So it amazes me that Nintendo would even try to subject its WiFi Connection service to the level of abuse that a fighting game demands. Even Sega was leery of attempting that on Xbox Live with whatever sequel of Virtua Fighter they recently released. Fighters, like first-person shooters, require the instantaneous transmission of very critical pieces of data. Nintendo's service is not up to that kind of low ping business.

I think about half of my button commands were actually registering as Branch and I engaged in a few friendly bouts of bloodletting this evening. My favorite fail came when we went into instant kill sudden death mode. I rolled my Yoshi straight into his fatass Bowser before he could defend and sent him sailing into the stratosphere. ...Only, Yoshi didn't stop rolling when I told him to. He continued off the cliff into oblivion, and Brawl counted the match for Branch, because Bowser was still floating back into orbit when Yoshi died.

Shenanigans.

Anyway, I'm hoping Mario Kart Wii will be a bit better tuned.

An meiner Internetverbindung darf es übrigens nicht liegen, immerhin habe ich gestern in geschlagenen 15 (!) Minuten (24ct/min) an der 1&1 Hotline ein Störungsticket aufgegeben, dass laut der SMS heute morgen um 8 bearbeitet wurde. Grund waren zahlreiche PPPoE-Fehler. Irgendwie überlege ich schon nach Ablauf des Vertrages zur Telekom zu wechseln, da kann man Störungen immerhin Online melden...

Übrigens:

-Ich habe mir mal Zak MacKracken 2 runtergeladen (natürlich per Torrent - share your traffic). Werde ich nachher anspielen, auch wenn ich wahrscheinlich keine zwei Meter weit kommen werde :)
-Wer noch Platz in seiner MKWii Freundesliste hat kann mich adden. Mein Freundescode ist 1075-1071-4324. Natürlich brauche ich dann auch euren Code ;)
-Wie kann ich bei ScribeFire Tags anfügen? Edit: Habs rausgefunden^^
-Ich mag den Wettkampfmodus bei Mario Kart Wii (!) nicht besonders. Die Strecken sind einfach viel zu groß dafür. Die neue Version von GCN Warios Piste ist auch nicht mein Fall. Die Stelle mit den Pflanzen und dem Feuer ist mir zu groß/zu lang.
-Blog entdeckt

Seit Heute bin auch ich stolzer Besitzer des Nachfolgers. Mario Kart Wii bringt wieder einige Features mit sich. Neben der neuartigen Steuerung per "Wii-Wheel", einem Lenkradaufsatz für die Wii-Mote, können sich nun bis zu zwölf Fahrer auf knallharten Pisten unter beweis stellen.
Neu ist auch das endlich ein Onlinemodus integriert wurde über den die Möglichkeit besteht per Nintendo-WiFi-Connection gegen Freunde und weitere Mario Kart Fans  antreten zu können.
Eine Sache die vielleicht zuerst etwas ungewöhnlich klingen mag ist die Tatsache das ab sofort auch mit Motorädern gefahren werden kann. Eine kuriose Sache wenn man auf den Titel "Mario KART Wii" blickt. Wir werden sehen wie sich dieses neue "Feature" im Spielt macht.
Damit aber noch nicht genug der  Neuerungen auch die Anzahl der Strecken wurde mächtig erhöht. Waren es im Vorgänger noch 16 Strecken über die man brausen konnte so sind es im neuesten Ableger der Reihe insgesamt 32 darunter 16 neue und 16 Retro Strecken aus allen Mario Kart Teilen.
So sind zum Beispiel die Strecken "Bowsers Festung" vom N64, "Peach Beach" vom NGC oder das "Geisterhaus 2" vom SNES aufpoliert worden und dürfen nun auf der Wii ihr Comeback feiern, sogar die "Yoshi Kaskaden" vom NintendoDS, und Weitere Strecken, sind enthalten.

Ich werde mir jetzt die Zeit nehmen mich vor den Fernseher zurückziehen und einen Cup nach dem anderen bestreiten. Vielleicht folgt, nach langer Zeit wieder eine Bewertung eines Games. Wer weis, anbieten würde es sich auf jeden Fall.

I won't write a review, exactly, but I will say this:

Graphics 9/10 - The graphics are all very polished and crisp. Everything is vibrant. Possibly one of the best wii games I've seen yet. Backgrounds to stages are just... Christ. For screenshots of the game, visit IGN's Brawl Images.

Gameplay 10/10 - Imagine Melee but faster, larger, better. More items, more fields, more characters, more diversity, more _____. The core gameplay is still the same, which is a good thing. You are now given four different ways to play: the wiimote, the wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller, and gamecube controller.
Music 10/10 - The music is godlike. Really. Go download the 314 track OST if you'd like to hear, or visit SSB Dojo. Tracks range from the original scores to new ones that have been remastered or orchestrated.

Sound 9/10 - Sound effects fit perfectly. Each item's sound effect is taken from the original game.
Online Play 7/10 - Online is a very nice addition but has issues. (more on this below)
Extras 9/10 - New coin launcher game is amazing; the addition of classic games as well as all of the new features are great addons to the Melee formula. Subspace Emissary is DEFINITELY welcome.

Online play is slightly dissappointing in my case. I use a Wifi connection, and the game lags horribly on large fields. Smaller fields happen to do nice, with only a fraction of a delay when you press a button. I'd recommend hooking the wii up directly to the internet via a wired connection, this should greatly reduce your lagtime. Lag at this time could also be because of the huge strain caused by the mass amount of people connecting to their servers.

Subspace Emissary sortof adds a "storyline" to Brawl, which was lacking previous games in the series. It does its job well, topping out around 4 to 5 hours of gameplay. Cutscenes in this are also well made, the CG is stunning; the only problem is the 10 second delay to wait on said cutscene to load.

Overall, Brawl is very well polished. I'd recommend it to anyone that owns a Wii, srsly.

If you'd like to join me in a match, post a comment below with your Brawl friendcode.

Mine is: 1805-2072-8762.
Username: Syl.

And of course, my preferred character among them all:

So I call my friend Dennis back in VA and he tells me he picked up the game at midnight and that he's trying to get an online game setup sometime that day. I tell him there's this insane line and that I'm about to wait in it. It reminded me a lot like when the Wii launched and how we saw all this crazy lines with people waiting in it (mostly of all the schmucks that didn't pre-order, we did and only waited like 40 minutes). Anyway, 11am hits and everyone starts filing in, about one hundred people. Turns out, Best Buy got a huge shipment of Wii's in and most of the people in line had a voucher for one. Also, about half of them were getting Brawl. The checkout line was, at first, really painful to wait in, since the lines were going so due to the checkout procedures in buying the Wii. I was like, "I'm just buying a game, isn't there a shorter line?"

And behold, there was. One of the lanes opened up for people specifically buying anything but a Wii. And just like that, I was the proud owner of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, along with a copy of Bully: Scholarship Edition (which so far is pretty damn good) and a cd by this Scottish band Belle and Sebastian.

So getting home, I play a few single-player rounds, then my cousin plays some (he kept saying the backgrounds trip him out because they move so damn much). Then, in the evening, I get a call from my friend, telling me the online matches are ready to go. So for about an hour or so I'm battling online with my Wii, against friends on the other side of the country. It was pure awesome (lag not withstanding). I haven't had this much fun playing an online game since I was hardcore into Battlefield 2142. Anyway, I've barely scratched the surface of the single-player Subspace Emissary mode, and I've played about 15 online matches with friends and with strangers, and I haven't even touched the level-editing mode and I've only uncovered 1 secret character out of the dozen or so left to discover. And there's the trophy and sticker collecting, and the snapshots and replays. I guess I'll be busy for awhile. Sucks I have midterms and all the grad school bullshizzle.

No Wii owner should be without Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It belongs alongside Wii Sports and Guitar Hero III as party games to bust out when you have friends over.

I know I've barely played the game, but I'm going to go ahead and give it my rating anyway.

9.5/10 (1/2 point docked due to some lag in 4-player online brawls)