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Smash Bros. Online Mode Confirmed
FiringSquad confirms the best news a Wii owner could hope for: online play is a go for Smash Bros. Brawl . This is the news from the official website for the game, and the site discusses the various modes the game will support. You can (of course) play with friends, and you'll be able to use cute little pre-entered taunts on each other. You can also play with strangers, but the game has some serious restrictions on that kind of play: "You can also battle with people you don't know who are looking for brawls. The most important point here is that you will not know each other's names. Your opponent will not know your name or any information about you, and neither of you can send short messages. There will also be no battle records kept for this mode, so whether you win or lose, it doesn't matter. Just sit back and play."
I foresee some whining about the fact that it won't build up ranking data from anonymous battles, but after playing several DS games online, this setup actually sounds like a good thing to me. Hear me out. :^)
In Mario Kart, random, non-friend battles are ranked. So, when some lamer is losing, he quits. Wouldn't want to blemish his record. Game over, no getting to finish, no closure. In Planet Puzzle League, the Smash Bros approach is taken, and random battles are "free". Not ONCE has somebody dropped out mid-game on me, no matter how badly I was pounding them. And no matter how badly I was being pounded, the little devil on my right shoulder never even suggested dropping out.
Take away the stats in anonymous mode, and suddenly the incentive to be a prick for the sake of some arbitrary numbers, dissolves. If you still want the bragging rights, play within a known circle of friends, which should also reduce the prick incentive. This way we can concentrate on having fun playing a kickass game, instead of worrying about the metadata. That might seem wussy to the frat boy Halo crowd, but to me, it's what gaming has always been about.