Welcome to NAdventures, if we feel that you as an adventures fan will be interested in a game or peripheral, we will give it coverage right here on NAdventures. If you enjoy other genres of games in addition to adventures, then be sure to visit NShooters and NSports in order to get your fill of gaming content. Check out http://hub.ngenres.com for the highlight stories from each genre.

Editorials   New Cube Owners, Vol. 7
- By Lander Clinton

Since Nintendo recently sold in one weekend roughly the same number of GameCubes it sold at launch, I thought I'd do a little something for all the new Cube owners out there.

Everyday until I run out of ideas, forget, or am too busy playing a game, I'll update a GameCube game you must own and why you must own it.

Here goes:

It may have come out a few months after launch, but this game was the defining GameCube experience in the system's early life and the culmination of nearly 20 years of Nintendo love. Super Smash Bros. Melee was the game that GameCube owners showed off to their friends to convince them to buy a GameCube.

Melee is the sequel to the N64's Super Smash Bros., a frantic 4-player brawler that starred many of Nintendo's famous mascots. Melee doesn't really change the format, it just adds a ton more.

Melee has around 25 Nintendo characters, although some of them are mirror characters. That means they look different, and have a few unique moves, but are mostly the same. For example, Captain Falcon from F-Zero and Gannondorf from Zelda are basically the same character, but Falcon is faster and Gannondorf is stronger. It's up to the player to decide what he or she prefers. On a side note, why does Nintendo let Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, and Baby Bowser compete in golf games, party games, and kart games, but won't let you beat them up in Smash Bros.? The world will never know...

Compared to current GameCube offerings, the graphics in SSB:M are starting to look a little dated, but at the time they were mind-blowing, especially when compared with N64 graphics. The speed of the game was also boosted from its predecessor- so much so that going back and playing the original feels like the characters are floating in air or fighting in water.

Many of the levels in SSB:M are much more complex than the original and any other fighting game out there today. Even though it's basically a 2D fighter, many of the levels take you around 3D arenas, such as a level from Super Mario 64 or a track from F-Zero X, complete with 30 cars crashing into you.

The controls may be the same for every character, but the moves and the timing of the moves are different. You'll have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of each character if you want to be good. So you can pick up and mash (I chose not to say "smash") the controller, but an experienced player will still injest you, incase you in an egg, and lay said egg off the side of a cliff, assuming the experienced player is Yoshi (or Kirby with a Yoshi hat).

The plethora of play modes and unlockables make playing this game by yourself well worth it. Practice is rewarding for more than its own sake, since you can unlock hundreds of trophies that celebrate and recognize characters, items, and locations from throughout Nintendo's history.

Whether you've played the original or not, Super Smash Bros. Melee is totally worth your time and money, and you'll still find people playing it at parties two years after its release. It's now a Player's Choice title, so go get it!