I fucking love Smash Bros and can put my hand up to say that the most fun I've had on a console with friends has been it. I've been playing it right back from the 64 days (Captain Falcon -> Falco -> Starwolf has been my progression of 'mains' as the mongs on those forums call it) and regulrly get together with friends, not with the express purpose of playing Smash Bros... but it always ends that way. I bought SSBB the day after it came out in Aus (exam period ftl) and have played it with friends in person, and online since then. What I'm trying to establish is that I'm no stranger to the Smash series, in fact I'm quite a fan.
That said, I've looked at those forums (smashboards in particular), and they fucking disgust me. Console gaming is inherently different than PC gaming (although less and less so with the introduction of Live/PSN/Wii Wifi), in that it generally is more good natured, and is overtly something that you do for fun, as opposed to the fun coming from the winning itself. I have seen the flamewars about whether Metaknight should be banned from tournaments. I have been witness to the rantings of deluded people going on and on about how their character of choice really r teh awesome and should be in a higher (or lower) tier. There was literally a story on there once about how someone at a mates place was asked to stop wavedashing because he was about to break the controller, so he chucked a hissy and left the house. Everyone congratulated him and said that his friend was bitter. These are the same people that take the C Sticks out of their controllers to show that theyre not 'nub' (you can do a smash attack either using the c stick or by pressing A at the same time as a direction, with the former being considered noob because it takes less than one hand to do).
It's elitism. The same as the people that play CAL or TWL or PAM4, although arguably they're inherently different as they're for competitive computer games, as opposed to a party console game. Don't get me wrong, they can ban whatever stage or characters they want for their circlejerk tournaments. But then to go around criticising people and declaring them inferior for beating them on a different ruleset (arguably 'the way the game was meant to be played') seems counter productive to me. Same for their glitch techniques (wavedashing was removed for a reason, primarily because it wasn't an intended effect of the physics/combat mechanics of the game).
I mean Christ almighty, look at the fluster they've worked me into.
PS anyone still play much online? Could we get a bf2s tourney going? (so I can ban all the levels and characters except the ones I use)
