Glenn: Firstly, Sony’s “Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale” is a shameless and blatant rip-off of Nintendo’s “Super Smash Brothers Brawl,” a game which I enjoy very much and am quite good at. Why, do you ask, are we not playing that much better game this week on the Brawl? Because that game is on a Wii, the only console I don’t own because I don’t fit in its target demographic, children and retirees.

For those unfamiliar with either game, they are both 2D fighting games that pull characters from various franchises own by the respective parent company. In “Playstation All-Stars” the goal is to KO the other players by using your super moves, which can only be used after hitting your opponents enough.

Confused enough yet? Simply put: wail on your enemies, then hit them with a super attack.

Chris: I’ve played these types of games before, always with little success (if it seems like that’s a theme with me and videogames, that’s because it is). The reason for my failure, I think, is because I think too much… I think. When I think about it, I really shouldn’t think while playing these games at all. To take all of the thinking out of the picture, I decided to just wail on the buttons as much as possible, thus utilizing all of my character’s attacks in a non-specific order.

Glenn: I set the life limit at four and picked the stage from “Twisted Metal” for our epic showdown. For our characters, I chose Dante from the “Devil May Cry” series because of his really strong close range attacks and his high speed. His special moves are also really easy to use. I’m fairly certain that Chris picked Emmett Graves from “Starhawk” because he looked cool and had glowing eyes.

Chris: Yep. I thought about choosing one of the more ridiculous cartoon characters, but I chose to play it safe and choose the baddest looking dude I saw. Emmett Graves (I only remember his name by looking up at the last paragraph) certainly fit that description. And he has beautiful… I mean glowing… I mean… there isn’t a good way to put this, is there? He has eyes that glow.

Glenn: I went over all of the basic controls for Chris as the game loaded, which takes a couple minutes because what Playstations have in graphical power they make up for in loading times. After I finished explaining everything he turned to me and said “I’m just going to hit a bunch of buttons.”

Chris: If I was going down, I was going to go down swinging, not wondering which attack to use.

Glenn: Emmett’s attacks are based around using guns and turrets. He has very little by way of melee attacks but has really solid mid-long range attacks. None of that ended up mattering since Chris kind of just called down turrets at random and was never shooting in the right direction.

Chris: Whatever you say, Glenn. Seemed to me that I was always pointed in the right direction to punch you square in the mouth. Where I come from that means something. ‘Merica! Unfortunately, he seemed barely fazed by my face-punching.

Glenn: One punch does little to hinder a professional demon hunter. Especially when I would just roll behind Chris and start slicing him with my sword from behind. After rolling around Chris and landing enough blows I was finally able to use my super move, a series of broad swings, and knocked out Chris.

Score: Glenn: 4 lives. Chris: 3 lives.

Chris: I’m still not sure I understand the super moves. It seems like it could have been the key to an unlikely upset, a tool that could’ve helped me overcome the severe gap in skill level between Glenn and myself. I don’t even remember what my super move was, if that gives any indication of how well I used mine. Oops.

Glenn: After Chris accumulated enough points for a super move I told him which button to press. And since I’ve never actually played as Emmett Graves, I didn’t know that his super move was to shoot a super attack in a straight line. An attack I should have easily been able to avoid except I was too busy making sure Chris knew which button was R2. His attack hit me squarely in the chest and the game was tied up.

Score: Glenn: 3 lives. Chris: 3 lives.

Chris: Right, so the only time I did use the super move successfully Glenn basically used it on himself. For that to happen, I used the same strategy I’ve employed in other games we’ve played against each other. I call it the ‘helpless Ginger.’ Glenn tells me to do something and I pretend I have no idea what he means. i.e. “Wait, which button is R2 again?” Nice guy that he is, Glenn looks away from the screen as I hit the button and kill him. Like taking candy from a baby.

Glenn: No good deed goes unpunished.

Resolved to make sure that Chris spent the rest of the game scoreless I launched into overtime, furiously slashing Chris to death and at one point trapping him against a wall where he could do nothing to stop my barrage. His only reprieve was when I had finally built up enough points to use my super move on him while he was stunned.

Score: Glenn: 3 lives. Chris: 2 lives.

Chris: It’s never a good feeling to be trapped up against a wall, even if it is an animated one. It’s even worse to be trapped against a wall while someone slashes a sword at you repeatedly. That was pretty demoralizing.

Glenn: As demoralizing as golf? I think not.

The rest of the match continued in a similar fashion except for a brief moment when I was trapped between Chris and his gun turret. Then I remember that Dante has a very nifty float-dodge-thingy that got me to the other side of Chris so I could send him flying through the air with an upward slash.

Chris was going nowhere when he landed on my super attack and things didn’t get better for him after he did. I resolved to make my final blow a level 2 super move and had to therefore wail on Chris a little longer. In that time he had enough points to use his super move. He shot it at me but I was smart enough to jump over it this time.

When I had enough points I lined-up my level 2, which is a long thrust with my sword across a few meters. To his credit, Chris almost leapt out of the way but was too slow. My attack KO’ed him and ended his torment.

Chris: Despite getting demolished, I was somewhat proud of the way I performed in this week’s Brawl. I had no doubt that following two straight defeats Glenn would choose a game he knew he could beat me at, so winning was out of the question. The fact that I got a kill even inspired me a little bit. It felt like when one of those tiny Spanish soccer clubs goes up against Barcelona and actually scores a goal in a 4-1 loss.

Come on, you didn’t think I was going to go two Brawls in a row without a soccer reference, did you?

Glenn: And people think I’m a nerd… I had hoped for a little more of a fight from Chris, since brawlers are generally games where a cat has about as much of a chance of winning as a professional but I was impressed that Chris unintentionally put together a combo that left me stunned for a few seconds. My little ginger is growing up so fast!