Volume 4 Issue 1 First Quarter 2008 Super ... - Hardcore Gamer

If there’s one thing the 3D generation of gameplay has conclusively proven, it’s that one of the worst
things you can do to a game is stretch its engine too far. You can see this in dozens if not hundreds of
other games released in the last ve years, with things like our old nemesis the Forced Stealth Section
or, worse, the First-Person Jumping Puzzle. It’s the sudden intrusion of vastly different gameplay in an
engine that wasn’t designed for it, and it’s always a bad move.
Subspace Emissary is a side-scrolling 2.5D action-platformer that uses the Smash Bros. engine. It doesn’t
sound like a bad idea on paper, really, and it worked okay in Melee’s Adventure mode. In Brawl, though,
Subspace Emissary is easily the most frustrating part of the game.
The thing about Smash Bros. in general is that mindgames are half the fun, and the fast and furious play
is the other half. It’s most successful when it’s at its most chaotic, with four players battling it out and a
hundred things happening in the background.
Subspace Emissary, on the other hand, is made to be played relatively conservatively, without any of the
goofy mindgames that characterize Brawl’s versus mode. It’s hard the way that arcade quartermunchers are
hard; each enemy isn’t hard to beat, but they often inict a couple of cheap hits before they go, so by the
time you reach a boss you’re sucking fumes and almost out of lives. Then the boss one-shots you, and it’s back
to the beginning of the stage. To win, you have to get very methodical and precise, which is almost against the
very spirit of the game.
30_FEATURE_A 22_COVER FEATURE_ WORD SUPER WITH GAMEFLY’S SMASH BROS. SEAN
BRAWL
SPECTOR
HARDCORE HARDCORE RE GAMER GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME A
ME
OLU 4_ISSUE 3_ISSUE 1_FERVOROUS 6_BIKER ROU
CLUSTERSNOGGIN’
MOMS ON PATROL
HARDCORE RE
GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME AZ
4_ISSUE 1_FERVOROUS CLUSTERSNOGGIN’
SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL_COVER FEATURE_23