Nintendo Wii - Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review

So we bought this game on the recommendation of the sales associate at the K-mart where we bought our Wii. when was that... over a year ago? (i think...)
anyway this kid was maybe 19, and so we asked him which was the most popular game for the Wii, and he says "get this one, it's awesome".

um... not so much.

it's a good fighting game, don't get me wrong. it's cool you get to be link or zelda or mario or even pikachu. it's got a pretty cool story line game as well. good for co-op mode. bonding time with the hubby. nice. but most people will play just for the street fighter style fighting game. and i really stink at those kinda games. seriously. i'm a "button masher", always have been. i have irritated every male person who dares invite me to play a fighting game. you know those guys who practice the combos? the ones who play with this look on their face of either total and complete concentration or constipation? yeah, they hate me. passionately. (1997-me and my boyfriend in his living room. he says: "you can't just do the same move over and over!!!! aaarrrgggghhhhh!!!ok. i think we need to talk") so, fighting game? - not for me. 

the stages you fight on can be really cool, and sometimes utterly frustrating. i wear glasses, on account of my inability to see well... and there are stages in this game that are huge. and if you are at one end, and your opponent is at another, the camera auto-zooms out. waaaaay out. your little fighter becomes a speck. i don't really see specks so well. frustrating.

you can create your own fighting stages. that's pretty cool. the controls on that feature are... lacking finesse. it takes a very long time to create a decent level. frustrating.

the story line mode, as i said, is nice. and unexpected. it's long enough to hold my husband's attention, which is saying something. if a game has less than 40 hours of gameplay, he's not interested. he likes to immerse. so we co-op on the story line. that was sometimes problematic, because your characters can only be separated so far across the screen. and co-op is short for co-operative. which involves communication. people who have been married nearly a decade sometimes, surprisingly, lack this trait.

anyway, this game is really quite huge. it's got tons of features. i just wish they'd all been executed more intuitively. and for people who aren't 17 year old boys, and maybe can't see so well. i think if it had a bit more polish, it would have been an epic game. as it is, we regret spending $50 on it. although it's great at parties. kicking your friends' butts is sometimes very therapeutic. =)

bottom line: great for teenagers or people really into fighting games. otherwise, meh, not so much.