The Super Smash Lexicon

In becoming the greatest N64 SuperSmash Bros. players of all time, we have made a number of discoveries concerning the nature of the game and it's effect on those who play it. What follows is a compilation of insights into one of the greatest battle games of all time, gleaned from some of the greatest minds to ever play the game.


Terminology:

Chasm: The abyss on either side of the island of land where instant death occurs.

He's Doing It (HDI): The act of smashing an opponent downward when that opponent is exposed over the chasm, resulting in that opponent's instant death in the abyss.

Edge Guarding: The art form of continually smashing one's opponent back out over the chasm before they can reach the edge of the island. The HDI is the pinnacle of edge guarding.

Item Snatching/Whoring: The act of running around looking for and grabbing items to benefit oneself or to lob at other opponents who are fighting each other.

Queer Fighting: The act of lobbing items or ranged attack at other opponents who are fighting each other. This is a violation of Unspoken Rule # 1, and generally incites the wrath of the other opponents, to the Queer Fighter's chagrin.

Going Skiing/Going Cross Country: The act of getting smashed so badly that one flies from one side of the island of land to the other, and usually out over the chasm.

Don't Ruin a Good Thing: A verbalizing of Unspoken Rule # 2. Ok, so that's an oxymoron. Deal with it.

The Jake: The structure on the castle level where Jake always hung out/hid.

The Final Smash: The 4-player 99-life Super Bowl of Smash.


The Unspoken Rules:

# 1: It is not permissible to fight a ranged battle against opponents who are fighting each other close hand.

# 2: When one opponent is destroying another opponent, the uninvolved players must not interfere until such destruction has subsided.

# 3: It is not permissible to single out one opponent for extended periods of time.

# 4: When there are three players left and I am one of them, the other two must double team me until one team has won.


How not to look stupid while playing Smash:

1. Don't brag about how many kills you got if you lost. Winning is everything. Everything else is nothing. However, if one player records a goose egg in kills, he is subject to ridicule from all.

2. If you're new and you fall off the edge, don't press 500 buttons and scream while you helplessly fall into the chasm. It only makes you look more ridiculous. Example: Clay screaming "Yoshi respond!!!" while he plummets into the chasm.

3. If you win one out of every one hundred games, don't bother talking any trash.

4. Don't do the same move over and over again. But on the other hand don't do nothing. Both of these made you look like a simple-minded fool.

5. Don't go on and on about how Smash sucks and you hate it, then become convinced to play, get clowned on en route to a dead last finish, then talk about how it really is the dumbest game ever.

6. Don't claim that you can beat me. You can't. You'll only look more stupid when I beat you without dying once.

7. Don't complain about how the controller is broken. They're all broken.

8. Don't talk about how good you were as a kid. We all know you probably just beat your younger brother and a couple neighbors because you were the only one who knew how to pick up items.


Your health:

Don't play Smash for 4 hours a day. This will commonly result in you having Smash visions while you are awake. In these visions you will for split seconds at a time witness scenes from Smash over which you may have marginal control at times. The effect is that of a small dose of shrooms accompanied by Smash characters. Example: one time I received a text from Eric Durso describing how he had just "up-b-ed" Dr. Mackey during economics.


Anomalies:

1. Players will invariably look/act like their characters. Examples include:

- Jared humphs around like Fox and also has semi-triangular head shaped like Fox's. The goatee only helps.

- Clay makes the same disgruntled noises that Yoshi makes.

- Dan Beaty is the size of Donkey Kong and has a similar voice.

- Jeff James' head/face mirror Donkey Kong's head/face.

- John Lafferty runs around screaming and out of control like Captain Falcon.

- I make Kirby's noise if I'm about to sail out of the picture.

- Patrick looks like Link - tall, thin, long curly hair, boyish/ruddy/heroic face.

- Brett playing the happy little kid Ness.

- The exception is Eric as Samus, the girl. And yes, we proved she's a girl by obtaining a snapshot of her when she became naked for a split-second after being zapped by Ness. Witness the evidence:





Sorry, that's female curvature.

2. On the castle level, the tornado will always zoom across and pick you up when you are near death.

3. If you are about to die and you decide to smash open a box or barrel, it will always be an explosive one. (Key example: Eric Durso's failure to consider this anomaly in his final life in the 2008 Final Smash, giving him 2nd place and making Brett Rice the champion. Ironically enough, we had read this right before the match began).

4. If you decide to chase after someone who has the hammer when you have your three seconds of invincibility, it will always run out right before you reach them, and you will get pounded.

5. One person always gets 80% of the hearts each game.

6. On the spaceship level, the laser guns will always target you and shoot you off into oblivion if you are close to death.


This will happen at least once every game:

1. Clay commits suicide.

2. 15 different times someone screams that they rolled.

3. Jon Lafferty screams about something irrelevant.

4. Jared comes close to doing something cool.

5. Someone wrecks on Eric for playing a girl, and he helplessly tries to state that Samus is not a girl, but no one believes him.

6. Steve calls someone a fairy while getting pounded into submission.

7. Dan Weaver exercises the "flaming on" bit for an entire life as Mario.

8. Brett Rice develops a personal vendetta against someone for hitting him once.

9. Someone believes that it is not "just a game."

10. One player questions another player's integrity/character.

11. A truce is made and violated.

12. Someone wonders what would happen if they did the moves in the game to the other people in the room.

13. Patrick feebly tries to claim that it is the "Age of Link" even though he is getting worked.

14. Someone has a life in which they have no control from the beginning to the end and never touch the ground - the whole time they are smashed from one person to another until they die.

15. Someone turns to item snatching in hopes of staying alive.

16. Someone tries to convince everyone else that everyone needs to gang up on me.


The NBA Playoffs meets Smash:

Smash, where "FREE-FOR-ALL!!!!" happens.

Smash, where "Dahh dahh, da-da-da-da-da-daaaa, dahh da dahh" happens.

Smash, where "Hey, guys, it's 3 AM and I have an exam at 8" happens.

Smash, where "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!" happens. Every game.

Smash, where "ALRIGHT GUYS I'M SERIOUS THIS REALLY IS FOR REAL SERIOUSLY MY LAST GAME" happens.


Smash Club:

Some might say that the first rule of Smash Club is that you don't talk about Smash Club. But the thing is, we're good enough to get away with it.





If you feel that something was left out of The Smash Lexicon, contribute below...

The NBA Playoffs, where "Garnett and Gatorade.. again.." happens

A one-for-two effort for the conference finals. Could have been better, could have been worse, haha. My team, the Spurs, is gone, and now I have to put up with some of the most out-of-control over-the-top gushing from Laker fans and the media that I've ever seen. Patience is a virtue.

The Celtics have apparently rediscovered how to win on the road. From the start it was a mystery to me why they suddenly couldn't win on the road. In fact, it's a mystery why anyone has trouble playing on the road. Are professional athlete's the most mentally fragile individuals alive? Think about it - their play is dramatically affected by whether or not there are a bunch of people standing around them cheering for them. The knowledge that their fans exist somewhere is not enough - the crowd must be right on top of them. Good thing this isn't the pattern for all other professional jobs: "Sorry, boss, I totally crumbled at the end of my presentation because I didn't feel comfortable being away from my office. Next time send some of my co-workers with me for emotional support."

I've never seen the media miss the ball so entirely as during the Lakers/Spurs series. First, they went with the Lakers because the Spurs were "too old." Well, the oldest players on the Spurs actually played quite well. Brent Barry - 23 points in one of the games and an all-around solid performance for the series. The key to the entire series - the single reason the Spurs lost - was the disappearance of Manu Ginobili. And please don't hand all the credit on a silver platter over to the Lakers defense. It was decent, but nothing Ginobili hadn't encountered and had success against numerous times before. Obviously, his ankle was giving him some trouble - in game 5 Doug Collins pointed out how he was losing his balance and had no lift around the basket. Think about it. There were three games that could have gone either way, and each occurred without any contribution from Ginobili. If he had done anything, the Spurs probably win at least one or two and possibly all of those games. Their problem the whole series was they went cold during crunch time. And who on the Spurs has the role of creating a shot and coming up with a clutch basket in crunch time? No thanks to any of the media for asking. Answer: Manu Ginobili. This series was significantly closer than the media portrayed it.

Now, everyone is falling over each other to hand the championship to the Lakers, without a second thought. But stop and think. You do have to give the coaching nod to Phil Jackson. But on the floor, what advantage do the Lakers have besides Kobe? LA had enough trouble with the Spurs setup of an injured Ginobili and a bunch of spot-up shooters. What about a Pierce/revived Allen combination? Kevin Garnett will probably command a double-team, freeing up Boston's array of shooters - Pierce, Allen, Posey, House, possibly Cassell, and even Rondo recently. You can forget about the rebounding edge that the Lakers had against the Spurs - Garnett, Perkins, Powe, Davis, etc. will do a much better job on the boards than the Spurs bigs did. Gasol will look like a giant bowling pin half the time. So what if the Lakers haven't lost a game at home in the playoffs - they almost lost twice at home to a suffering Spurs team, having to overcome huge deficits both times. Boston has home-court advantage and they've been terrific at home, not to mention the fact they seem to have recovered the ability that made them the best road team in the NBA. Make it two wins at the Palace, one of the toughest places to play all year.

All things considered, I'll take the Celtics in 6.

Reasons I want the Lakers to lose:

1. The Gasol heist. What's next - are the Lakers going to offer Ira Newble, a couple of the Laker girls, and Mitch Kupchak's half-eaten lunch to the Hornets for David West?
2. Laker punks. Has anyone instigated more bad blood this year than Sasha Vujacic? It seems like every other game he's almost getting in a fight with someone. And who names themselves "The Machine?" A tool, plain and simple. Kobe has a dual personality. One is his intensely competitive side. The other is his big baby, whiny, show-off side.
3. Loud-mouth Laker fans that suddenly emerge to announce to the world how they feel.
4. The media would be brought back to earth
5. Three classy, hard-working players win a championship: Garnett, Allen, and Pierce.

Final thought: how many incredibly mindless/obvious/cliched things will Mark Jackson say before ESPN/ABC gives him the boot? Someone nailed it the other day - it's like listening to an announcer from an NBA video game. Get this - the circus show Knicks were thinking about offering him the head coaching position. How perfect would that have been?