Well, it's been a tough wait. Seven years ago, in 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee was released for the Nintendo GameCube. It went on to become the console's best selling title, and though the GameCube had numerous phenomenal games in its lifespan, none ever matched the power of Smash. This game was a sequel to the best-seller Super Smash Bros. Both titles share the same premise; a side-scrolling fighting game with Nintendo's All-Stars. Melee was a substantially more fleshed out version of the original.

Sporting amazing graphics (for the GameCube) and some of the best gameplay of any fighting game in history, as well as a nearly infinite amount of unlockable content, I've been playing the game with by brother for seven years. Talk about replay value. We only finished unlocking everything on the game about a year ago, but this game was made to be replayed. If it weren't for the third entry in the series, I'd still be playing it all the time.

So after a long, long excruciatingly painful wait, we finally have the third entry in the series. It's been the subject of huge hype for well over a year, and the question is, could is possibly live up to this hype?

Oh heck yeah.

It surpasses expectations....and personally, my expectations were sky high.

Gameplay and Presentation: 10/10

I have trouble giving anything a perfect score. I've only given one movie an A+, and a 10/10 is pretty much the same....so giving this a 10/10 was a hard decision. Not because this game doesn't deserve it, but because logically, no game should be this good. If I wanted to find nits to pick, I could find them...but this game still deserves that rating.

The logical place to start here is with the interface. While the previous two games both had well-done and easy to navigate menus, Brawl does it even better. If you haven't played the game or seen snapshots, the menus are bright and colorful, with all the options in circular designs. It looks extremely similar to Game Director Miyamoto's last game, the little-known gem Kirby Air-Ride. From the main menu, you have a few options, and absolutely anything you want to do or find is very easy to find. On Melee, it could sometimes take a while to find what you were looking for, but Brawl simply nails it.

Your first option is the best option; BRAWL!!!! Here, you can engage in the classic 4 on 4 bash fest (which can be done with teams, of course). You can customize the game to have various options, like Lightning Speed, Giant Characters, Small Characters, etc. These options were available in Melee, but now you can turn all of them on at once. You can also participate in a Tournament mode, or rotation mode, which passes the controllers around when you have more than 4 people.

As in Melee, the fighting is incredibly responsive, fun, and addictive. You can judge matches by a variety of rules (stock, time, stamina, etc.). The controls in battle are even more fluid and responsive than they were in Melee. I never had problems controlling characters in that game, but here, the controls seem to extend through the controller to your brain. If you want it to happen, it will happen.

Before continuing, let me explain the various control methods. First, and best, is simply the GameCube controller. It controls largely as it did in Melee, but you can set commands to any button you so desire. You can also use the classic controller; I don't own one of these, but sources say it's nearly as good as the GameCube controller. We also have the Wiimote and Nunchuck combo. This is not necessarily bad, but it is incredibly awkward, especially after playing Melee on the GameCube controller for 7 years. Finally, there is the Wiimote by itself, turned on its side. Don't even bother with this. It's like trying to will the game to work without actually using a controller. Some will probably like each of the control methods, and I doubt anyone will hate all of them. Everyone should be able to control the game with ease.

Back to the gameplay. Like I said, it's basically the same as Melee, but with better controls. The items are more varied, and you rarely get useless ones. The highly hyped Final Smash balls appear about 4-6 times a round, and it's an all out brawl to get it when it appears. The Final Smashes are not the unstoppable blood-baths we might have thought; they're almost always avoidable, with skill. Each character has a unique final smash that are all fun to see; some are better than others, but with skill, you can make a K.O. out of all of them. This adds another dimension to the playable characters.

Speaking of them, the roster of characters to choose from is large, and almost all of them are fun to play with. We have classics like Mario, Link, Yoshi, Pikachu, etc, but we also have some great newcomers. Wario is clunky, but in a good way; the Poke'mon trainer mixes things up quite a bit, as he controls three different Poke'mon. Meta Knight and King Dedede are somewhat overpowered, but fun and easy to play with. Diddy Kong, a character I thought would suck, is actually one of the best. He has peanut guns (yes, you read that right) and a jetpack. All the newcomers are easy to learn, but like any good character, hard to master. This is definitely the strongest line-up yet, and there's 14 more to unlock.

The stages are also the best of this series so far. 10 (4 unlockable, 6 from the start) are from Melee, and are as cool as you remember them. The rest are brand new, and there's only one or two stinkers. The cool part is, they're animated in full 3-D (even though you fight in a 2-D plane). Pause the game to tour the environments; it's very cool. The stages always have something interesting going on in the background, which really adds to the experience. For instance, in the Star Fox stage, where you fight on the back of Fox's ship, you fly through asteroids, other ships fire at you, and you race by planets. Some stages are interactive; in the Luigi's Mansion stage, you can destroy the mansion. Almost all the stages are fun, the best being the ones that change locations midway through. Highlight stages include Mushroomy Kingdom, Castle Seige, Luigi's Mansion, the Bridge of Elden, LYlat Cruise, Shadow Moses Island, and the creative PictoChat stage. In fact, I could list nearly every stage. They all rock.

The A.I. in multiplayer mode is also improved. It's not perfect, but the difficulty on the later levels is much better; each difficulty level feels varied, and level 9 is very challenging. Playing with friends or alone (I pity you) you'll have a fun multi-player experience.

On the main menu, you can also go to "Solo." The first option is "Classic Mode." This is where you pick a character and a difficulty, and go through about 12 stages, each featuring characters from a various series. For instance, on stage 1, you will fight a Legend of Zelda character. It's the mode you remember from previous games, but is the best yet.

Of course, if that was the only 1 player mode offered, this series might be getting redundant. But we also have an all-new side-scrolling adventure game entitled "The Subspace Emissary." This is worth the price of the disc alone. A long, side-scrolling beat-em-up game, the mode also features numerous cinematics, in which the Smash characters come together to beat a new enemy. The cutscenes are well-animated and fun to watch, and the gameplay is interesting. It's not perfect, but is very fun, especially when you play on Co-Op. You can also go through numerous event matches on the solo menu, or hone your skills in training mode.

One of Brawl's best features, though, is the Stage Builder. Easy to use, you can build your own custom stages to brawl on. Even if you put no effort into it, the stages turn out extremely playable. It's amazing. This makes the game virtually endless. Perhaps in the fourth game will get the Character builder.

Graphics: 9/10

Brawl sports possibly the best graphics on the Wii. Of course, that's kind of like talking about the best video quality on VHS. The Wii doesn't have the graphical power to compete with the Xbox 360 or PS3, and this game's graphics will never compete with those. But the point of graphics is to serve and enhance the game, and the Brawl graphics do that incredibly well.

The character's clothes are very detailed, and their facial expressions easier to see. Effects like fireballs are gorgeously animated, and draw you into the game even more. The backgrounds in the stages are very fun to look at, and incredibly well-animated. The opening cinematic, and all the cut scenes in "Subspace" are mind-blowingly good. The graphics don't match the likes of "Halo 3," but for what they're here to do, they serve their purpose amazingly well.

Sound: 10/10

This certainly isn't hard to give a 10 to. In addition to awesome sound effects that draw you even further into the game, the disc hosts the best video game soundtrack in years. Over 30 composers from the game's respective series worked on the score, and it shows. Each stage has its own music (which you can change if you desire). Mostly it's re-arrangements of beloved game classics, but there's some new-content as well. The menu music is a clever arrangement of the game's main theme. All of it sounds amazing, and is one of the best components of the game.

Fun Factor: 1,000,000,000/10

Melee had years and years worth of replay value, and Brawl will surpass that. I don't usually resort to gag ratings, but saying this has a billion out of 10 in the fun department is true. Playing alone (you poor thing) or with friends, this is simply on the funnest titles you will ever purchase.

I always resent the 50 dollar price tags on games, but Brawl feels like a bargain. There's so much content and fun packed in here, I felt like I was robbing GameStop. There's no such thing as a perfect game, but Brawl comes incredibly close. This is one of the single best games Nintendo has ever produced, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Overall Rating (Not an Average): 10/10