Super Smash Bros. Nintendo
Three stars
Every few years, Nintendo rounds up its most popular characters, like Mario, Donkey Kong and Pikachu, and has them beat the daylights out of each other. It's not exactly blood sport — there are no spine-shattering Mortal Kombat-style fatalities, and everyone walks away smiling. Only Nintendo could make bare-knuckle brawling cute.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Nintendo) continues that bizarre balancing act between adorable and brutal. Like most fighting games, it's a snooze to play alone but a delight to play with friends.
The initial 49-character roster includes familiar challengers like Link and Kirby, new fighters like the Wii Fit trainer and Little Mac from Punch-Out, and even a few non-Nintendo ringers like Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog. You can also fight as your Mii avatar, armed with a gun, a sword or just your fists.
It's simple enough: one button lets you punch opponents or pick up useful items, like a baseball bat or a healing spell. A second button unleashes special attacks that vary by character: Mario can throw fireballs, Link can shoot arrows and Yoshi can inhale enemies. Once you get the basics, you can figure out which combinations of buttons yield the most damaging attacks. Each melee takes place on a two-dimensional field of floating platforms, with backgrounds inspired by classic games dating all the way back to Donkey Kong.
