Don't read too much into the domain name, people... the staff at All is Brawl will always love Melee and SSB64 for the outstanding, amazing games that they are. That's why we're proud to bring two more game boxes to your profile for the classic Smash games, giving them the same prominent status we give Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, and Mario Strikers Charged. You can pick a main character and 3 secondaries (only 2 for 64, sorry... but come on, there's only 12 total!) to proudly display your mains and backup characters, including your favorite costume variations

Thanks to the hard work of FireBomb, Dajayman, dragon90, Emmy, Neora, and slhoka for submitting images, and special thanks to staindgrey for heading up the effort! These artists had to do a ton of work cutting each image out from a black background, sometimes reconstructing parts of the character that were lost in the background. They definitely deserve a huge thanks from all Melee and 64 fans!

Note: all six games are available from the Me->My Games menu.

It's Tuesday again! And you know what that means! Featured Tournaments Time!

Here at All is Brawl we love our tournaments! We love everything about them, from the intense hardcore matches to meeting new people! And to show our unconditional love we’ve decided to highlight some of these tournaments, ya’know spread the word and maybe get some more people interested in going to these tournaments.

Every week a few tournaments will be featured, one coming from each major region. They will include online tournaments as well as in person tournaments. So we’ve got almost everybody covered!

Keep reading on to find out who the lucky tournaments were this week!


Continue reading Featured Tournaments! #9

Hey guys, it's been a couple of weeks since I've done this. I have been busy recently with family, friends, and other things that atke up time. What can I say, it's the beginning of summer, usually when I visit most of my family. Click "Continue Reading" to find out what tips and fun facts I have for you!

Continue reading Did You Know...2

It's time for our second update of Weekly Contests!

Not everyone knows about all the cool contests we have here at All is Brawl, but no worries, I’ll fix that. I am here to tell you about the current contests we have going on. There are two types of contests: the weekly contests and the special contests. The weekly contests happen every week (bet ya didn’t see that one coming) with new exciting challenges each time. The special contests are once and a lifetime contests, probably only a one time thing. So, hopefully, everyone will check out all the contests going on around All is Brawl. Enter in, and you might win!

Read on to see what's going down this week!

Continue reading Weekly Contests #2

Hello everyone! We're proud to announce that our new Rankings Ladder has gone live, and members are already tearing up the charts! We've added a Ladders item to the top menu that will take you to the ladder portal and give instructions on signing up and using the ladder. We also have a Discussion Forum for asking & answering questions about the system.

Please note that this is a beta trial period for the ladder, and your wins and losses will be reset at the end of the trial (probably about a week long). We want to make sure all the bugs are dealt with before we make anything permanent. So please understand that your scores will not be kept after about a week. Have fun, try to break things, and be a good sport; none of this really matters for a short while! Just be sure to report any bugs in our discussion forum.

We do not have an official ruleset yet (there will be one for the full ladder), but for now we recommend playing best 2 out of 3 sets on neutral or counterpick stages. Good communication is key here, and you should try to work out your rules with your opponent before starting.

Good luck!

It's 9pm and your Wii is getting hot. You've been playing for 6 hours with your friends, your hands are sweaty and the room is filled with the heavy warmth of B.O. You won't die without food, the monster in your stomach is still tame and your bladder can hold it, you're not an old man yet. Someone passes by and sees people entranced by the television and continues on their way, but if only they saw what was in your mind. The numbers and shapes. Strategies and tactics that read out like algorithms and the burning desire to win. "I wonder what good players will show up tomorrow," a friend says. You hear him and wonder the same thing but you don't respond because if you lose a second of thought on your match; it could cost you the game and leave you waiting for what seems like forever until it's your turn again. You've played and played until you can play no more to guarantee that number one spot in tomorrow's tournament and you are confident you can succeed if you play as well as you have tonight. When your match is called tomorrow you will drop what you're doing and beat your opponent. But it's not that simple. You have to be in the zone, on your A game, at the next level…

That is just a small example of what goes on inside the mind of a Smasher when participating at a tourney. Since my first tournament attendance, I have been piecing together a strategy which allows me to play at the highest potential possible. It is an infinite learning experience; it will never be complete because I always discover something new I did right or wrong during a match that affects how I play and strategize. The following is a small sample of some of the strategies I use to excel in tournaments.

Click Continue Reading to find out what they are!

Continue reading 5 Healthy Habits of a Highly Effective Smasher

You've asked for it, and we're delivering. Here's a sneak peek at All is Brawl's upcoming ladder ranking system, set to go live next Monday the 16th.

Like other ranking systems, All is Brawl's ladder is designed around rewarding points for winning matches. That's what competition comes down to, after all! Our ranking system is an implementation of Microsoft's TrueSkill system, the same code that most Xbox Live titles use for ranking and matchmaking. In TrueSkill, each entrant is given two values to track their overall performance, a "Skill Level" (your overall rating) and an "Uncertainty" (how sure the system is that your current rating is accurate). With a high uncertainty, your skill level is prone to wild fluctuations with each match: a win may put you up 500 points, a loss down 200, all because the system isn't really sure if it's rating you accurately. The more you play and the more consistent your results (relative to your opponents), the more TrueSkill gets to know you and the more accurate your skill level becomes. It's pretty groovy.

Of course, several sites already do this, and we wouldn't be All is Brawl if we just copied everyone else! (We leave that to our competitors.) Let's talk about what makes our ladder different... after the break, that is. Just click Continue Reading to find out!

Continue reading All is Brawl Ladder sneak peek

Here it is.

Please help Support Us. Honestly, running a web-site is both expensive and incredibly time consuming. Our ad revenue does not even cover our server costs. So we were brainstorming on one of our conference calls ways to help us out (and as many of you have mentioned Shirt Sales are forthcoming :) and we came up with this. Registration is only a mere $2, and you can simply click on the below donate button to do it (*Note* Please mention your AiB Username for registration purposes). So everyone clear your calendars for Sunday the 22nd!

It’s that time again! Aren’t you excited? You better be!

Here at All is Brawl we love our tournaments! We love everything about them, from the intense hardcore matches to meeting new people! And to show our unconditional love we’ve decided to highlight some of these tournaments, ya’know spread the word and maybe get some more people interested in going to these tournaments.

Every week a few tournaments will be featured, one coming from each major region. They will include online tournaments as well as in person tournaments. So we’ve got almost everybody covered!

Read on for the featured tournaments!

Continue reading Featured Tournaments! #8

A lot of you have wanted alternate costume colors for your Brawl character sections on profiles... and we're happy to announce that they've arrived! The hard work of a dozen of our best forum members has produced 467 new images depicting every character costume in Brawl, allowing all you picky players to put Goggles Pikachu or Dark Link on your profiles. Big thanks to Blad01 and staindgrey for spearheading the movement, and to Corimon, Kuro, Sinbad, zoner, Wolf Pup TK, hotdogturtle, DRGN, and Slhoka for their contributions!

I also fixed the previously-mentioned bug with tournament owner titles... so don't be afraid to give yourself that Amazing Host of Awesomeness title :).

Please do not edit your title for tournaments you own (this is done from Edit Tournament->Hosts); i.e. don't add "Amazing Host of Doom" to your name on the left side of a tournament profile. Doing so will wipe out your tournament's rules, description, and probably some other stuff too. Titles for hosts other than the owner are not affected by this. I'll get it fixed in the next day or two. SORRY.

It’s time for Featured Tournaments: Summer Style

Here at All is Brawl we love our tournaments! We love everything about them, from the intense hardcore matches to meeting new people! And to show our unconditional love we’ve decided to highlight some of these tournaments, ya’know spread the word and maybe get some more people interested in going to these tournaments.

Every week a few tournaments will be featured, one coming from each major region. They will include online tournaments as well as in person tournaments. So we’ve got almost everybody covered!

Read on to see what tournaments got featured!

Continue reading Featured Tournaments! #7

Contests! Contests! Contests! I am proud to present our newest feature: Weekly Contests!

Not everyone knows about all the cool contests we have here at All is Brawl, but no worries, I’ll fix that. I am here to tell you about the current contests we have going on. There are two types of contests: the weekly contests and the special contests. The weekly contests happen every week (bet ya didn’t see that one coming) with new exciting challenges each time. The special contests are once and a lifetime contests, probably only a one time thing. So, hopefully, everyone will check out all the contests going on around All is Brawl. Enter in, and you might win!

Read on to see the contests this week!

Continue reading Weekly Contests!

Over the last few years the idea of becoming a girl gamer has been more increasingly common throughout nearly every video game community; in fact, many girls are now becoming professional gamers and suprising many people. Many are also top-notch tournament hosts and can wrangle a room of gamers as well as anyone. So it should come as no surprise that All is Brawl's Host of the Month for May 2008 [yes, it's already June, blame mikeHAZE --neal] is DugFinn, a female tournament host in Texas who's already run several large Brawl tournaments (90+ attendees) in the Lone Star state. Read on for mikeHAZE's interview with DugFinn!

Continue reading Host of the Month, May 2008: DugFinn

Five reasons why you should click the "I am attending this tournament" link on any tournament you're likely to go to:

1. Tournament hosts can see exactly how many people are planning to attend their tournament and can plan accordingly, bringing on extra staff or resources if they see a need.
2. You'll get an alert any time the host changes tournament details like start time, venue location, or rules; never miss a tournament because it was bumped up an hour!
3. Hosts can send messages to all planned attendees to tell them about big changes, ask for comments on rules, remind them about start times, or give updates on housing and transportation.
4. Hosts can also download pre-built tio data files with information on all planned attendees (names and locations), assisting them greatly in seeding & event setup.
5. Attendees receive messages about result uploads, keeping them alerted when the host uploads results for the tournament and when those results get fully processed by AiB.

So please make sure you click that link if you think you're going to attend! (And, of course, click the "I am no longer attending" link if something comes up and you're certain you won't make it.) It takes 3 seconds on your part and makes communication much much easier!

Nintendo has had immense success in the last few years. Before the release of the DS and the Wii, there was a great deal of doubt as to whether or not the company was headed in the right direction with their “Blue Ocean” strategy of expanding the videogame playing demographic beyond the regular 18-36 year old males. Those questions have been answered. The Wii has consistently sold out since its release, and outsells all competition on a monthly basis. In addition, their strategy of bringing in new gamers has worked, with “non-games” such as Brain Age, Wii Play and others brining in new buyers of all walks of life.

This strategy has also carried over to Nintendo’s more traditional franchises. There has been an influx of new players enjoying Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Mario Kart Wii and others. Most notably, there has been a flood of new gamers interested in the latest entry into the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Most of these people are just looking to have a good time, but a significant minority has entered the competitive Smash scene. Some of these people were Melee lurkers, while some are brand new entirely to the concept of competitive Smash.

Continue reading Expanding Boundaries: A look at a fresh group of players

Every Wednesday our programmers spend some time fixing small issues that bug our users. These Wednesday Updates offer a great opportunity for the administration staff to interact with our users and hopefully make some changes to improve your All is Brawl experience. Each week we pick a theme and ask for suggestions for bug fixes and additions regarding that theme; once we gather your input, our staff pick out five suggestions to work on for the next update and give badges to those whose suggestions were chosen!

This week's focus was on our social networking features. Keep reading for a full list of changes! Next week's focus will be on... ummm... well, I have no idea. I think we're going to take a break next week to focus on a big project that's in the works. More details on that another time!

Continue reading Wednesday Update #8

Woot! Featured Tournaments is at it again! And this week we have a very special featured tournament! Aren’t you excited? I know I am!

Here at All is Brawl we love our tournaments! We love everything about them, from the intense hardcore matches to meeting new people! And to show our unconditional love we’ve decided to highlight some of these tournaments, ya’know spread the word and maybe get some more people interested in going to these tournaments.

Every week a few tournaments will be featured, one coming from each major region. They will include online tournaments as well as in person tournaments. So we’ve got almost everybody covered!

Keep reading to find out who got featured this week! And for that special tournament!

Continue reading Featured Tournaments! #6

Excuse me as I bring a dose of Real Life to the news page.

My younger brother Tom is a senior at UCLA majoring in trumpet performance. As you may be aware, music majors have to put a capstone performance during their senior year, naturally called their "senior recital." Tom's show is this Friday, May 30th, and I would like to invite any AiB members in the Los Angeles area to the come out and join in.

The recital brings together two of Tom's passions, music and food. The event is supposed to showcase his prowess and versatility as a musician, and it certainly will, with music ranging from classical duets to modern jazz and pop music. But Tom is also very interested in the Slow Food movement; it might sound a little hippie like that Vegetarian Smashers group, but the principles of healthy eating and rebuilding personal and communal relationships through food and caring are things I think anyone can agree on. So the recital will also include a food component, reintroducing the attendees to the ideas of pairing food with music and artwork, to express feelings and ideas in ways that American culture has forgotten.

So I'd like to invite you to come to the event if you have the slightest interest in good music and good food. It's only from 8:00pm - 10:00pm at the Popper Theater on the UCLA campus; at worst you'll get free food and tolerable music, but you also might learn some things that really affect your life. The event is completely free and open to the public, and includes a free eight-course meal. I'll even give you a badge as thanks for coming out if you find me while you're there. Really :).

Keep reading if you're interested and would like better directions or more details. I've also posted a Link to the Facebook entry for the event. I hope to see you there!

P.S. - you should also check out his band Mulatto, a pop/neo-soul/rock group that's surprising a lot of people in the L.A. music scene. Fan favorite songs on their profile are "Seven Days" and "Dreamland" [no, not that Dream Land]. If you're quick then you can wear a shirt that says "I liked Mulatto before they made it big"!

The All is Brawl Construction Crew (A.K.A. me) has just finished upgrading the Stadium section to bring the exciting world of Event Matches into the spotlight! That's right, all Stadium players can now add their Event Match scores to our score tracking system, which brings the last of Brawl's single-player competitive modes to the site. Event Matches are split into time-based and score-based to make comparisons easier, and each event has score slots for Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties (since strategies for each difficulty can vary greatly). Event Matches get the full suite of AiB stadium tools, including overall high scores and breakdowns of the top scores for each individual event.

And as a bonus upgrade, you can now enter time-based scores as "xx:yy.zz" if your scores go over 59 seconds (which most Boss Battle and Multi-man Brawl scores do).

Check it out in the stadium portal!