange Box, Call of Duty 4, ect. The Wii has tried-and-true franchises like Zelda, Metroid, Mario, and even some new IPs like Zack and Wiki and No More Heroes. The 360 is a hardcore gamer's wet dream, but the Wii also has some fantastic titles. Overall, I'd say Wii's Virtual Console gives it the very slight edge.

All in all, I'm happy to add the 360 to my console selection. It may look out of place surrounded by SNES, Wii, and N64, but I don't care. It plays great. I'll admit I enjoy my Wii a bit better, but I'm having a blast with the 360 as I wait for more AAA Wii titles.

Yup, Fury is now free. This MMORPG was just recently released and now it's free to download and free to play. Just follow the link and you can download the game. I wonder if the fact that this game became available for free so quickly says anything about its quality...

Unleash the Fury

Ever gotten an absolutely terrible game for Christmas? Or maybe not getting the game you've been wanting for the past year? I'm sure there were many devastated kids in 1990 when they discovered the absence of Super Mario Bros. 3 under the tree. Personally, I have received several games for systems I do not even own or games I didn't ask for.

So now that the Christmas season is upon us, let's reminisce about past Christmas days. Share your tales of disappointment in the comments. :)

aaaahhh please don't kill us giant worm, we are under-leveled!!

I recently acquired a copy of Final Fantasy VI Advance for my trusty GBA (playing it on my DS, though). I am in mad love with the game. Especially considering it's a total upgrade of the original Final Fantasy VI, which is one of my favorite games ever. This remake is even better, but that is not the point of this article. You see, everything was going fine. I was going through the game with little to no problems and I only had to stop a few times along the way to gain an extra level or two. I was enjoying the faster pace as I remember having to do a substantial amount of grinding in the original game.

However, the pacing just grinded to a halt not too long ago. I happened to encounter a dungeon about three-fourths of the way through the game called The Phoenix Cave. This dungeon required me to split my party members into two teams. The problem? I had been adventuring all this time with my all-star team of my four favorite characters. So when it came to splitting into two teams, I knew I was screwed. I had completely neglected all of the other nine characters I had, leaving them with weak equipment and abysmally low levels. I contemplated splitting my team of four into two for each team, but I figured that wouldn't work. I was right. So my only other option was to beef up my other characters to a respectable level. I could do that. I would have to do that. But I'm damned if it wasn't going to be a total bitch.


excuse me but wtf r u doin

So I'm doing just that. Sitting here with my DS at my side, typing this, and fighting off random monsters. Did I mention I've been doing this for a good three hours? It's tedious stuff. That and I took this chance to level up my magic. Thing is, doing that takes even longer so I'll be sitting here long after my characters have gotten to the level they need to be. What keeps me going is the prospect of totally ripping up the final boss with all my fancy new magic and such.

I'd also like to talk about grinding in general. RPGs should scrap this stuff. I don't want it being taken to Final Fantasy 8 extremes (where monsters leveled up with you) because I like a bit of grinding here and there. It's when I'm sitting there tapping A for hours that I get annoyed. I'm also pretty sure my fellow gamers agree with me here. World of Warcraft is especially notorious for this as it requires tons and tons of experience to gain just one level. Pacing is one of the most important aspects of a game to me, and extraneous leveling brings the pacing to a screeching halt. Sometimes it can ruin a game. It certainly hasn't ruined FFVI for me; I still love the game to death, but some games would be masterpieces if not for their excessive grinding (looking at you, Final Fantasy III!).