@BIOJECT The randomness does make Smash fun to an extent, but the competitive nature of the gameplay is what keeps people coming back (hence the fact Melee is still played at tourneys). Maybe no items on Final Destination doesn't sound "fun" to you, but that's a relative term. I love playing one on one with no items on Final D as it's more representative of your own skills rather than dumb luck. So I would have to completely disagree with the idea that turning off items takes away the "soul" of the game, as the "soul" of any fighting game should be the balance of the fighting itself with the items as an afterthought for it's downright impossible to balance items.

Also, you CAN turn Smash Balls off on the item menu. What you can't turn off is random tripping, and that's f****** lame.

@emptycow New tech? Try lack of Japanese support. They had plenty of units out there because, let's face it: The 360 was and is structurally a watered down PC. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it definitely made porting titles from a PC easier (unlike other 'HD' consoles). But let's not pretend this tech was anything advanced, even in 2005.

I would say it's fairly impressive that the Wii U managed to sell within 15k units of the original Wii. Especially considering how much of a commercial phenominum the original Wii was when compared to the lack of hype the Wii U received before launch. What's more, the Wii U has already managed to outsell the 360 in it's first year on the market.

I hope they scale the difficulty considering the player will have more tools to work with, especially considering the added BAT meter allows the player to "rage out" occasionally. Hopefully there will be more enemies on the streets to fight.

Now if only we had a slice of Greg K, this Gamespot flavored nostalgia pie would be complete.

Might as well have released the 3DS next week considering they're finally getting many key features of the system figured out (eShop, system transfer, internet browser). And we'll finally be getting out first killer app with Ocarina. The 3DS was released way too early and it was just one misstep after another. With that said, I'm excited I'll be able to use some of the features I've been looking forward to. Not to mention some great games we've been promised like Resident Evil Mercenaries, Resident Evil Revelations, MegaMan Legends 3, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and of course: Super Mario 3DS. It's all downhill from here, I suppose.

It saddens me that the one thing that brought all gamers together is changing. I blame the general public. A lot of people had no business at E3 other than being there for the free stuff. They didn't care about the games or the industry that us true gamers hold so dear. Most of us Gamespot users have to sit at our computers waiting for news, hour after hour, while the non-gamers at E3 got to experience it first hand. I find that ironic and cruel.