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Wednesday 20 February, 2008
Gameplay
Like I said earlier the gameplay is pretty simple. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t ingenious. With the addition of more players, either people or CPU players of varying difficulty, the game becomes chaotic. Characters bounce across the screen madly, punching and shooting everywhere-everything! Things start exploding! My eyes widen and my fingers cry out in protest as I rapidly smash the buttons-but I can’t stop, I must destroy my foes! It's this madness, this frenzy that makes the game so damn fun. It's unpredictable, and in that, gives every player involved about the same change to win.
Well, since I’ve been blabbing about the multiplayer side of the game, I should at least mention Single Player. In single player there is some strange, lame attempt at a narrative, where the Nintendo characters are dolls coming to life (think Chucky from Child’s Play) controlled by a mysterious white glove (Michael Jackson?!). Choose a character and fight through the levels and opponents to unlock more characters and levels for multiplayer. Throw in a half-assed boss fight every now and then (Metal Mario?), and huzzah, there it is. The fun in Smash in all in the multiplayer, so gather some friends.
Design
A very neat design feature of Smash is the symbiosis of fighting game and platformer elements. For example, the levels have jumpable platforms and power ups (ranging from lightsabres to the giant sledge hammer from the original Mario game), which are unheard of in most fighting games. This adds a whole new, refreshing feeling to Smash, compared to the more standard fighting games, like the old Street Fighters, or Tekken.
Another great design feature is the nostalgic character selection. I don’t think the game would be anywhere near as successful if it had used original characters. By using characters already established in the Nintendo games, Smash lures in the players of the original games who are happy to revisit their old favorites-it’s like an all star game, full of celebrities.
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