This month’s game of the month is the highly anticipated Super Smash Brothers Brawl. After several months of delays, the game was finally released earlier this month, and it was definitely worth the wait. If you’re looking for the most game for you buck, then Brawl is for you. Although at first it looks like a simplistic fighting game with Nintendo characters, fans of the series will know that it manages to do much more, and does it well. I managed to convert my skeptic friend in just a few short Brawls.

Pretty much every major Nintendo character, such as Mario, Link, and Kirby, and quite a few minor ones, like newcomer Pit, Lucas, or R.O.B., appear in the game, almost all as playable characters. Also a series first is the inclusion of 3rd party (non Nintendo) characters Snake (from the Metal Gear Solid games), and Sonic the Hedgehog, (Pretty obvious series here…), much to the delight of fans.

Also included is the Subspace Emissary story mode, which, in my humble opinion, is quite irritating. The gameplay is slow, the moves not well designed for the large amount of platforming required, and the only point of it is to unlock the otherwise irrationally gettable characters, who now can either be gotten by playing through SSE, or by ridiculous requirements like playing 450 Brawls. It however, does keep you entertained with creative story, character matchups, and cutscenes.

Regular Brawls are pretty much the same as previous games, with fast paced action, and frantic gameplay, but with Wii-Remote controls and the new characters, levels, and items (like the extremely powerful Smash Balls, which unleash over-the-top crazily powerful attacks unique to each characters). Control wise, I only played with the Gamecube (why mess with perfection, at least as far as this game is concerned) and Classic (too small and cramped for my liking, but it may just be because of my huge hands) controllers. Wi-Fi with Friend Codes works well, with little delay and lag. Overall, the game is excellent, achieving what it strives to do in a fun and entertaining way. My only remaining complaint is the lack of more 3rd party characters like Mega-Man, Shadow the Hedgehog, Knuckles, Tails, Silver the Hedgehog (Ok, so I like the Sonic games a lot.) in Brawl.