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Wow, excellence has truly been matched if not succeeded. Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube has been one of the most replayed multiplayer games of I’ve ever owned and if there was ever a game to take it’s place, it’s this one

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a beat-em-up with a difference. You hit your enemy and this knocks up their percentage at the bottom of the screen. The higher the percentage, the further they fly when you hit them. The idea is to knock them out of the stage and score a point for doing so. There are many variations of the mode such using time limits and lives but that’s those are the basics. It has a single player story mode which has been vastly improved from Melee as well as a classic go-from-round-to-round mode where you fight through 10 stages. As well as this there is the fantastic multi-player. You can have a quick fight, a lengthy fight, set up a tournament or simply mess about with some of the effects you can add on (such as everyone starts with 300% damage of everyone’s really tiny, etc). As well as this there is a level editor and online mode which is a first for the series.

The single player is great but can get repetitive. A lot less repetitive than Melee but still you do a lot of the same format. The great thing about it is though, as soon as you meet a new character in the single player story, that’s it, they’re now playable in multi-player. This is great early on when you unlock Solid Snake and keeps you playing all the way through until you find a certain blue hedgehog. Classic mode will take a while with all the characters you have to go through with but that’s not all. As ever you have the sandbag challenge which was always a great game on Melee to see who could hit it the furthest. Also the event mode makes a come back and the events are as challenging as ever, especially the later ones. The single player alone could be enough to release this game however, this gem truly shines in it’s other modes.

The Multiplayer, I’m pleased to say, has not been broken! Everything feels fantastic and is just as expected. The special Brawl sphere things that causes the characters to do a hidden special move is just simply awesome. Whether it’s Samus Aran’s powerful beam shot or Mario’s fireball frenzy, it’s well worth finding out every characters and discovering the best way to use them. Another incredible useful item that jumbles up the multiplayer is the assist trophies. They kind of act like poke balls but with characters from Nintendo history. One unleashes a giant Nintendog that covers the screen, another can call a group of bike riders to ride across the screen and hit the players. There are more modes, more weapons, more characters and more of everything. Online, is sublime. The only problem is the lack of a headset so you can really rub in the insults but to be fair, the lack of headset function will protect younger gamers from abusive gamers which all in all, cannot be a bad thing.

The level editor is quite basic but it’s a nice novelty inclusion. If you so wanted you can trade your levels with other people over the t’internet but I doubt it’ll keep you hooked that long.

The controls support all types of control. You can play with just the Wii-mote, the Wii-mote and numb chuck, the Wii classic controller or the Gamecube controller. Out of the four, I’d recommend the Gamecube controller every time. It worked so well with Melee that all the other variations just don’t feel right and can hinder your gameplay experience, plus they’re pretty cheap now (if you can still find them that is). Odd that a Wii game is best operated with a controller designed for it’s predecessor. Hmmm.

What you have here is easily £40 well spent. It’s going to be one of the biggest Wii games when it’s launched here sometime this year (I predict August). If you have mates this is an essential purchase and even if you don’t it’s extremely hard to go wrong with this game. Where else are you going to see Mario and Sonic take off the gloves and really go at it?

9/10

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