This past Monday I had a chance to sit down with Matt Ryan of Nintendo Canada and play a few minutes of the upcoming highly anticipated Super Smash Brothers Brawl for the Nintendo Wii.

For those wondering what a Smash Brother is, and why it’s super, Super Smash Brothers Brawl (SSBB) is the third installment of a high speed chaos-ridden fighting game, in which characters from all corners of the Nintendo universe are thrown together to duke it out. You can have Mario fighting Pikachu, Link, and the Ice climbers. Now with the introduction of third party characters, Sonic and Luigi could be teaming up to take on Solid Snake and Pit (from Kid Icarus). While SSBB doesn’t take anything away from the fan favourite Super Smash Brothers Melee (for the Nintendo Gamecube), it does add an obscene amount of new features and updates thanks to the capabilities of the Wii. Now players have total control of almost all aspects of customization within the game. Short of changing what the characters actually look like, players can customize controls (and decide to use the Wiimote, Wiimote with Nunchuk, classic controller, or even the original Gamecube controller for Melee feel), edit or create their own stages using the level editor, and customize their gaming experience (thanks to the help of stickers you acquire that alter attributes).

With an all new single player story-driven game, it’s almost as though SSBB is more like two full games in one. Taking a page out of Mario Galaxy’s two player feature, a second player can jump into the story mode at any time and help their buddy out with a second fighter depending on how the story has progressed thus far. With amazing boss battles and characters from different worlds interacting like they never have before, this aspect of the game will be a treat for any fan of Nintendo, new or old.

Now, a fantastic Nintendo title wouldn’t be complete without some new mind blowing feature never seen before, and SSBB is no excuse. Smash Brawl will be going online using Nintendo’s WiFi. Up to four players can now duke it out globally by going into random battles or by sharing friend codes. It doesn’t end here though, as players can create and edit their own stages and can send these stages (as well as videos and photos) to their friends and use these stages in online battles as well. Taking it one step further, players can sign up for Nintendo’s free online smash service and be able to download a free new stage daily!

The game plays flawlessly and with the new interactive stages, unique new characters, and new weapons and items, Super Smash Brothers Brawl is sure to be the Nintendo hit of the year come March 9th, 2008. Adding the robust single player mode, a plethora of characters, extras to unlock and collect and the endless possibilities of downloadable content, Super Smash Brothers Brawl will keep players pleased and busy for a long time to come.






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