As a few of you may have already heard, Brawl+ [also known as Brawlee][also known as Melee 2.0] is a collection of hacks now available for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It basically puts advanced tactics that were originally in Melee back into Brawl. This is possible because Brawl is essentially built on the same game engine as Melee, just as the wii is built on the same hardware architecture as the Gamecube. To install it, all you need to do is load a small program onto an SD card, put it into your Wii, and load it. I don't know the details, but it's supposedly not very difficult to set up. And yes, it does work in WiFi, as long as all players involved are using the hacks.

The Brawl+ hack makes five major changes to Brawl's physics engine that I'm aware of:

Falling speed - The hack increases falling speed for all characters in Brawl to near-Melee levels. This makes it possible to perform Melee-like combos in Brawl. Also referred to as high-gravity mode. Video of Brawl using the increased falling speed hack

Airdodges - The second major modification. This mod puts Melee-style airdodges back into the game. By extension, this also means that it is possible to do Melee-style wavedashes. Video of Luigi airdodging and wavedashing in Brawl using the hack.

Lcancelling - This mod puts Melee-style lcancelling back into the game. Lag from aerial attacks is again cut in half. There's also a separate hack that makes it possible to do this with the S button. Video of Link wavedashing and lcancelling in Brawl using the this hack.

Hitstun - Our fourth mod increases hitstun to near-Melee levels. As with the increased falling speed, this makes it possible to perform Melee-style combos. Video of Brawl with increased hitstun hack.

Tripping - Another mod has been created that removes tripping to the game.

The implications of these five hacks, which I will refer to as "hack" from here on, is obvious. We now have what is a fan-made, competetively superior version of Brawl, and a genuine sequel to Melee.

Of course, not all is sweet-smelling roses. To perform this hack, you must downgrade your Wii's firmware to version 3.2. You can find a tutorial on how to do this here. That means no more shopping on WiiConnect24, since this will update your firmware and the hack will no longer work. The hacks also (ironically) makes the game's characters less balanced than without the hack, and this is in a game that at peak metagame is less balanced than Melee to begin with. While all characters benefit, I'm told MetaKnight goes from being slightly broken to virtually unstoppable with the hack.

And then there's the moral aspect of the hack. Brawl is SUPPOSED to be anti-competetive. Sakurai said himself that the SSBM scene was too competetive, and that he wanted to make the game more "accessible" to casual gamers. Do we as gamers have the right to violate his wishes by changing the design of his game? I remind you that this kind of thing happens all the time. Fans made a more hardcore version of Half-Life named Counter-Strike. Eventually Counter-Strike was picked up by Valve (the game's publisher) as an official expansion pack for Half-Life. Now, many more people play Counter-Strike than Half-Life. Of course, Nintendo is too full of themselves to allow a fan-made, competitively superior version of their own game to have the same fate. But this kind of stuff happens all the time, and is largely accepted by the hardcore gaming community.

For more information about these hacks, including how to perform them, check out the various threads on this board on allisbrawl.com, the largest active SSBB community on the net. Keep in mind that the hacks are not yet compatible with Wii firmware revision 3.3. A thread is available in the link above with instructions on how to downgrade your wii from 3.3 to 3.2. Remember, this means no more shopping on the wii channel.

Keep in mind that nobody is suggesting that Brawl+ should COMPLETELY replace Sakurai's original SSBB. We are debating adding it to the pro SSBB community as a competitive sub-type.

So, I ask my fellow advanced Melee players here at Gaia Online... should Brawl+ become a new competitive standard for SSBB?