Zero Punctuation: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

[stratta one]

I only come to the comments to see the hate letters that ensue any one of yahtzee's videos.
But this time, i looked at all the brawl praisers. IT IS NOT YOUR GOD. (that i know of)

The 4 month release delay had me optomistic. Maybe their doing major improvments and after seeing endless trailers, I looked forward to playing as solid snake.

May 6th 2008;
I played brawl
As stated in yahtzees review the two most overhyped characters in EVER are unlockables.
And i still think nintendo went wrong with Motion sensitive controls.
After this and the crap the monkeys at nintendo are letting in, its a surprise that they will let absolutley NO m rated game on the 'wii'.

- Written with Hatred. >=)

 

[Sylocat]

After this and the crap the monkeys at nintendo are letting in, its a surprise that they will let absolutley NO m rated game on the 'wii'.

And No More Heroes is rated what, exactly?

 

[Shippiddge]

Brawl is, in my opinion, the best game I've ever played.

I will continue to obsess over it. I will play it for years and years on end, like I have Melee. Everything about it is simply tops. Yes, I am a fanboy. But for some reason, fanboys are put in a negative light in this review...

The only issue I had with this review is that it commented that anyone could easily win by mashing buttons, when in fact, Brawl is one of the only fighting games where this does not apply. If someone could beat you that way, you truly suck at this game. ^_^

Then again, the game was made for fanboys...so if you suck, you're probably "normal"...

 

[Colodomoko]

Ugg how old is this thread. If I were Yahtzee I would shove a sword up you buns and throw you into a pool of sharks.

 

[SirCharliePrickingdale]

Great video as always!

 

[Mechsrule1]

Alright I'll start off by saying I may be a bit of a fan boy but not to the extreme that I think anything nintendo craps out is an instant gem, in all fairness some of the recent games are horrible which is why I bought a PS2. Anyway the point I bothered making an account here is this: In your review you refered to SSBB as a fighting game and while it revolves around fighting it is actually more of a party game for having fun and should not really be taken seriously. If you look at the combat it isn't like most fighting games where you punch each other until one dies or time runs out. SSBB differs in this in that you have to throw or hit people off the screen to kill them. The game is defiantly a party game and you can tell if you just look at the weapons and random items. You cant have a serious game where a tactic is to have your opponent trip on a banana peel. Even the animations are childish and not very serious. This is one of the few games that actually lived up to the hipe and more and if you don't feel that way its because you never bothered to explore the game. The story mode is not single player and can be played with a friend as well as most of the "single" player modes. The characters aren't obscure to gamers who have a phobia to jrpgs as you seem to have or have played previous installments. The most obscure character would have to be Pit and he appeared in 2 games and was forgotten until SSBM. You immediately started hating the game because you ran straight into the multiplayer which can be very pathetic if you never learned the basics of how to play. If you try button mashing you'll get mixed results and against most players you will lose quickly. I'm not saying the game is perfect with such flaws that nintendo never fixes like a lack of voice actors and a voomed out camera. The cpu difficulty it very good to the point where on the highest difficulty in a 2 vs 2 match the opponents can eliminate both of you in under 10 seconds. The game is almost endless and with online play you can always have a challenge. This is one of those games that only people with no lives at all and more luck then the whole of Ireland can ever do everything. Well maybe as I do feel the challenges have been dumbed down having for example 5 target tests where there used to be 25 each unigue to the character. Also some of the characters are just cheap knock off of others examples include fox/falco/wolf, ganondorf/captain falcon, mario/luigi and this annoys me to know end especially when the attacks have no originality ie wolfs final smash tank is red instead of blue. In short the game is fun and while it suffers from the grotesque lack of originality plaguing all games today, there is so much to do and unlock you can spend days locked in your room coming out only to eat and bandage your bleeding thumbs. I personally think this is a great game and with the prospect of downloadable content, insane difficulty settings, and endless multiplayer options it will have a place on peoples shelves for years to come. If you feel otherwise and want to whine go jump of the nearest skyscraper as this is my opinion and not fact.

 

[Mechsrule1]

I only come to the comments to see the hate letters that ensue any one of yahtzee's videos.
But this time, i looked at all the brawl praisers. IT IS NOT YOUR GOD. (that i know of)

The 4 month release delay had me optomistic. Maybe their doing major improvments and after seeing endless trailers, I looked forward to playing as solid snake.

May 6th 2008;
I played brawl
As stated in yahtzees review the two most overhyped characters in EVER are unlockables.
And i still think nintendo went wrong with Motion sensitive controls.
After this and the crap the monkeys at nintendo are letting in, its a surprise that they will let absolutley NO m rated game on the 'wii'.

- Written with Hatred. >=)

This is another problem I have. You are wrong totally in that last paragraph. The motion sensitive controls are an OPTION if you hate them then plug in a gcn controller like I do personally hating the wiimote felling it is not suited for a game like this, or use any one of the 4 controller options. Also there are m rated games on the wii ie No More Heros. While it is significantly less then other consoles don't say that there isn't when there is.

 

[rougeknife]

Brawl is, in my opinion, the best game I've ever played.

Play more games? ^_^

 

[Azralt Kraiza]

Well, well. Look what we have here.

It's been said before, time and time again, but repetition seems to be the only way to get a message through the hopelessly thick. Everything people post here, or anywhere, be it about games, movies, morality or anything, is all based on, and driven by, opinion. Opinion is the unstoppable tank in the back of a persons brain that constantly drives over the switches labeled "like" and "dislike" and "meh". Everybody has one about everything, it's human nature, and it's one of the things that separates us from animals. That, and well, pants of course.

Now, the design of your little opinion tank is a unique one, sharing parts with other people but not entire schematics. It's a component that helps identify you as a person as opposed to you as a flesh-bag. A horribly misused, misunderstood component, but a component nonetheless. It's the failure to understand the basic concept of an opinion that causes threads like this to grow and evolve overtime from a simple "New review is up" to "Fuck you" and "No, fuck you" in a matter of minutes.

The basic concept, of course, being the aforementioned variation in opinion and it's design. When a person can't grasp that an opinion is *supposed* to vary that anger begins to build in the brain. Anger then leads to stupidity, and stupidity then leads to the angry flaming bits of horribly mis-spelled, hard to read trollings of the fanboys and haters alike. An opinion clash will always lead to an opinion bash. It's a golden rule of human nature, and one of the most prevalent in internet "society", much to the dismay of many.

This whole Super Smash Bros issue (I do happen to have three seconds of my life I can afford to devote to typing the whole title, thank you) is a perfect example of what I mean. Who has more fans than Nintendo? What has more Nintendo than Super Smash Brothers? It's the perfect formula for Miyamoto and Co. to cash in on, and it shows in the vast horde of fanboys/girls, (hereby shortened to "Fanbirls") that it ultimately attracts. Mr. Yahtzee has decided to go out on a limb and respond to the slew of E-Mails begging him to review Smash Bros Brawl, and bring about these 34 pages of hate-spouting text. I applaud his bravado.

Stop here a tic.

Mistake number one here was not the review, but the fans who demanded it. If any of you had ever seen one of the fellows previous reviews, you'd know his nature, and should have prepared for the results. You've destroyed your own game in a sense, and have nobody to blame but yourselves and your E-Mails. Stop your crusade now, you're only slaughtering yourselves.

Got that? Okay, continue on.

So, immediately, people who hate the game flock to the forums after their viewing to vent all the curse words they've learned over the years to emulate their disgust with this product. All the fans flocked to the forum after their viewings to defend the title with their big 'ol shields, feeding the point Yahtzee has made in the past about Nintendo's crusader fans, in order to counter the hating group. Here we have the opinions to reinforce the review, and the opinions to defy meeting in commonplace. Here we have opinion clash. Here we have opinion bash. Everybody immediately sees fit to drop their maturity into the dirt, hide behind their mask of internet anonymity, and fling their E-Fists at everything.

A fight doomed to rage on 'till the end of ages, of course. You'll never win, whether you love it or hate it, because someone will always be able to counter you on a level as unintellectual as your own (Or lower. Failure to counter Yahtzee's review with logical counterpoints has previously been mentioned by another poster) and even if you somehow beat his stubborn face with your stubborn little fists until he collapses, someone else will step over his beaten shell to hit you back with some new word they've invented because the regular ones just weren't obscene enough as they were. TO make that relative to the fanbirls out there, and make a delightfully ironic mess out of this, "A challenger will approach".

I'm not ashamed to admit I do still enjoy my Super Smash Brothers: Brawl experiance, and I may even be one of the fanboys I've mentioned up to this point. I pre-ordered, I picked up on launch day, I indulged for a week. I choose to dispel my ignorance to opinion, however, and choose to take this piece of intellectual property for the humorous chunk of comedy it is.

When it comes down to it, I believe Hugh Hefner once said that "A nations true strength lies in it's ability to laugh at itself". Can't the same be applied to a fandom? When it comes down to it, I honestly don't give two shit's about what he thinks of my favourite games. Games like Oblivion and Bioshock and Mass Effect and Super Smash Brothers. I still love 'em and that's all that really counts. Sit back, grab a drink, and enjoy Mr. Croshaw's presentation of his hatred.

At least it's funny if you're secure enough in your fandom to understand his opinion isn't yours.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

that must have taken a while

 

[Azralt Kraiza]

About 15-20 minutes.

'Course, it's all going to be ignored by the population here, who will no doubt choose to step over it and continue their little scrap. It's good to vent nonetheless though!

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

I think it's mostly simmered down.

But I think a flame in the right place will boot it up again

 

[Azralt Kraiza]

True enough, I suppose. These things do tend to be a powder keg rigged rather carelessly. I'll just have to take care not to light up any matches then.

 

[Doug]

Well, its a good post regardless - a pity the next review will probably explode in a powder of firely flame-waring regardless of what level-headed people say. I'm still just amazed that Nintendo and Metal Gear Solid fans have engaged in longer flame wars against Yahtzee's own personal opinion than Halo fans.

 

[Azralt Kraiza]

Yeah, I've noticed this too, and I think it's because both of these camps greet negative reviews and opinion with a surprised hostility, much like a badger who's lived underground all his life suddenly being cornered by a rabid moose. He's never seen a moose before, let alone a rabid one, and so naturally he'll defend his happy little sanctum tooth and nail. Whereas the Halo camp has seen it's fair share of slaps of the face and have most likely grown to accept that moose exist.

Pieces like these reviews though give the moose a rallying point. Somebody, in this case Mr. Croshaw, bellows the first trumpet and the legions of moose that have long been disguising themselves and other badgers or some woodland creature decide to make it a point to to suddenly reveal their true natures and attack anything badger-y. Granted, people may have tried to blow the whistle on these games before, Metal Gear Solid in particular, being too tough or too complicated in it's story for most people, but I doubt most or any of them have truly had the fanbase to support such an attack.

So the fires burn in the woods, and they burn gooooood.

...

I apologize for that whole analogy, but it flowed, so I kept it. I'm also fully aware that the entire analysis may be incorrect, but I can only explain with the knowledge I have, because I'm above making things up for the sake of being right or victorious, unlike a certain anti-video game lawyer currently facing possible disbarment. I do not, however, appear to be above potshots...

 

[Kage Me]

A bit late, perhaps, but I decided that I should give my opinion on this review anyway. Because I've fucking loved Super Smash Bros. ever since the N64 title, and was rather excited to see that Yahtzee had actually done this game as well (yes, I'm fairly new at Zero Punctuation, but if that makes any difference to you then I suggest you stick a nest of angry bees down your throat).

Now then. I am an utter and complete Nintendo fanboy who will buy any first- or second-party game that looks appealing. And on a side note, this fanboy also despises the mediocre gimmicky third-party games that seem to clutter around my remote-controlled wonder like fat kids swarming around ice cream. But enough of that. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been a celebration of recognition (save for characters from the Mother series and the Star Fox series), and quite frankly, I enjoy the game for the gameplay as well. It's a departure from normal fighting games, where you simply mash random buttons until one person's health meter is depleted. In Smash Bros., you must incorporate actual strategy into your fighting, as your characters are allowed to move more than five feet apart from eachother (what the hell, DoA?) and have a variety of moves and special moves, which the game somehow manages to pull off despite having only three attack buttons (A, B and C in my case). Simply mashing buttons isn't going to get you anywhere, unless you're fighting another simple button-masher, in which case it would make a lot more sense to use your brain and take two steps away from said button-masher. But I've trailed off. The point is to knock your enemy off-screen. As much as possible. Now, some games do incorporate a ring-out system that grants automatic win, but the automatic win doesn't apply to Brawl, and frankly, I'm glad it doesn't. Unless you're playing a one-stock Super Sudden Death with damage ratio x2, but really, what's the fun of that?

And even when you're socially retarded, friendless and in no possession of a way to connect your Wii to the Internet (which allows you to play with complete and utter strangers who are as lonely and in possession of a virginity as you are), the single-player can still keep you amused for several hours. And yes, the SSE gets kinda tedious, but you push yourself through it anyway. The cutscenes are magnificently done, and often have a certain wit about them that is not hilarious, but does bring a smile to your face. And that is something that not many games are capable of, especially if they're not made by Nintendo. Besides, you wanna know what happens next. It's called immersion, and it rocks.

But it seems that I have trailed off from reviewing the review to reviewing the game, and while you can't deny that Yahtzee and I differ greatly in opinion, I still loved his review. It was funny and witty and made me laugh. OK, so he doesn't agree with me. Big fucking deal, I can still appreciate his work. I'm sure a lot of you disagreed with Hitler on the subject of killing all the jews, but you can't deny that his mindset was responsible for some pretty good roads in his country. And for those of you who cannot see past his ever-lasting criticism of 99% of all games ever made (which is more often than not justified), you need to get either a sense of humour, or a different view of reality, because in my reality, people should be able to say whatever the fuck they want without dumbass fanboys spewing unbased hatred at him for having a different opinion. I say "should", because that clearly is not the case in the real world, mostly due to said dumbass fanboys.

My conclusion is simple. You were completely wrong about Brawl and it's a great game that everybody should buy a Wii for, but at least you presented your review in a good way. A way that I have more fun with than with the average game. Which really says more about the gaming industry than about the review, but fuck it.

Oh, and feel free to only read the first two paragraphs and then assume that I hated Yahtzee's review because his opinion was different from mine, and that I'm a mindless fanboy who would still defend Brawl fiercely if it were to come with poo smeared all over the disc. I completely understand if your brain cannot put things into context before immediately turning the ON/OFF switch and placing your fingers on the "auto-grammar-fuck" button. Shut up, I know you have it, which is really the only explanation for the horrible English that I've seen flung around here, unless you type by slamming your face into the keyboard.

Oh, and yes, making Snake unlockable should be punishable by death. I couldn't give less of a shit about Sonic, he can die in a fire for all I care.

 

[Colodomoko]

Shit.

I figured this thread was done with about 3 weeks ago?!

There should be a reply limit.

 

[Azralt Kraiza]

Ah! I agree with you 100% Kage Me... Which is really all I have to say, so I'm going to try and let this old thing die in peace.

 

[Sylocat]

*sigh* Will you people stop bumping this thread? IT'S OVER, people. Get on with your lives.

 

[DPSSOC]

"In Smash Bros., you must incorporate actual strategy into your fighting, as your characters are allowed to move more than five feet apart from eachother (what the hell, DoA?) and have a variety of moves and special moves, which the game somehow manages to pull off despite having only three attack buttons (A, B and C in my case). Simply mashing buttons isn't going to get you anywhere, unless you're fighting another simple button-masher,"

I must respectfully disagree with you my friend. While I agree the variety of moves available is impressive especially when you factor in there's none of the up, left, square, circle, pause BS you have to put up with in most fighting games (Please note I actually like fighting games but I'll be damned if I possess the coordination to pull of a perfectly timed 11 button sequence.)

However I played this game for my first time with a bunch of people who were hardcore gamers and hardcore fans of the series who'd had it for a week and taken time off work to play it and using button mashing I still won. I don't think Yahtzee meant to say it will happen with any regularity but just that it's possible to win on pure dumb luck button mashing, but that's just my view I'm not Yahtzee (or am I?...no I'm not).