It’s a funny thing when something that everyone already knows is officially announced. Such was the case when Nintendo told the world that Sonic the Hedgehog would, in fact, be a playable character in Smash Brothers Brawl. Hurray! I knew that already. From the moment I saw how much of an improvement Sonic and the Secret Rings was over those “other” new Sonic games, I figured on it. When Mario & Sonic at the Olympics started previewing, it was a forgone conclusion. And once we saw Solid Snake skulking around the Brawl scene, we knew that just about any character was on the table.

One thing I would not like to see is all of the Sonic extended characters in Brawl. There are far too many to list here, but you all know what I am talking about. I’d be okay with, maybe, one of them. Tails or Knuckles, perhaps. Even Shadow (who is black and has a gun, in case you hadn’t heard). But that’s going to be my upper cap on Sonic spin-off characters – at least until games like F-Zero or Star Fox get their own sidekicks as playable brawlers. I’m pretty sure I could knock most players off the screen just by spamming “Do A Barrel Roll!” come to think of it.

As someone who remembers the bitter rivalry between Mario and Sonic (or, at least, between their parent companies) this is really quite enjoyable. It was Sega who first realized that “Nintendo is for kids!” could be a marketing weapon. I remember commercials featuring “blast processing” which was the very clever technique of compiling source code properly (as best I could tell). And I remember reading the pure technical specs of the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, comparing numbers I scarcely understood and noting that Nintendo had two, perhaps even three megahertz over Sega’s competing product. Mode 7 was the altar on whose bloody surface the original F-Zero was worshiped into existence. Genesis did what Nintendidnt. And the Super-FX chip introduced console gamers to these things called “polygons”.

And now that’s all changed. Console wars now aren’t about characters or even games anymore, they are about ideas and the way that entertainment is evoked. Sure, Mario is still a Nintendo mascot, and in many ways he still represents the company. But it was Link that launched the Wii, and it’s been Samus that has revitalized interest in it from a serious gaming perspective. About the closest thing to a rivalry that exists, from a mascot standpoint, has always been Metroid and Halo. But even that comparison is fanboy infantilism at best, and does not exist in even the mainstream of gaming.

Now the console wars are about the how and not the what. Xbox does it online. Wii does it with your hands. And PS3 does it, um, I don’t know, to your wallet? I guess that’s always been Sony’s problem with the PS3. Other than it looking pretty, it didn’t have a real grab feature. And people who are willing to pay $600 to look pretty have probably already paid $2000 to look pretty on their computers. But it’s all different now. We’re never going to see Master Chief and Samus Aran duke it out in Super FPS Brothers (coming soon to the Wii60 Extreme, July of 2014). Link is never going to lock blades with the weird little kid from Ico. It’s not just a different type market. It’s a different type of product.

As for the future of Brawl, though, things look bright. Online Versus and Co-op is confirmed (and crappy friend codes are present. . . Nintendo really needs to allow an option to turn them off even if that is done via parental controls), so the biggest fear, partly realized by the lack of multiplayer in Prime 3, has been laid to rest. There are going to be at least four different control schemes, and it will be interesting to see how Nintendo resolves that properly. Just about the only reveal left for the game are the other hidden characters. Personally, my money is still on Pac-Man. Yeah, you heard me. Pac-Man. Though if I could build up my dream roster, I’d throw the Prince of Persia and Sam Fisher in there (finally, Fisher vs. Snake could be resolved). Though if Raiden shows up. . . I am out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.