Being the third game in the Super Smash Bros. series, Brawl had a lot to live up to. There was a lot of hype surrounding its release and gladly it doesnt fail to deliever. Brawl offers many hours of gameplay with a wide variety of content and features to unlock.

The multiplayer mode of course will be the main point of interest for most people, with the ability to have 4 people all brawling at once means this makes a great party game, while not as accessible as some Wii titles the controls are fairly easy to get to grips with. And with a huge roster of characters theres something for everyone.

The single player experience in Brawl is just as enjoyable, with a fleshed out adventure mode that features side-scrolling elements and boss fights and allowing you to unlock characters along the way. Also, there are several mini-games available, such as "Target Smash", "Home Run Contest" and "Multi-man Brawl" with others being unlocked as you progress.

There are also a tonne… more »

Being the third game in the Super Smash Bros. series, Brawl had a lot to live up to. There was a lot of hype surrounding its release and gladly it doesnt fail to deliever. Brawl offers many hours of gameplay with a wide variety of content and features to unlock.

The multiplayer mode of course will be the main point of interest for most people, with the ability to have 4 people all brawling at once means this makes a great party game, while not as accessible as some Wii titles the controls are fairly easy to get to grips with. And with a huge roster of characters theres something for everyone.

The single player experience in Brawl is just as enjoyable, with a fleshed out adventure mode that features side-scrolling elements and boss fights and allowing you to unlock characters along the way. Also, there are several mini-games available, such as "Target Smash", "Home Run Contest" and "Multi-man Brawl" with others being unlocked as you progress.

There are also a tonne of collectables in the form of trophies and stickers that feature characters from the last 20+ years of Nintendo's history. Throphies can be viewed and come with information about each character they depict, while stickers are used in the story mode to power up characters.

Now for the online mode, which is why this just misses the score of 5 stars. While a very welcome addition the quality of it just leaves it feeling like it was tacked on. The lag can be atrocious, so much so that the action will freeze completely and often disconnect. Of course theres 2 options, "with Friends" allows you to brawl with people you've swapped friend codes with which can be tedious in itself, and "with anyone" which randomly sets you up with other people using the same option and sadly this is where the worst of the lag happens.

Overall, Brawl is a fantastic game to have and a blast to play with others and alone. Just the patchy online mode causes it to fall short of the 5 star rating. A worthwhile addition to anyone's collection by no means.