Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Update: Wi-Fi Play Confirmed!
The megaton has arrived. After months, upon months, even years of worry that it wouldn't happen, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has finally been officially confirmed to support Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection for online battles. Breathe out, rest easy. Smash is online, with 100% assurance. Though it might not be the vision of online you'd hoped for.
Sakurai revealed on SmashBros.com that you'll be able to mix it up through Wi-Fi with opponents around the world. You'll have two options for finding challengers – first, you'll be able to look for opponents among those players who you've registered as friends, with the "With Friends" option. This will necessitate entering in a 12-digit friend code from that person, similar to how Pokemon Battle Revolution and Mario Strikers Charged have handled friends lists. You'll be able to store up to 64 friends in this way.
Second, you'll be able to take on all comers, including strangers from around the globe, with the "With Anyone" option. You won't get any personal information about your opponents this way, so you won't know who it is you're playing. And no records of your wins, losses or anything else like that will be kept here – that means no online leaderboards or competing to be the best Smasher in the world. "With Anyone" seems to be geared solely for players who just want human intelligence controlling their opponents, rather than the Wii's AI. This will probably be disappointing to many, but it's definitely the more safe option.
And in keeping with that sense of safety, in-battle communication has been limited. You'll get absolutely no means of communicating with your opponents in "With Anyone" matches, and even with your friends you'll be limited to just simple text messages, keyed to your character's Taunt maneuver. This means a big thumbs-down to the idea of a headset and voice chat, barring some radical change in the next two and a half months. We've recently opined that this is a considerable oversight on Nintendo's part – time will tell how players will react to the exclusion.
But, to end on a brighter note, Sakurai finished up the big reveal with the confirmation of the return of a beloved character from Melee – the Sandbag. The big bag of beans with two sad eyes is back, and ready for more painful punishment. Whereas he starred in Home Run Mode in Melee, now he'll be put in place as a mini-game distraction for waiting players while each match loads. (He may, in fact, be back for Home Run Mode as well. That's a likely asssumption.) Also, interestingly, the bottom of the Sandbag screenshot shows that Player 3 is in the process of selecting the stage. This suggests that arena choice passes from player to player between matches, and stages won't be chosen randomly by the computer. It's possible that certain stages may be unselectable for play through Wi-Fi, though Sakurai's attitude seems to be ahead-of-time apologetic – that you can set up a match how you want, but that you may have to deal with slower connection times as a result.
Overall, definitely a huge announcement and confirmation. But with, certainly, some reservations. While it's a sigh of relief to be able to finally say "Yes, Smash is online for sure," it's a definite disappointment that desired options like voice chat seem all but thrown out the window. More details of Wi-Fi's role in other game modes are set to be revealed in the future, so we don't know all the details yet – but expect to hear much more about Smash's online functionality here on IGN in the months to come.
DS has a DS with a broken hinge that's still working. DD has really scratched up her screen. Both have around $100 in "spend" money and have mentioned wanting to upgrade to the DS Lite. I figured I would ask just in case something new is around the corner.
I wanted to subscribe to this thread so I can be up with the new releases and game recommendations! Thank you for all the tips and ideas!
I doubt there will be one for quite some time.
My Sims for DS and Wii look to be very kid friendly. From what I have seen I get the impression it is a cross between Sims and AC. The characters are more cartoony than the other Sims games. I have preordered both versions... but of course they haven't even shipped yet. Since I am going to Target today I am going to see if they have the Wii version in stock - they are also offering a $10 gift card with purchase.
