Saint Turtle, a gay dolphin, and a filthy pepperer walk into a bar... (or, a very long Smash Bros. Biography)

There is much to talk about in the world o' Corman right now, but one thing looms largest on my horizon, and I think you all know what that is.

This Saturday night you will find me waiting in line at my local Gamestop in anticipation - and I can't stress that word enough - of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii.

I am a twenty-two year old man with a wife and a few scattered responsibilities. Fifteen years ago, conventional wisdom said video games would be a thing so far in my past that I wouldn't remember how to use a fire flower, let alone be playing video games into the wee hours of the morning with several of my similarly aged friends. To a certain extent, age has changed my video game life, as it were. I have to be more selective about which titles I purchase because I know I'm just not going to have the time to play as much as I once did. Right now that adds up to about one game per three months or so, and I'm fine with that. Smash Bros., however, is a different animal.

The first time I heard mention of this game, I must admit, it sounded idiotic. Other franchises had tried this sort of thing - Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi springs to mind - and I thought Nintendo was shamefully trying to cash in on their beloved character base while shelling out a questionably conceived fighting title. Then, my friend Jesse and arch-nemesis Petie - two names that would loom large in my Bros. playing future - rented the game and gave a surprisingly positive review. I played Smash Bros. sporadically over a two year period, routinely beating up on my brother-in-law using Samus and generally having a lot of fun with the wacky combat and addictive challenge modes. Then came the Nintendo Gamecube.

Around the time Bros. Melee was released for Nintendo's cute little purple cube, I met a young man who would also factor heavily into my Bros. playing future named Jonny Walls. Naturally I was excited about finding a fellow Bros. addict and on a few occasions was granted an audience with the Older Guys to play the new, faster-paced game.

I got blasted. Beaten. Demoralized. Unfathomably embarrassed. God as my witness I sat down with these guys for the first time and chose Bowser and actually solicited laughs from the ten or so people crowded around the Walls' living room. They were all faster than me, anticipating moves before I could make them and generally beating me to a cartoony pulp. There was only one recourse: get the game; play like mad. So I did. My friends and I spent most of every day, night, weekend, and holiday with our eyes glued to a TV and our hands glued to a controller. We played relentlessly, unlocking hidden characters and breaking challenge records, slowly developing our talents. Still, the Older Guys seemed untouchable, part of another class of players. We hoped only to compete with them. During this intense few months long period of, well, training, I made new friends and developed existing friendships in a way now that seems so incredible but at the time seemed as natural as taking a breath. There is not a person I hang out with consistently today who was not a part of that time in my life when Super Smash Bros. Melee was not just something to do, but the only thing to do. This game had as profound an effect on my social life over the last seven years as anything besides Jesus and my wife, and it was a tight race.

Eventually, we all got our shot at the Older Guys. We expected to be competitive. What we were was stifling. Win after win for our group gained us instant respect and we had a blast doing it, listening to the language which had been created by these guys that gave the game an extra dimension, linked to our own experience in a way that no other group would have exactly like we did. The game became as much about how we related to each other in the room as opposed to on the screen. Those memories will last me a lifetime and I can't help but get a warm feeling every time some one brings up a particularly vivid happening and relives it for all present.

And now, finally, the sequel we've all been waiting for. We expected this thing to be released just a few weeks after Wii's launch, but delay after delay means that, more than a year later, we still don't have it. That all changes on Saturday night.

At midnight, we'll finally get our hands on this game and set out to create an entirely new set of memories. And, fact is, we'll try too hard. I feel like an aging member of a rock band who will inevitably become a parody of their own heyday. The original Bros. was our debut record, it came out of nowhere to be a hit and we lived up all the fun we had with it, feeling lucky just to be here, not knowing if we'd get the chance again. Melee was our more polished second record and it sold 20 million copies and we had a lifetime's worth of great experiences because of it. Now, on the verge of Brawl, I feel like the unspoken pressure to live up to all the great memories and unforgettable moments will place upon us a sort of need to be clever and come up with funny terms and rebuild the atmosphere we once had in Petie's living room. We'll all be looking at each other, saying behind our eyes, ' This is the same, right?' Maybe it's cynical, but that's how I feel. It certainly doesn't mean that I'm not excited because there's no question that I am. It's just that of that original crew, one lives in Seattle, one in Senegal, the other in Ruston, Louisiana. And, yes, I know about the Wi-Fi, but come on, it's not the same as sitting next to those guys, and you damn well know it.

Bruce Springsteen sang about the Glory Days and I relate.

Our task then is to create a new set of memories, unreliant on the past for validation of our experiences with each other. I hope we can use this new game to forget about all the change that has happened among our group that has made things a little less bright around here in Kentucky. And I hope that those members of the group who are now far away can use the game to recapture some of that old feeling we had when we sat down for the night's first match. I look forward to landing that first killing blow on Petie as that smug smirk he detests so much grows on my face, because, even from 2000 miles away, he knows it's there and he hates me for it. Gentleman, I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield.

If you read this and thought, ' Man, that guy cares way too much about some stupid game.' I can only - and I mean this sincerely - pity you. If you read this and thought, 'Man, I absolutely agree and cannot wait for Saturday night." I can only - and I mean this sincerely - say one thing to you: First Game!