Hey, Smash Bros. Dojo? I need a word with you.

Though you represent one of the industry's most brilliant marketing tactics I've ever seen, I must confess that I'm a wee bit irate with you. You've made my job difficult. I have to review this friggin' game and the hype has hit critical mass.

As such, I expect upon publication of said review to either be beaten senseless with rocks and sticks, or tied to a tree and set on fire. Oh, not because I think the game is bad, mind -- it just comes with the territory when buzz hits a certain mark. So if you could, tell my family I said I'm sorry, and pat Anthony Burch on the ass and tell him I said "thanks for the good times". It's the least you can do, seeing as how you've led me to a meager, pathetic, and early death. 

Yeah. Thanks a friggin' lot. Hit the jump for my review of the Wii's biggest, most monolithic offering yet -- but be forewarned, the review, like the game, is a bit dense.

[This review may contain the occasional mention of secret characters, stages or other unlockables that may infuriate the spoiler-sensitive.] 

So, uh -- this Portal thing is kind of a big deal, I hear. I guess that explains the huge, huge goddamn crowd outside the Portal post-mortem at the final day of the Game Developers Conference, everyone giddy like kids on the first day of summer vacation.

Portal project lead Kim Swift and writer Erik Wolpaw were on hand to dig through the development of one of the year's greatest games. It's not unexpected that there was a lot of hero worship in the room, and high expectations as to new insights into the development of the title. Hit the jump for the run-down.

A week or two ago, I was driving home from the bank and lamenting the fact that I have no artistic skill beyond my mediocre ability to sculpt with moldy mashed potatoes. "Why!?" I cried, nearly plowing into several pedestrians. "Why can't my useless Guitar Hero skills translate to a useful real-world activity that could, quite possibly, win me some ladies?"

Not a day later, I was introduced to Guitar Rising, which Nick Chester and I got to demo on the show floor at this year's GDC. Adopting the conventions of the many guitar-based rhythm games now available, Rising takes it a step further and uses a USB dongle to hitch up the guitar of your choice to your PC, and prompts players to hit frets and strings to play along with some pretty choice music. While it's not necessarily designed to turn you into a guitar god overnight, from our short time with it, it really seemed like a product that could boost dexterity. And these pudgy fingers need all the help they can get.

Attaching that competitive element and a score to the act itself can keep people coming back, and might help to develop some of those dormant or otherwise nonexistent skills. I sucked something fierce, but hey -- if a few weeks of Guitar Hero could see me up to expert level, what would a few months of Guitar Rising do?

I don't think that the buzz surrounding Super Smash Bros. Brawl could be any more intense -- at least, not as evidenced by the colossal line outside of hall 135 in the Moscone Center this morning, packed with ravenous journalists, developers, and everymen waiting to hear Masahiro Sakurai speak on the development of his latest title. 

How does one go about creating a game like Brawl? How were characters selected, updates developed? Sakurai put his project under the microscope and dissected the development of Brawl as we know it today.

Yes, I got to put Capcom's long, long, long-awaited franchise update, Street Fighter IV, through its paces -- as did several other bloodthirsty journalists at Capcom's suite demonstration. And yes, we're all legendary now. You may touch us! For we have experienced Street Fighter IV!

Having put in quite a few rounds, I definitely find myself agreeing with those who insist that it's not a game you can judge based on screenshots or online videos -- you have to see it running before your very eyes to really get a sense of the new art style. How you'll react to it? Well, that really depends. Hit the jump for my take. 

While I'll admit first and foremost that a landmonster like your favorite Linde wouldn't seem the most apt candidate for a peripheral like the Wii Balance Board, it may make a bit of sense that my geeky dark side lusts for exploration of creative vision, which is just what went down at this year's GDC.

Nintendo hardware guru and Wii Fit producer Takao Sawano walked a packed room of onlookers through the murky genesis of the Wii Balance Board today, revealing several details as to the creation of the peripheral and answering the question on everyone's mind: what the hell does Sumo wrestling have to do with Wii Fit?

Hit the jump to find out.

I thought the holiday season was supposed to be the most murderous, time-sucking part of the year, but I was wrong. What was once a traditionally lazy span of months before the spring blitz has, in 2008, become a thing of nightmares, with great games coming at me from every angle. And with many of them coming via Nintendo's foul little handheld, there's nowhere for me to hide -- it's too damned accessible.

Enter this week's latest time-sucking behemoth, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, which haunts my dreams and waking hours alike with its puzzles -- oh god, the puzzles! Every minute I'm thinking of sliding this, arranging that, how old is one if the other is twice of half the MAKE IT STOP. 

If you can bear the risk of hours of lost time and mental stability, Layton might just be for you. Hit the jump for my review.

Sorry, I'm a little late. Okay, really late. But a game like Advance Wars: Days of Ruin takes some time to cozy up to. It's an Advance Wars game, baby -- you gotta light some candles, get comfortable, kick back on a plush couch and/or armchair of your choosing and wait for the right moment. Then, of course, you have to suffer through 26 missions of brutal cruelty where your every misstep is preyed upon by an evil, evil computer.

It's not that bad -- unless you're as miserable at turn-based strategy as I am. Though I suck something awful at 'em, I can't help but harbor a strange sort of attraction to them, and when a game like Days of Ruin surfaces -- a strategy game that passes on previously established visual and tonal traditions in favor of something new -- that's something worth taking a little extra time. Especially when it turns out as well as Days of Ruin -- a damn fine effort that upholds the series' strongest traits while mending, though not entirely eliminating, its shortcomings.

Hit the jump for my review.

Few developers in the gaming industry have such a carefully crafted image as Tomonobu Itagaki, head of Team Ninja and creator of the Dead or Alive franchise and Ninja Gaiden's next-gen evolution. Qais Fulton and I happened upon him at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, where Itagaki, draped over a couch as the image of cool itself, kicked out the jams on the latest build of Ninja Gaiden II.

We had some time afterwards to ask the notorious developer some questions about his newest title, developing for Eastern and Western audiences, and more. Hit the jump for our Q&A.

Who loves shoot-'em-ups? We do! In fact, we love them so much that this review of Hudson Soft's latest XBLA offering Omega Five is largely irrelevant; sure, we'd love for you to read, argue over the score, maybe even offer a counterpoint in the comments. Yes, we would appreciate that. But what we'd love even more (and by "we", I mean "just me") is if you'd just buy the freggin' thing so we can ensure a steady stream of shmups.

Geometry Wars opened a door that had been shut tight for US audiences for many years, a door leading to a magical world of high scores, crushing defeats and skill-based gameplay. This year we have plenty of shmups to look forward to as a result of the wildly popular downloadable content schemes available on every major console, Omega Five first among them. So how did the game fare with two of our most scholarly shmup afficionados, Topher and Mike Ferry? Hit that jump to find out. And then go buy the game, so we can have more shmups. 

Jerks!

I'm utterly fascinated by perfect play videos -- a dude netting a perfect no-death game in Ikaruga  while manning both sticks or a video of someone playing Assassin's Creed without complaining (!). Pitting man against machine and coming out not just on top, but untouched is a joy that I'll never know thanks to aging, worthless reflexes. But at least I can watch video of other people achieving gaming zen, right?

Fans of God Hand are already familiar with its bone-crushing, brutally unforgiving gameplay, but those uninitiated viewers watching the above video should bear in mind that God Hand's challenge mode is no picnic. The final level requires that you best a fully-powered version of yourself, complete with an insane amount of life -- a feat which this player manages without taking a single hit. Like poetry in motion.

[Via NeoGAF] 

We've all been there: a new game is forthcoming and your anticipation has pushed you to the brink of insanity. The wait is absolutely intolerable until that fateful morning rolls around when you haul your ass to the store, pick up your game, nearly slay hundreds of women and children in your savage death-race back home, and pop in the disc. The experience is euphoric. The waiting has payed off. Best game ever.

But a few weeks or even days later, the magic wears away and reveals something rotting away the very core of your bliss. The honeymoon is over, and every flaw you were too punch-drunk to notice is evident at every glance. Alright, alright -- it's not always that dramatic, but hey, it's something that happens often enough that Destructoid's bringing you Postpartum Impressions, a new feature dedicated to bringing you your lovable staff's perspectives on a game after the dust has settled. 

It's been almost a month since Super Mario Galaxy hit shelves, and though my review claimed with a mighty thunderclap that the very code the game is built upon should be tattooed across the backs of gamers everywhere, how'd it fare with the rest of the staff? Hit the jump to find out.

Last Thursday I hauled my lazy ass to Bungietowne on an invite from the Halo 3 DLC team to try out some of the new maps to be made available in the Heroic Map Pack, up for grabs next week on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Fortunately for me, I hadn't let slip that I'm easily the worst Halo player on staff, and that Call of Duty 4 had effectively nullified any skill I had with the game, but I'm guessing that my secret was out by hour 5 of getting my face pounded into the mud by the other seasoned Halo vets -- including some of the developers. How the hell is that fair? Playing against Steve Cotton was like being served brutality on toast.

Anyway, I spent the better part of a day getting acquainted with the new digs, and have drawn up a report which you can find after the jump, plus a bit of eye candy besides. You like Forge, sport? Not nearly as much as you will when you get your hands on Foundry. 

In a showing of support for the recent review debacle still underway at CNET, staffers from Ziff Davis including 1UP writers (and that oh-so-dreamy Jeremy Parish) put together a small but profoundly effective demonstration in front of CNET's offices. I say "effective" because it's quite uplifting to see competition swept aside in favor of solidarity within our profession; Jeff Gerstmann's firing, provided the circumstances surrounding it turn out to be true, is one of the creepiest goddamn things to happen in recent months and will likely prompt a lengthy discussion on the nature of the gig. 

Gerstmann's canning might be a settled matter, but the aftermath is still brewing on both ends of the table. Expect to see a lot of discussion about reviews, the nature of reviews and the brave men and women who kick out the jams without crapping on their own integrity in the coming weeks. Good on you, Ziff.

[Via the 1UP Show Flickr]