Nintendo held an after-hours press event today where it announced Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the next title in the acclaimed Super Smash Bros. series.
Mysteriously absent from Nintendo's pre-E3 media conference, the game was unveiled along with news of four new playable characters: Pit from NES classic Kid Icarus, Meta-Knight from the Kirby franchise, Zero Suit Samus from the Metroid series, Mario's evil twin Wario and - to the shock and bewilderment of all - Solid Snake from Konami's acclaimed Metal Gear Solid series. Also announced were brand-new items and weapons, with screen-obscuring Nintendogs being one displayed example.
In a shocking revelation, series creator Masahiro Sakurai has confirmed that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will not use the Wii controller's motion-sensing capabilities, opting instead to use basic button controls for the Wii controller or a GameCube controller via Wii's 4 GameCube controller ports. It is unknown if the game will also support the announced classic controller, though it would seem very likely. Sakurai explained the decision, saying that "we found that trying to implement too much motion-sensory functionality can get in the way of the game. We're looking at keeping the control simple, as it has been. The Wii hardware has sockets for the GameCube controller, too. So I'll just say now that you may not want to throw away your GCN controller yet."
Discussing the decision to include Solid Snake in the game, Sakurai said that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima pleaded for Snake to be included in the last Smash Bros. Shigeru Miyamoto was at the event, where he discussed the possibility of other third-party characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog being considered as characters in the game.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been re-confirmed as an online title. Sakurai stated that "one of the primary reasons Super Smash Bros. Brawl was created was that Nintendo, when taking Wii online, wanted to have Smash Bros. to do that."
The game will not be available at Wii's launch as originally anticipated and will instead be released to 2007.
The Wiire will bring more news on this blockbuster title as it becomes available.
