Welcome to my spectacular blog!: Jun 10, 2007

This week's theme: eponyms.selenography (sel-uh-NOG-ruh-fee) noun The branch of astronomy dealing with the physical features of the moon.[From Greek seleno-, from Selene (goddess of the moon in Greek mythology) +-graphy (writing).]-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (inside story)!

Although a third Super Smash Bros. game had been announced long before E3 2006, Nintendo unveiled its first information in the form of a trailer on May 10, 2006, and the game was named Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The trailer featured Solid Snake, of Konami's Metal Gear fame, marking the first time that a third-party character had been introduced as a playable character in a Super Smash Bros. title. A second third-party character, Sonic the Hedgehog, from Nintendo's former rival Sega was also confirmed as a playable character on October 10, 2007. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in Japan on January 31, 2008, in North America on March 9, 2008 and will be released in Europe on June 27, 2008. Brawl is also the first game in the franchise to support online play, via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and offer the ability for players to construct their own original stages. Brawl also features compatibility with four kinds of controllers (the Wii Remote on its side, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination, the Classic Controller, and the Nintendo GameCube controller),while its predecessors only used the one controller designed for that system. The player also has the ability to change the configuration of controls and the controller type.Super Smash Bros. Brawl features a new Adventure Mode titled Super Smash Bros. Brawl: The Subspace Emissary. This mode features unique character storylines along with numerous side scrolling levels and multiple bosses to fight, as well as CG cut scenes explaining the storyline. The Subspace Emissary features a new group of antagonists called the Subspace Army, who are led by the Ancient Minister. Some of these enemy characters appeared in previous Nintendo video games, such as Petey Piranha from the Mario series and a squadron of R.O.B.s based on classic Nintendo hardware. The Subspace Emissary also boasts a number of original enemies, such as the Roader, a robotic unicycle; the Bytan, a one-eyed ball-like creature which can replicate itself if left alone; and the Primid, enemies that come in many variations.Though primarily a single-player mode, The Subspace Emissary allows for cooperative multiplayer. There are five difficulty levels for each stage, and there is a method of increasing characters' powers during the game.This is done by placing collected stickers onto the bottom of a character's trophy between stages to improve various aspects of a fighter.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (inside look)!

Super Smash Bros. Melee was released November 21, 2001, in Japan; December 3, 2001, in North America; May 24, 2002, in Europe; and May 31, 2002, in Australia for the GameCube video game console. It had a larger budget and development team than Super Smash Bros. did and was released to much greater praise and acclaim among critics and consumers. Since its release, Super Smash Bros. Melee has sold more than 7 million copies and was the best-selling game on the GameCube.Super Smash Bros. Melee features 26 characters, of which 15 are available initially, more than doubling the number of characters in its predecessor. There are also 29 stages. It introduced two new single-player modes alongside the Classic mode: Adventure mode and All-Star mode. Adventure mode has platforming segments similar to the original's "Race to the Finish" mini-game, and All-Star is a fight against every playable character in the game, allows the player only one life in which damage is accumulated over each battle, and a limited number of heal items in between battles. There are also significantly more multiplayer modes and a tournament mode allowing for 64 different competitors whom can all be controlled by a human player, although only up to four players can participate at the same time. Additionally, the game featured alternative battle modes, called "Special Melee," which involve some sort of alteration to the battle (e.g. all characters are giant by default, the speed is faster than normal, etc), along with alternative ways to judge a victory, such as through collecting coins throughout the match. In place of Super Smash Bros.' character profiles, Melee introduced trophies (called "figures" in the Japanese version). The 293 trophies include three different profiles for each playable character, one unlocked in each single-player mode. In addition, unlike its predecessor, Melee contains profiles for many Nintendo characters who are either non-playable or do not appear in the game, as well as Nintendo items, stages, enemies, and elements.

Super Smash Bros. (inside story)!

Super Smash Bros. was introduced in 1999 for the Nintendo 64. It was released worldwide after selling over a million copies in Japan.It featured eight characters from the start, with four unlockable characters, all of them created by Nintendo or one of its second-party developers. In multiplayer (Versus) mode, up to four people can play, with the specific rules of each match being predetermined by the players. There are two different types that can be chosen: Time, where the person with the most KOs at the end of the set time wins; and stock, where each person has a set amount of lives, and when they are gone, the player is eliminated. This game's one-player mode included one adventure mode that always followed the same series of opponents although the player could change the difficulty. Other single player modes exist such as Training and several mini-games, including "Break the Targets" and "Board the Platforms". All of these were included in the sequel, with the exception of "Board the Platforms". In Versus mode, there are nine playable stages: eight based on each of the starting characters (such as Princess Peach's Castle for Mario, Zebes for Samus, and Sector Z for Fox) and the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom.