Long overdue and wrought with anticipation from Wii owners, Nintendo's Super Smash Brothers series makes it return with Brawl.

The series known for it's frantic and fast paced 2-D fighting comes packed with just about every key character in the the Nintendo universe, from Mario to Zelda. And for the first time even includes characters from third party titles such as Segas' Sonic or Konami's, Solid Snake, totaling a whopping 35 playable characters.

Like the rest of the series, Brawl's core gameplay is rooted in simplicity with a very basic control scheme. Two buttons for attacks and one for shield your directional pad or stick used for ducking jumping and foward and back movement. The developers even went as far as implementing four different control schemes, but dont expect any innovation with the Wii remote and nunchuk controls. In fact this control scheme felt quite akward and we highly recommend the classic controller or better yet a Gamecube controller.

The fighting can take place with up to four players in one video gamed derived location and the goal is simple, smash your opponents out of the arena. The premise is simple, but the battles quickly turn chaotic as enemies fill the screen. You'll be tempted to turn this into a button mashing brawl, but staying calm in the heat of battle is key to success in the game. On the other hand, those looking for Virtual Fighter or Soul Calibur like depth to the game will be dissappointed.

In single player modes you'll have the ability to customize several options, especially in the special brawl mode where you can adjust things like game types, gravity or game speed.

Utilizing a very easy to navigate interface you'll also be able to create your own custom stages. Anything from backgrounds, music, platforms, even theme music is at your disposal to create the perfect arena. You can even send the level to your friends, but sadly they cant be used online.

For those brawlers who are content going at it alone, you willl probably spend most of the time in the game's adventure mode titled Subspace Emissary. it focuses on a single story that features all of the characters in the game as the story line intertwines all their fates and they join together to battle a mysterious enemy, but I bet you can guess who! Best part is a friend can always join in for some co-op play.

New to the series is the ability to brawl online. There is your basic quick match for single or team based play. But if you connect with friends you'll get some additional customizable gameplay options. And surprisingly for an online fighter, we experienced no lag. One of the neat features on line is the ability to save a replay of the match that you can play back later on. And if you like you can pause a match or the replay and snap a picture and send them to your friends, very similar to the photo mode in games like PGR 4.

Graphically the game is probably one of the better looking games on the Wii and the framrate never dropped, even on larger levels with 4 player chaotic battles and the characters new and fluid animations look fantastic.

Smash Brothers is a game that's rooted in Nintendo's vast history of memorable characters and classic 2D style gameplay. I kinda of wanted to see a little more innovation with this entry into the series, especially on a console that has already done so well in that area, but while easily accessbile to newcomers this new installment delivers enough added value for fans of the series to add it to their growing Wii collection. Super Smash Bros: Brawl is rated for ages thriteen and up and TXG gives it a 4.5 out of 5.