4/19/2008 - Brawl Misheard Lyrics (2 Videos)

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm of the opinion that videogame music should never have lyrics. Every time I listen to music in a videogame and then I start hearing vocal lyrics, I cringe. I am just so used to the sweet 8-bit looping tunes of the NES days, that I am put off by some of the modern CD-quality music of today. I mean, when videogame music is supposed to loop endlessly, who wants to hear the same words repeated over and over?

I just got the soundtrack to Super Smash Bros. Brawl (over 300 songs!) and there are quite a few songs in there that have lyrics. You know what I did with them? Yup, I put them off my playlist rotation. Even the main theme is ruined not just by repetitiveness, but by it's lyrics. The kicker is that they're in Latin! Seriously, whose bright idea was that? In any case, it has led to a lot of "misheard lyrics" videos on YouTube similar to the Numa Numa ones.

Here's a cool one that actually tries to cover the subject matter with a lot of gaming terms... if you don't know them, then you're a noob:



And of course there's the great TomBobBlender of Mario Paint music fame who did his own interpretation (after I requested it):



Thanks, Tom... and excellent work as always!

4/9/2008 - When two Falcon Punches collide.

Each 2-D fighting game has a signature special move. For Street Fighter II, that would have to be the Shoryuken: Ryu and Ken's rising uppercut that is named after the battlecry they scream while doing it. It was such a great offensive move back on the original SF2 that everybody scrambled to learn it. In fact when other special moves are based on the same joystick movement, you can describe how to do the move by just saying its name. For example, Fei Long's flame kick is done with a backwards Shoryuken with the kick button. For the longest time, it was believed that Sagat's scar was caused by Ryu's Shoryuken.

With Mortal Kombat, the signature move is probably Scorpion's spear: it's so recognizable because when it hits, Scorpion bellows out "Get over here!" or "Come here!" in such a primal way that it probably inspired the entire dialog of 300. The signature move of Killer Instinct is a tough call, but I would have to say it is Glacius' teleporting uppercut. It's kind of a ripoff of the Shoryuken, but it looks so cool when Glacius melts into the ground and then smacks you with the move.

For Super Smash Bros., it's an easy call: The Falcon Punch. Captain Falcon is such a flamboyant character that he stands out from the rest of the pack. He has a cool taunt ("Show your moves!") and announces his special moves ("Falcon kick!", "Falcon punch!"). The punch, though, is a powerful move that takes a long time to charge and leaves you vulnerable if you don't connect. So if you do connect, it's a really satisfying feeling. But what happens when you have Captain Falcon versus another Captain Falcon, and they perform the Falcon Punch at each other exactly the same time? This footage was recovered from the wreckage:

4/6/2008 - Brawl: Through the Fire and Flames

So I played through most of the Subspace Emissary portion of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and if there's one word to describe it, I would have to say it is "epic". Sure, the story may be a bit nonsensical, and having no dialog hurts it, but having all the Smash Bros. characters band together for one adventure is something that must be experienced for sure. The one grating aspect of the whole thing was the overuse of the Brawl theme song that is supposed to be some kind of Latin operatic. It would be fine, I guess, if the music was great and catchy, but it really is not in my opinion. And when I'm playing a fighting game, opera is the last thing on my mind. The Subspace Emissary campaign would have been far better served with say, Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" as this video demonstrates:



Now that's more like it... and kudos to the editor of this video which is one of the most impressive syncing jobs I've seen for a music video.

3/26/2008 - Brawl Tourney Rules Make Me ANGRY

"Vloggers" on YouTube take all forms and shapes and sizes. You have the fake vloggers like lonelygirl15, the fake rednecks, angry gamers, technology pundits, etc. Most show their true face on camera, but some do not. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people will actually act more naturally in front of a camera if they hide behind some mask or costume. I certainly couldn't fault them for doing so... I would probably do the same. It does lend some entertainment value to the videos. Take this one, for example:



I think most Super Smash Bros. players would agree with what YTwatchdog has to say. If you've played a fighting game a certain way for a very long time, you definitely wouldn't want to be forced to switch to another control scheme, especially for a competition. When Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix comes out with it's online mode, I sort of wish I had the ability to use my old Super Nintendo controller with it because that's how I played all the original games. The PS3 controller is not bad, but nothing beats Old Faithful, even if it did give me callouses.

2/27/2008 - The Great WARIO WAFT

Just to follow up on my blog entry about the Final Smashes of the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I just wanted to mention that I plan to play as Wario in the game. Why? Well, I've used him ever since he was included in the Mario Party games. Call me anti-establishment, but I just love how he's the oddball of the Mario "family". He was actually the bad guy when he was introduced in Super Mario Land 2 for the Game Boy. I guess he was such a hit with the players that he became the main character in the next game. He used to be portrayed as a greedy SOB, but now he's just a sort of obnoxious anti-hero. When the first video of Brawl came out revealing Wario as a playable character, it looked like his Final Smash would be a fart of atomic bomb proportions. That was what cemented my decision to use him as a character! It sort of disappointed me that his actual Final Smash would just turn him into Super Wario. But at least you can recreate the atomic fart if you so desired:

2/25/2008 - FINAL SMASH

Undoubtedly, one of the things that made Street Fighter II so great was the special moves each character had. These were powerful moves that were a signature for each character and were almost magical in nature. Truthfully, the original Street Fighter did have special moves for Ryu and Ken like the Hadoken and Shoryuken, but they were so incredibly hard to pull off that it seemed like an accident when you actually were able to perform it. In Street Fighter II, however, the programmers made the joystick motions for the special moves so forgiving that they were easily repeatable... but you had to know what the motions were in the first place. And that was what made SF2 such a social game... when you saw a special move being done, you would just go and ask the player how he or she did it. That is, if he or she was willing to. Remember that it is a competitive game, after all.

Perhaps inspired by the progression of all the other fighting games with their special moves and in some cases, fatality moves (a special finishing move at the end of a match where your defeated opponent would be at your mercy to be killed creatively and often violently), Capcom upped the ante in Super Street Fighter II Turbo by introducing the "Super" move. Think of it as an even more powerful version of a special move that can be used as an act of desperation or as a cool finishing move. A Super move could only be used when your "Super meter" filled up by doing regular special moves or by attempting to hit your opponent. Of course, the other fighting game publishers *cough*SNK*cough* would follow Capcom's lead and "introduce" Supers in their fighting games. Supers became a staple of these games and got kind of crazy with multiple-level Super meters and combos that hit in the dozens with the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

Despite Super Smash Bros. coming out years after the Capcom games, they did not really have Super moves... that is, until Super Smash Bros. Brawl next month. Of course, the Smash Bros. series does things a little different and in this case there won't be a Super meter. Instead, there will be an item called a Smash Ball that will appear randomly which you have to hit to activate and then collect. Your character will then be able to do a Super, or the Final Smash, as it is called. Spoilers ahead, as this video reveals the Final Smashes of every character:

2/17/2008 - Big Blue Music

Next month the gaming world will mark another momentous occasion as Super Smash Bros. Brawl is released for the U.S. audience. This has been a long-awaited release for the still fledgling Nintendo Wii. The previous Smash Bros. games have been huge sellers and it looks like Nintendo has pulled all the stops for this one. It looks so great that it would be the only game that I consider buying the Wii for. On top of it all, there is online play, something that will definitely make the replay value go into the stratosphere.

To get an idea of what the game is going to be like, we should look to none other than the previous release of Super Smash Bros., Melee. For that we turn to a series of YouTube videos from user "CrappyCaptureDevice". These videos chronicle the "History of Super Smash Bros. Melee" by showing all aspects of the game in relation to their counterparts in the past games of each franchise. From stage levels to special moves, this "history lesson" is quite extensive and very entertaining.

I've chosen to feature the lesson on where the music of the Big Blue stage came from. First, of course, the Big Blue stage of the SNES version of F-Zero is shown. I've always liked this music because it suits the racing theme very well. In fact, if I had this playing in my car radio, I'd be tempted to speed. What I didn't know, and what this video opened my eyes to was that an alternate soundtrack plays on all the stages at random times. For this stage, it comes from an obscure racing game for the NES called Mach Rider. It is said, in fact, that F-Zero is the spiritual successor to Mach Rider. I don't know about that, but the music is kinda cool.

6/8/2007 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl Trailer: RETRO Version

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is perhaps the third most anticipated game behind Metroid Prime 3 (what should be the best FPS with the Wiimote) and Super Mario Galaxy (I'm not sure about the control scheme on this one, but Shigeru Miyamoto's behind it!). The first Super Smash Bros. was a big hit late in the Nintendo 64's lifespan. The Nintendo 64 wasn't known to be a system for fighting games mainly because the controller wasn't designed for them. Nintendo wanted to correct that problem with their own fighting game based on their mascots.

It was no ordinary fighting game, though... special moves weren't pulled off by keypad sequences, instead each character had their own set of special moves that were easily accessed with the combination of just one button and the direction of the analog stick. Yes, you would be using the analog stick to control the movements of the characters. This was a new concept for a fighting game as it was the first (I believe) to add how fast the character would move based on how hard you're pressing on the control stick.

Another thing that made Super Smash Bros. different was that there was no health meter. Your goal in the game is not to "kill" the opponent by taking away all their health. Instead the goal is to knock the opponents out of the arena during the fight. There is a damage counter for each player, though, and that determines how far your character moves on a single blow from the opponent.

The game started out on the Nintendo 64 as a 3-D game, and although it had a fairly low polygon count (compared to today's games of course), it was very playable and fun. I do have to wonder, though, if it would be possible to make a Super Smash Bros. completely in 2-D. That's because even though the characters and backgrounds are fully rendered 3-D objects, the gameplay itself was two-dimensional. Apparently, one person took this thought and ran with it, taking old 2-D mascot sprites and using them to remake the Super Smash Bros Brawl preview in glorious 8-bit and 16-bit graphics!



Now wouldn't it be awesome if Nintendo did something like this and release it on the Virtual Console?