61 Frames Per Second : super smash bros

10 Years Ago This Week: Super Smash Bros

Joe Keiser — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:00:00 GMT

A vital addition to the Nintendo 64 catalog, Super Smash Bros (released April 27, 1999) was a phenomenal critical and commercial success. It helped cement the console’s legacy of innovative four-player game design, while at the same time creating a new flagship franchise for Nintendo and starting the game’s creators, Masahiro Sakurai and particularly Satoru Iwata, on a trajectory that would eventually see them leading the industry. As such, it’s one of 1999’s most historically important titles.

Unlike many of Nintendo’s major properties, Super Smash Bros was not tapped to be a major player prior to its release. Instead, it started life as a tiny side project at second-party developer HAL Labs. The prototype for the game, entitled Kakumo-Geemu Ryuoh or “Dragon King: The Fighting Game,” had almost no time or financial budget to speak of—HAL Labs was a very prolific developer during this time, and was more focused on sure bets including Pokemon Stadium. But what the four-player battle royal project did have were two brilliant men who were passionate about the concept: current Nintendo head Satoru Iwata did all of the programming, while series creator Sakurai is usually credited with everything else.

These two managed a successful rally to get Nintendo’s biggest characters into the game, but even then it wasn’t a sure thing. Both internally and externally, there was concern that a game where Mario could punch Pikachu in the face wouldn’t resonate with fans, even though it sounds really, really awesome on paper.

Kakumo-Geemu Ryuoh

That skepticism, as we all know, proved to be unfounded. Super Smash Bros was exactly the right title at exactly the right time. It took incredible liberties with the versus fighting genre during a period when the Street Fighter model was falling out of favor, and it did so with a careful eye for both accessibility and depth. HAL Labs also treated Nintendo’s characters respectfully, turning the game into a nostalgia-fest perfectly crafted to gently stroke the pleasure receptors of longtime Nintendo fans.

This success made Super Smash Bros HAL Lab’s most iconic and best-selling title, and turned the developer into a much more important part of Nintendo’s development strategy; this was surely a factor in Iwata’s rise to the top of the company. It also ensured that Sakurai would continue to make Smash Bros games (even though this fact would occasionally be thrown into doubt), and his work culminated in 2008’s Super Smash Bros Brawl becoming the fastest-selling videogame in American history. Smaller influences of the franchise are scattered across Nintendo’s timeline: as a single example, the series is often credited with introducing the Fire Emblem franchise to America via the popularity of Melee’s Marth and Roy.

So it’s important, but that doesn’t make it all that worthwhile to go back to. Super Smash Bros has been thoroughly eclipsed by its sequels. 2001’s Super Smash Bros Melee in particular is still considered the series’ highlight, and was a favorite of professional tournaments for many years. Of course, that’s not going to keep Nintendo from selling the original: it recently appeared on the Japanese Wii Virtual Console, and it seems like an American release (perhaps on April 27th, 2009?) is inevitable.

Previously on Ten Years Ago This Week:

Requiem: Avenging Angel
X-Wing Alliance
Everquest
Army Men 3D
Silent Hill
Syphon Filter
Alpha Centauri

Video Game Lies Bring Seedy Playground Filth To Your Browser

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Remember that kid on the playground who told you Chun-Li would take off her panties if you won three perfect matches in a row in Street Fighter II? Or that you could find Luigi by running up the endless stairs in Super Mario 64? Kids' imaginations can run wild, and many game lies were born from "True story! My cousin works in an arcade. He showed me!"

Well now many of the most notorious game lies are available in convenient wiki format thanks to Video Games Lies. Surprise, surprise, lots of them involve showing female characters naked. Will kids get their minds out of the gutters, please? I personally remember a kid telling me that if I dodged the first three milkshakes in stage two of Back To The Future but let the fourth one hit me head on, I would get invincibility. I lost a LOT of games before figuring out that was a complete lie.

Of course, some lies became so popular that they were eventually incorporated into later games. An infamous April Fool's prank by EGM claimed Sheng Long (seen above) was a hidden character in Street Fighter II and he was recently finally included in Street Fighter IV. Gamers struggled for years trying to unlock a nonexistant Sonic the Hedgehog in Super Smash Bros Melee only to have him joyously enter the fray in Super Smash Bros Brawl. The much rumored Animalities of Mortal Kombat 2 finally surfaced in curious effect in Mortal Kombat 3.

Clearly, developers are listening to what the fans want. Clearly, fans want ridiculous shit. Now we have a database, and since it's a wiki, you can edit it whenever you want. Who knows, maybe the next lie you make up could wind up in the next installment of you favorite game. (I heard if you get over 150 rallies in the target practice Wii Sports tennis training exercise, you unlock a Mario skin for your Mii to play the rest of the game in. Seriously.)

Related articles:
Sonic Unleashed is Filles with Lies
Super Secret Castle Unlocked in Shadow of the Colossus
WTFriday: Don't S*** Your Pants Teaches Valuable Life Lessons

True Tales of Multiplayer: Fights, Tricks, and Fights!

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Lately I've found myself chilling with my homeboys Dan and Ryan, playing old video games that most of our friends don't remember or never heard of at all hours of day and night. It started when Dan found an old cartridge of the Jaleco's SNES beat-em-up The Peace Keepers. I was impressed by the ability to recolor any of the game's sprites however you wanted, but otherwise the game was an all-around stunningly frustrating experience.

Things picked up for the next round, however, when I popped in my favorite SNES "sports" game, DMA Designs' Uniracers. I've gushed about Uniracers before, how it paved the way for trick-based games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater and DMA's next big hit Grand Theft Auto. The bright colors and self-aware living unicycles scared and confused my friends at first, but once we hit the Bowl course, where players pull off the craziest tricks they can in a set period of time for a higher score, suddenly it was an intense competition. Hours were spent rolling back and forth in the bowl , flipping, rolling, twisting, z-flipping, pulling off tabletops and head bounces, scoring Tubulars and Gnarlys and the coveted I Hate Races. Heated battles ensued with eyes locked on the scores. Rounds regularly ended with last minute reversals thanks to 60-point mega-chains. There were upsets and supreme victories all around.

Time for a change of pace, Ryan popped his all-time favorite into the Playstation, a 1997 Konami brawler I'd never heard of called Poy Poy. A 3D four-player arena fighting game, Poy Poy plays and looks a lot like both Power Stone and Super Smash Bros, only it came out a good solid year-and-a-half before either of those more recognizable titles. Cartoon polygon people run around colorful and vibrant enviroments picking up rocks and logs and bombs, or even each other, and throw them. Get hit, get hurt. Last man standing gets the most points. Upgradable gloves gave each character powerful special moves. The game was simple enough for me to learn within only a couple of ass-beatings yet clearly compelling enough for Ryan to love unconditionally for eleven years so far. The one true downside to Poy Poy when compared to Power Stone and Super Smash Bros is that the Playstation was only designed with two controller ports, so four-player games required a multi-tap accessory.

Three forgotten games from over a decade ago, all completely addictive and fun with good company and messy tacos. I'm sure these game sessions will become a regular occurrance, with Uniracers and Poy Poy bound to see repeat performances along with plenty more semi-obscure games to come.

What are your favorite forgotten gems, readers? What do your late-night multiplayer sessions involve?

Related Articles:
Mourning the End of Jaleco
Up All Night
Meet People On The Internet And Play Games With Them

Video Game Addicts Dropping out of School

Cole Stryker — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Game Politics reports that FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate has declared the following:

You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction - such as World of Warcraft - which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.

Taylor provides no hard data to back up this claim, but it got me thinking about some of the casualties I knew, not necessarily from online gaming, but gaming in general.

During my freshman year in college, there was a guy who literally punched a hole through his laptop monitor after repeated losses in Counterstrike. He didn't drop out, but he had to shell out for a new monitor. I don't think nerd rage was covered by the university insurance policy.

One of my R.A.'s had a then-new Xbox. He was a friendly dude, and invited anyone on the hall to come play it any time. Well, there was this one really smelly, socially awkward kid who spent nearly every waking moment playing the R.A.'s Xbox. They had to kick him out at night. On one occasion he was found playing their Xbox, dripping wet, with nothing on but a towel, after a rushed shower. He couldn't be away from Halo for even ten minutes. He dropped out after a semester.

Another guy on my freshman hall dropped out on account of Battlefield 1942. Another from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Another missed a final because he had spent the night speedrunning through Prince of Persia.

Do you know anyone who failed epically because he couldn't pull himself away from video games? Let us know in the comments.

Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 3

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Catching up? Read part 1 and part 2.

5 - The World Ends With You (DS):
The insanely ambitious action-JRPG probably makes the most use of all the DS hardware has to offer of all DS software with the possible exception of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and even then The World Ends With You does it with so much more style and flair that the comparison seems woefully unfair. It's clear that Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts team put years of thought and research into what the DS could and could not do and the result is a game that breaks all expectations like so many angsty teenage hearts. It takes a truly great game to affect me outside of my gaming time, and much like Wii Fit got me thinking about jogging to the train every morning, The World Ends With You got me wearing pins on my bag for the first time since college, picking out just the right ones that may, someday, save my life in heated battle. Oh lord, did I love that dual-screened battle system...

4 - PixelJunk Eden (PS3):
2008 will go down in the history books as the year that downloadable games finally caught on. Okay, maybe not, but it sure feels like they finally delivered on the promise we'd heard for so long: fantastic independent games delivered straight to your home console, no retail environment required, at competitive prices. I loved echochrome and Cubello, and there is no denying the charm and brilliance of Braid and World of Goo, but the one that completely stole my heart and my thumbs was PixelJunk Eden. Not since Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol have I so enjoyed making flowers bloom. Not since Circus Atari have I so enjoyed soaring upwards into monochromatic point markers. Not since spring break have I so enjoyed atmospheric techno and pulsing colors.

3 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii):
The biggest-selling game of the year was easily one of the most anticipated, and while it may not be as fondly remembered as its Gamecube predecessor, Super Smash Bros Brawl delivered everything expected of it and then some. The frenetic multiplayer brawling was back, as always, with more characters than ever, including unlikely new faves like Lucas and Diddy Kong and first-time-ever non-Nintendo characters Snake and Sonic. Adventure mode came with an epic, if somewhat vague, storyline complete with luscious CGI cutscenes and gameplay and level design in no way dissimilar to the SNES classic Kirby Super Star (one of my all-time favorites). Classic, All-Star, Multi-Man, Events, Target Smash, pretty much every feature of Super Smash Bros Melee came back bigger and more beefed-up. Of course, the big feature of Brawl was access to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, being able to fight people from around the world, either total strangers or your own friend lists, sending your friends video replays of your greatest battles, receiving new stages that your friends built in the surprisingly engaging stage builder, even betting on the brawls of total strangers in Spectator mode. What was my favorite feature? Taking snapshots, of course:

2 - LittleBigPlanet (PS3):
It is hard not to fall in love with LittleBigPlanet. The art direction, the music, the narrative and general use-your-imagination, make-whatever-you-want gestalt is sometimes intoxicating. I've already written at length about the charming adventures of Sackboy, so I won't reiterate the points of my review found here and here. I will say this: LittleBigPlanet so far is the only disc-based game that has made me happy I own a PS3 rather than an XBox or PS2. The endless potential of user-generated content guarantees that LittleBigPlanet will always be exactly as fun and exciting as you want it to be, if not moreso.

1 - de Blob (Wii):
Yes, my absolute favorite game of the year is on the Wii. No, that game was not made by Nintendo. No, I'm not messing with you. de Blob is, without a doubt, the happiest a game has made me since I first played Yoshi's Island on the Super Nintendo and relished in its blatant disregard for flashy CGI and polygons in favor of engrossing gameplay and a unique and heartwarming aesthetic. As a young progressive, I rally behind its anti-corporate, pro-independent artist storyline. As an audiophile, I bliss out to the interactively escalating soundtrack, as I've mentioned before, twice. As a solo gamer, I delight in the variety of challenges. As a social gamer, the multi-player paint-fests get my teeth gritting in a ferocious grin. If you have a Wii and enjoy playing any games that do not involve simulating sports/exercise/music playing, get de Blob. There, that's my review, just flippin' play de Blob because it's the best damn game that came out all year, and 2008 was an amazing year for games.

Part 1
Part 2

Related Articles:
10 Games Nadia Played Instead of Working: The World Ends With You, Super Smash Bros Brawl
Bob's Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Audiosurf, Braid, Grand Theft Auto IV
Joe's Top 10 Games of 2008 - Special Jury Prizes
What Amber Didn't Play in 2008
Time Magazine's Top 10 Games of 2008

The Kirby Game That Deserved To Die

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:56:00 GMT

Everyone loves Kirby. He's sweet, happy, bouncy and he looks like a big Dramamine pill. His platforming games are consisently fun and nobody wants to run afoul of him in a Smash Bros game.

However, when Kirby falls, he falls down hard. It's kind of a funny thing, given that his body is made of nothing but whipped creme and fibre glass insulation, but his few misteps leave the pink guy pretty bruised. 2003's Kirby's Air Ride sold poorly and caused friction between Nintendo, Hal Labs and Kirby's daddy, Masahiro Sakurai. It hurt, but Kirby bounced back. How could he not.

But Kirby floated over another potential pitfall in the SNES era. Silicon Era has a few bits of trivia about Kid Kirby, a game that was being put together by DMA Design in the mid-1990s. No one should judge a book by its cover, or a game by one screenshot. But I'm afraid this can't be denied: the little bits of artwork available for Kid Kirby would have sent gamers barreling into a pile of unicorn-puke, which (my grandfather tells me) is mostly composed of undigested rainbow bits. Kirby isn't exactly a brown-sky series--though DMA Design did father the original Grand Theft Auto--but Nintendo and Hal Labs always know how to strike a very pleasant balance.

Besides, the very idea behind Kid Kirby makes me think too much. It stars Kirby as a child, which is indicated by a bouncing cowlick for some reason. So Kirby was a child once? I thought he just kind of was. Now I have to start considering his conception and birth, which means I've been forming this inner story about a man who was kicked out of Disney Land for doing some very bad things to a spool of candy floss. And nine months later, after that discarded spool of candy floss dodged bees and seagulls and found refuge in Dream Land, somehow...

I sense the start of a biography.

Related Links:

Alternate Soundtrack: Kirby's Adventure vs girlsarehot
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow

NPD Wrap: The Times Are a Changin’

John Constantine — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

April’s come to a close and now, under the cold, hard light of math, three things are becoming clear. First, people freaking love Nintendo games. Sure, we already knew that, but over a million people bought Mario Kart for Wii in less than a week. Second, people freaking love Grand Theft Auto. Nearly two million people bought that in even less time. Third, our access to new videogames is going to change dramatically in the very near future. While these numbers may just look like numbers to us, to the people who publish videogames, the people who control when we get to engage these creations, the math is saying that 2008 is different. Tradition dictates that high profile, big hype games are held in reserve for the holiday push from late September through December and the rest of the year is just a slow trickle of quality goods. The math of March and April 2008 says that people will buy many, many games throughout the year, not just around Christmas. What happens now? Going forward, we’re going to see more games, more often. At least, until digital distribution destroys physical media and the whole issue becomes moot.

While the gigantic March sales numbers didn’t keep their drive through April, even with five days of juggernaut sales from Grand Theft Auto 4, all the players put in impressive showings. Wii sales kept pace, down to just 714K units from 721K, but Nintendo DS sales saw a more precipitous decline, down to 414K units from a powerful 698K despite the healthy software debut for both Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon SKUs. GTA4 moved the huge numbers expected, selling 1.85 million units with only days left in the reporting period but it failed to make an impact on HD console sales. Microsoft and Sony saw sales of their home consoles drop below the 200K mark but both companies can expect bigger sales through May thanks to GTA4 momentum and anticipation of marquee June titles Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden 2. Software sales were cool on the whole. GTA4 and Mario Kart Wii dominated, but no third party was able to replicate the success Ubisoft and EA had in March with the debuts of Rainbox Six Vegas 2 and Army of Two.

Hardware Sales

Wii - 714,200

Nintendo DS - 414,800

PSP - 192,000

Xbox 360 - 188,000

PlayStation 3 - 187,100

PlayStation 2 - 124,400

Software Sales

GTA IV (360) – 1,850,000

Mario Kart Wii -1,120,000

GTA IV (PS3) – 1,000,000

Wii Play – 360,000

Super Smash Bros. Brawl – 326,000

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue – 224,000

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness – 202,000

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time – 202,000

Guitar Hero III – 152,000

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) -141,000

Out thanks to both Next-Gen and Kotaku for their coverage.