Kayla “Mew2Queen” Mackay was one of five players who won a fan vote to play Super Smash Bros. Melee in Genesis 5, a major tournament in Oakland, and the first to receive full funding. For Mackay, who plays as Marth, it should have been a huge moment. But in response to her nomination, Melee players immediately raised…
In the 16 years since Super Smash Brothers: Melee came out, it has gotten harder and harder for Smash tournaments and pro players to keep using the controller for which it was originally made. GameCube controllers are getting old. The best ones are are hard to find and expensive to maintain. And some players complain…
Last Sunday, as two top League of Legends teams battled in Boston’s TD Banknorth Garden in front of thousands of cheering fans, a stadium usher grumbled a complaint that a lot of first-time esports spectators mention. The pro players, whose facial expressions appeared in close-up on big screens all over the stadium,…
Team SoloMid is producing an episodic documentary about the controversial Super Smash Bros. Melee pro William “Leffen” Hjelte, whom they sponsor. So far, it’s a candid look at the Hjelte’s approach to the game and how the community’s received him.
Five prominent Super Smash Brothers: Melee tournament organizers and players have formed a competition committee and released a recommended ruleset for tournament play, including a lengthy section imposing a “tentative ban” on the use of non-Gamecube controllers. The ruleset writers explained that the 16-year-old…
At 16 years old, Super Smash Bros. Melee has no shortage of unique glitches and mechanics hidden in its GameCube-era code. At this past weekend’s Runback 2017, Justin “Plup” McGrath went hurtling into one of those glitches during a doubles match: an invisible ceiling that spiked him back down to the ground.
Music student Nicholas Caleb Goss sees melodies when he watches Super Smash Bros. Melee champion Jose “Mango” Marquez flit across a stage. “He likes to style,” Goss said, describing a fight against Marquez as “energetic, surprising.” To Goss, Marquez’s playstyle is jazz, which is exactly what he turned it into.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the problem child of the Smash franchise—at least when it comes to its esports scene. Not as quaint as Smash 64, as technically rich as Melee or as polished as Smash 4, Brawl is considered a fun but flawed game exclusively for casual players. So, while other competitive Smash scenes have…
Earlier this morning, two top-five Super Smash Bros. Melee players, Adam “Armada” Lindgren and Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman, and a well-known Fox player named Danny “UUAA” Diaz got together to do Smash taunts, IRL, for charity. The results are amazing and adorable.
Rivals of Aether, out today, wants to become every newbie’s first platform fighter. Rather than relegating that throne to Smash Bros., Rivals of Aether guts the iconic Nintendo game while retaining the skeleton of its famous playstyle. In a genre monopolized by an established AAA game, Rivals succeeds at nearly…
18 years after Super Smash Bros’ initial release, a slew of indie games are challenging its dominance of the platform fighting genre.
On February 19th, 2017, Nicholas “Ministry” McGuire went into cardiac arrest at the Swedish Super Smash Bros. tournament Beast7. Now, the Smash community at large has banded together to raise over $23,000 for his estimated $200,000 hospital bill.
Several core members of the BEAST crew, an organization that hosts an annual Super Smash Bros. tournament, announced their departure today in the wake of sexual harassment allegations brought against BEAST head organizer Lolex.
An anticipated mod for Super Smash Bros. Melee is slated to streamline the 15-year-old game’s tournaments. 20XXTE, in beta now and released in full early March, sews the Melee community’s specific play preferences into the fiber of the game.
Any Super Smash Bros. Melee player will tell you that its fans are dedicated and particular. If you play seriously, you will play on a CRT for minimal lag with a brand new GameCube controller. And you will never, ever touch Pichu.
A popular Super Smash Bros. Melee controller’s potential ban from big-time esports tournament Genesis 4 has sparked a debate throughout the Smash community over what constitutes a tournament-legal controller for a 15-year-old game. The controller’s creator says its ban would be “devastating” for his business.
