Super Smash Bros. (for Nintendo Wii U)

The goal of any Smash match is to do enough damage to your opponents that you can knock them out of the screen.

Once again, the Wii U signals the first high-definition version of a Nintendo series. Super Smash Bros. looks amazing on the Wii U, just like Mario Kart 8 before it. It's bright, colorful, and sharp, with consistently smooth animation.

Super-powerful Final Smash attacks and multi-part items can destroy entire groups of opponents.

It's easy to miss the details during frantic matches, but when the camera is zoomed into a one-on-one match (or you pause the game and use the included camera feature to frame and capture a screenshot of that point in the match from multiple angles and any location in the level) you can really see effort put into making the game look good.

Assist trophies let you summon even more Nintendo characters to help you.

You can make your own fighter out of your own custom Mii with one of three basic classes: Brawler, Fencer, and Blaster. Both custom Mii characters and the main roster can be customized with different sets of moves, different costumes or palette swaps, and different equipment that adjusts their stats.

For greater challenge, Event Mode offers specific, themed challenges like Mario fighting Bowser and Donkey Kong at the same time or Zelda fighting Sheik. These challenges can be fought in three different difficulty modes and unlock additional challenges as you do better, walking you through a sort of map of fights.

It's not quite a gameplay mode, but Masterpieces is a very nice touch. It's a gallery of classic games available on the Wii U Virtual Console that lets you play short (two to five minutes) demos or purchase the full games that started the careers of many of the game's characters.

If you have a Nintendo 3DS and the 3DS version of Super Smash Bros, you can use it as a controller in the Wii U version of the game. You can also copy your custom characters between the different games.