Looming over your head within the menacing dark clouds of marketing, the decision of which console to purchase taunts you. “Playstation 3!” the sky roars. “Xbox 360!” “Wiiiiiiii!” You look up, hoping maybe some light will shine through the gloomy amassment of advertisements and point you in the right direction. Instead, lightning strikes, singeing you as well as that money already burning a hole in your pocket. Well, at least that made your decision a little bit easier.

All right, all right, it’s a little morbid to believe that death is your only escape from the console wars that the gaming industry wages daily. It’s nothing new. There’s been competition in the market for video game consoles since we first picked up our controllers, and these current generation consoles have been out for years now. But every piece of gaming equipment is more expensive than ever, and I’m trying to look at prospective purchases a lot more cautiously than I used to. The most glaring reason to buy a system these days is simple: exclusives.

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I have a confession to make. I haven’t owned a console for six years.

Yes. I know. It defies belief.

The reason for my lack is simple to explain: I was hopping the Atlantic on a regular basis, zipping between the USA and Europe, with only a rucksack of belongings. I had a PS2 memory card, and the games I managed to play (Resident Evil 4, Kingdom Hearts, Silent Hill 3, FF6 and FFX, Devil May Cry) I managed only in short stints at friends houses. Beating a game was rare, and often spanned years of on-off gaming sessions. I very quickly fell out of the console gaming loop.

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Ah Smash Brothers, the pinnacle of success every nintendo character aspires to. Where the best of the best can meet, greet, and beat the ever-loving snot out of each other. I love the series so much because it’s such a free-form way to play all my favorite characters. And most of them get serious upgrades in terms of the graphic quality I’m used to seeing them in. I also love it because the designers don’t monopolize the success of the series. They actually approached fans about which characters we would want in brawl and listened to other game directors who wanted a spotlight on their characters. Thus, Sonic and Solid Snake were born…to the world of smash brothers.

Speculation about the game abounded until it was released on the 31st in Japan. Since then I’ve been trying to get my grubby little hands on all the information and videos I can. I’m one of those people who wants to know everything about it, including what characters will be playable, even if I can’t yet play the game. Some of their character choices are, well, unfortunate, but others make me giddy in anticipation of being able to play them for myself.

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