Call up your friends, grab some extra controllers and get ready for the return of Nintendo's fan service franchise, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Does the third installment of the series take fighting to new heights, or are we treated to more of the same?

Before you even boot the game up you probably want to decide what controller to use. The game boasts support for every controller you could possibly connect to the Wii but that doesn't mean they all work equally well. I prefer the Gamecube controller, but the classic controller comes in a distant second. If you have no other choice the Wiimote-nunchuck combo is manageable, but the Wiimote alone just doesn't work that well thanks to a lack of analog stick.

Gameplay is classic Smash Bros.: Keep your character on the stage while trying to raise the damage percentage of your opponents and knocking them into a different time zone. All the helpful items return along with a few new ones, most notable the assist trophies and final smash orbs. The assist trophies work similar to the pokeballs although instead of summoning those adorable little monsters, the assist trophies call forth classic game characters from the recognizable Little Mac from Punch-Out! to some obscure cameos you'll have to hit Wikipedia to fully understand. The final smash orbs appear once or twice a match and once broken by several hits will allow your character to pull off a fatality-like move, such as launching grenades as Snake to transforming Ganondorf into a charging Ganon. These all but guarantee a few extra points depending on how skillfully you line up your opponents before you pull off the move.

The classic single player game returns, where you pick a character and battle through several stages culminating in a fight with the disembodied hand, nothing we haven't seen before. The Subspace Emissary mode gives 8-10 hours of a story-infused challenge for one or two players. This combines traditional battles with some mildly annoying platforming, resulting in a test of patience rather than nonstop fun. The upside, though, is that it allows you to unlock the hidden characters a bit faster than straight brawling.

If you've picked up Brawl chances are you're here for the multiplayer fights. Then you're in for one hell of a ride. Quite frankly this is the most fun I've had with multiplayer in a game since the last Smash Bros., Melee, was released. This game is meant to be played with four people, all in the same room, complete with some major trash talking. I actually spent last weekend playing for 4 straight hours with some friends and we were ready to go again the next day. If you're not a fan of human interaction then you can take attempt the online mode. Sure, everyone complains about friend codes, but they've never really bothered me - mostly because if I have friends we just play at one house, otherwise I'll play random people online. The biggest issue, though, is that actually getting and staying online with the Wii might lead to more than a few Wiimotes being imbedded in televisions. If you do manage to get into a match, expect some major slowdown to occur. Nintendo dropped the ball on this, big time.

While this game won't be winning any awards for its graphics, it is a noticeable step up from Melee. Link and Zelda in particular seem to have benefitted from the upgrade, with their character models bearing strong resemblance to their Twilight Princess counterparts. The stages range from the simple line drawings of Pictochat to the visual overload of the Lylat Cruise stage. The graphics becomes secondary when you have four players bashing the daylights out of each other, all in a smooth 60 frames per second.

In the end Smash Bros. Brawl is a worthy addition to the franchise. Multiplayer is where the real fun lies with almost forty playable characters and several amusing stages to choose from. Single player should once again only be played when you have no other choice, or if you're looking to unlock some extra characters before your next get together. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and Smash Bros. is most definitely not broken. Don't expect anything drastically different, just expect hours of fun.

Overall Score: 9 out of 10

By Dan Chruscinski
Starpulse contributing writer