SEA Hosts Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Wanting to get students involved who do not participated in events, Student Engagement Activities, SEA, came up with a new and fun activity with Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl, released in Mar 2008, is the third installment in the highly popular fighting series published by Nintendo for the Wii.

Players can take their favorite Nintendo characters and pit them up against their most despised characters. So players can “falcon punch” Kirby into oblivion or letting Wario fianlly get his revenge on Mario.

Like past games in the series, in order to win a player has to knock their opponent or opponents beyond the stage’s boundary till they disappear from the screen.

Players can also pick up items to deal out more damage, like a random Poké Ball that can be helpful or useless, the hammer from the original Donkey Kong, Mario’s star that provides temporary invincibility, a Star Wars like beam sword, and a smash ball that gives players the ability to use their final flash.

Once the idea was brought up in a meeting, it was SEA member John Harper that took control of setting up the event according to Tom Yencha, Director of Student Activates.

“John made sure the game, Wii, controllers were there for everyone, and getting prizes donated,” Yencha said.

The tournament was filled with high pace excitement and fighting spirit. Coming in first was Dakota DeLong who won a $20 gift card to GameStop while Rand Shea came in second while winning a Star Wars Darth Vader action figure traveling case.

Yencha and many SEA members were disappointed with the turnout of students for the tournament.

Yencha thinks that one of the reasons why turnout was low, was from students getting confused about the date.

“Students told that me that they thought it was on a either on Friday or Wednesday because we usually have events on those days.” Yencha said. “For the 10 stduents that were there, everyone had a blast. So hopefully the next one can even be bigger.”

Current WVU Parkersburg student and second place finisher of the tournament Rand Shea says he agreed with Yencha’s statement.

“The people that were playing were my kind of people, it was well done, fun, and the prizes were great.”

SEA is talking about having another tournament on the first week or second week of April. Yencha has said that even though they do not have an idea for the next game, they will take ideas from students.

SEA wants games that can be played one-on-one, because hosting a tournament is low cost. Student interest will drive the game choice according to SEA President James Liebau II.

“We have discussed about having fighting games, Mario Kart, Madden, NBA 2K, or FIFA for the sports heads,” Liebau said. If you have any suggestions of what games to be played at the next SEA tournament, please email Tom Yencha at Tom.Yencha@wvup.edu, James Liebau, jliebaui@wvup.edu, or The Chronicle by using chronicle@wvup.edu

by Tyler Bennett