No longer a silent brawl

Nickelodeon's cartoon mash-up brawler is getting a much-requested addition today. Full character voice-over for the whole roster hits Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl today along??side items ??in a free update for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

When Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl first launched, its lack o??f voice-over for its roster was notable. Today, GameMill Entertainment and Ludosity are updating the brawl to add exactly that.

The voices behind characters including SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) and Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), Ren & Stimpy (Billy West), Garfield (Frank Welker), an??d Korra (Janet Varney) will be included in this new update. So now, it won't be so ominously quiet as SpongeBob and Korra duke it out in the arena.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIuGYhVDAis

The other major addition in today's free update to Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is items. The cartoon brawler laun?ched without any pick-up-and-u??se items. Now, items like Sokka's boomerang, a Krabby Patty, and a Reptar toy will be optional drops.

Are you ready?

The lack of both voice-over work and items were big detractors from Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, so it's good to see both finally being added. The update is rolling out now for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Nintendo Switch owners will get it "soon," according to GameMill.

Maybe with this addition, the brawls will have a little more life to them. Games like Super Smash Bros. might have developed prominent competitive scenes, but a lot of the charm in those platform fighters also comes from the characters themselves. ??Captain Falcon is visually recognizable, but so is his declaration of "FALCON PUNCH."

The good news is, if you're now eager to try Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl after its addition of voices, it's easy to do so. The cartoon brawler is one of this month's PlayStation Plus games, so subscribers?? can pretty easily hop on and tr?y out the update for themselves.

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Oh Boy

[Update: The official PlayStation Blog has now confirmed that June's PlayStation Plus titles are indeed God of War, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker. A??ll thre??e titles will be available to add to your library until July 5.]

In what has now become a regular monthly event, the next PlayStation Plus offerings have been leaked ahead of their official announcement �As noted by regular spoiler billbil-kun of Dealabs, June will see PS Plus subscribers bag themselves copies of Sony's God of War, Gamemill's Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and Bandai Namco's Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np1jPkg3R6Q

Assuming that the leak is genuine, (and there's very little reason to believe it isn't), the three titles will be available to download from June 7 until July 5. The June titles will replace May's offerings of EA's FIFA 22, Focus Entertainment's Curse of the Dead Gods, and Gearbox Publishing's Tribes of Midgard, so be sure to secur?e your license for these three titles before they vanish for good.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yl-_LYD0ik

June will also see Sony launch its revamped PlayStation Plus subscription service. The new service offers three distinct subscription tiers �Essentials, Extra and Premium �which will afford access to a rotating library of PlayStation releases on PS5, PS4, PS2, and the original PlayStation, dependent on your membership. Sony will continue to offer up a monthly se??lection of "to-keep" titles for all subscribers, regardless of their respective subscription tier.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ypgtAyjSCo

For more information on the new PlayStation Plus service, see our previous report right here.

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This gives me hope for Heffer

The makers of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl may not want you to call the game a "Smash killer" but they would like players to keep plugging away at the game throughout 2022. As revealed today, you'll have a trio of reasons to return to the platform fighter over the next few months with paid DLC that includes two highly requested characters and one that feels a bit out of left field. Starting today, you can purchase Jenny aka XJ-9 from My Life as a Teenage Robot as the first paid Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl DLC character.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSZ43I7iw8

For just $4.99, players can get Jenny, an alternate costume, and the brand-new stage Tremorton Joyride. You also have the option of purchasing the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Universe Pack for $11.99, which will give you access to Jenny, Hugh Neuton from Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius this summer, and Rocko from Rocko's Modern Life this fall. The trio is a nice mix of old and recent(ish) characters as I, a 37-year-old, have fond memories of Rocko's Modern Life, brief memories of Jimmy Neutron, and no idea what the hell My Life as a Teenage Robot is.

Despite the fact Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl didn't set the fighting game scene on fire, it's great to see the game is still getting support. Following its launch late last year, the game expanded its roster with the free DLC characters Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield, who bas??ically became a Nicktoon after Nickelodeon's parent company Via??com bought Paws Inc. back in 2019. Since debuting in the game, Garfield has become my favorite fighter of the bunch and I'm interested to see how Jenny, Hugh, and Rocko continue to shake up the game.

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"[Blank] Killer" is often times either used erroneously, or a tired meme

The "Nickelodeon Smash Killer" meme has been running rampant ever since Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was announced (comparing All-Star Brawl to Super Smash Bros.), but one developer has asked the fanbase t?o calm down a bit.

Character designer and programm??er Thaddeus Crews took to Twitter to share the following statement:

"Some videos/comments/etc are doing the 'Smash killer' shtick again...I'd really rather you not...I'd really, REALLY prefer any other joke or punching bag or whatever that doesn't have the kind of proven track-record of instigating conflict as a result of this branding. I can't stop anyone from making those jokes & I'm not personally bothered by them. It's clearly all in good fun by the overwhelming majority of people & is 'clickbaity' to a absurd degree; I get that, and in a vacuum it's absolutely hilarious...But ramifications aren't in a vacuum. There's no real way to not come off as a buzzkill in addressing this, but the image this kind of message creates has ?been so thoroughly harmful to a degree that I can't just sit back and watch it happen again...I strongly encourage finding hyperbolic absurdist statements elsewhere."

In short, they don't like all of the conflict that's been derived from this fan-imposed "Nickelodeon Smash Killer" comparison (joking or otherwise), often propagated by fighting game content creators: w?ho admit as much in the Twitter replies. So fa?r the plea has gone over surprisingly well, with many content creators responding in kind, noting that they will refrain from using the phrase/meme going forward as it relates to this particular project (it for sure won't be the last we see of it!).

Point blank, the "killer" moniker has been a tired phrase for as long as I can remember. Having played World of Warcraft since its pre-launch phase, I've seen so many MMOs come and go, with fans ardently attaching the "WoW Killer" title to them in a bid to help t?hem succeed and take down the established industry titan: with no accounting for a world where they can co-exist. These sorts of nuance-less campaigns are really easy to suss out, and lost their luster sometime in the early 2010s, but they persist to this day.

It's re?freshing to see a developer take it on headfirst, as some in the past have unfortunately leaned into that hubris: which didn't age particularly well.

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DE-STROY THEMMM!

Players enjoying the knockabout run of GameMill Entertainment's Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will be stoked to hear that a new star has joined?? the battle �The Shredder. The long-time nemesis of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is now ready to rumble and available to download on all platforms. Best of all, the nefarious evildoer is free of charge to all players!

You can check out th?e supervillain in action in this?? new trailer.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSIxWDBJ9SU

While TMNT has its fair share of bad dudes, not one is nearly as iconic as the steely masked Oroku Saki, better known �and feared �by his enemies as The Shredder. A skilled martial arts master with ?an obsessive, bloodthirsty personality, Shredder is the arch-enemy of the Heroes in a Half-Shell and their master, Splinter, with whom Saki shares a long-time vendetta. Shredder has amassed a private army, The Foot Clan, in order to conquer the global crime scene and permanently eradicate hi?s enemies.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruNM6J_G-6c

The Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl iteration of Shredder is surprisingly fast, with a variety of long-range dash attacks set to catch opponents off-guard. Shredder is as lethal in the air as he is on the ground, showing off an air-cutting somersault attack to slice 'n' dice anyone foolhardy enough to challenge him in the skies. While the video shows Shredder battling his TMNT enemies, such as Michaelangelo and April O'Neil, it's impossible not to rub your brains at the thought of him scrapping with Helga from Hey Arnold... or... frickin'...?? Garfield. What a?? bizarre game.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is available now on PlayS??tation, PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch platfo??rms.

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Huh, I wonder who this DLC character is for...

The rumors and whispers were true. Just announced by Ludosity and GameMill Entertainment (via IGN), Jim Davis' legendary Monday-hating, lasagna-scarfing, Odie-booting cat is joining the roster of platform fighter Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl �/em??> yes, the mighty Garfield will be free to download for all players from December 9.

Adding in the key elements

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is only a few days out from launch, but it's locking in some of its last roster spots today with two elemental masters. Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra from The Legend of Korra will be in the lineup for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

The roster for All-Star Brawl supposedly leaked a while ago, but for those who weren't intensely following the platform fighter, Aang and Korra are likely welcome additions. Both of their series have garnered acclaim, alongside several video game adaptations (to varying success), and now both Avatar protagonists will appear as fighters in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

Aang??'s moveset looks to be focusing on his airbending abilities, including the use of his glider and the air-orb he can roll around on. I definitely dig some of the air com?bos and tricky moves the devs put together for the showcase breakdown.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iEHVVgCTPI

I'm honestly a bit more of a Korra fan though, and her moveset looks to? highlight the difference between the two incarnations of the Avatar. While Aang relies on airbending and swift movement, Korra's moveset l?ooks more like the raw offense she exhibits in the show.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5BweB8hLWY

I dig both the move sets, though I wish Korra's stage was maybe the fourth season's Republic City and not the second. Or maybe the pro-bending arena? That would be a pretty neat DLC addition if they add more Korra characters (hear me out: Kuvira).

So far, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is managing to both acquire a large roster of Nick characters to bring in, and keep a lot of the modern platform fighter mechanics you'd want. Hopes definitely seem high for this to be an interesting alternative to Super Smash Bros. for those who grew up with characters like Nigel Tho?rnberry, SpongeBob SquarePants, and He??lga Pataki.

We'll see how it comes together in a few days. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will launch on Oct. 5 for consoles and PC.

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Don't whiz on the electric fence

Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! In perhaps the single most inevitable reveal of all time, hyper-violent Messrs Ren and Stimpy have been officially announced for Fair Play Labs Super Smash Bros.-style fighting game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.

Ren Hoek and Stimpson J. Cat, who wowed younglings in the early '90s with their irreverent adventures? and parent-bothering weirdness, will play as a duo in battle, utilizing each other in order to gain an upper hand on the opposition. I say "utilizing each other", but this roughly translates to Ren slapping seven shades of Shinola out of Stimpy as he looks on blankly. Keep yo?ur eyes peeled, however, for the appearance of everyone's favorite toy, Log (by Blammo!).

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=aajraEqMfjc&

The Ren and Stimpy Show took television by storm in 1991 with its wild visual style, non-sequitur storytelling, and love of slapstick comedy and gross-out humor. The show raised the eyebrows and clucked the tongues of parents and TV standards folk, who frowned upon its sexual innuendo and nightmarish look, but kids (including yours truly) absolutely lapped it up. The initial run was followed by the controversial six-episode series Adult Party Cartoon, which was taken off the air amidst a mire of legal controversy that would only get uglier and darker with time, forever casting ??something of a shadow over the brand ??forever. The duo has previously appeared in numerous terrible video games.

Ren and Stimpy, (alongside their buddy Powdered Toast Man) join a roster that includes stars such as TMNT's Michaelangelo and April O' Neil, Hey Arnold's Helga, SpongeBob SquarePants, and his pal Sandy Cheeks. It's a fine-looking title, though it can't be denied the lack of voice work really hurts its spirit, especially with characters such as these. For more details on the gruesome twosome's moveset, check out the full breakdown over on PlayStation Blog.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl will laun??ch on PlayStation, Xbox?, PC, and Nintendo Switch platforms this fall.

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He's just wavedashing at me... menacingly!

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl has been building up some steam on the promise of a platform fighter featuring some beloved Nick cartoons. Today, we got a gameplay breakdown that shows just how much platform fighter influence this All-Star Brawl will have. And really, the answer ??is best summed up in one sentence: here's SpongeBob SquarePants wavedashing.

The wavedash is best summarized as utilizing downward air-dashes to propel your character across the arena. By dashing into the ground, you can practically skate across the arena. It's a pretty well-known mechanic in the Smash Bros. scene, and seeing it here is probably reassuring to folks who want to play some more competitive All-Star Brawl.

Here's a short clip of the wavedash in question, via IGN's Mitchell Saltzman on Twitter:

//twitter.com/Ju?rassicRabbit/status/14356551909??30067462

IGN hosted a number of exclusive gameplay breakdown videos today. The first is where the above excerpt came from, where Thaddeus Crews—character designer and programmer at developer Ludosity—breaks down some of the basics using SpongeBob and Patrick. It definitely looks like this platform fighter is utilizing some of the usual staples, which makes sense given that Ludosity's previous game Slap City.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXiOWSKPDG8

It's also different from Smash in a few ways, too. You're still trying to build up percentages and ring-out opponents, but there are some neat interactions where directional inputs (up, down, or mid) can "beat out" other moves, causing opponents to get stunned or turned around. Grabs have a few more options, and I dig the projectile option that turns it into a volley back and forth. You can find some more examples in IGN's four gameplay segments they uploaded today.

It might seem a bit high-level if you're not a Smash player yourself, but even for casual play, I'm really into options like grabbing projectiles or flipping my opponent around with the right attack. I was already interested in the very concept of a Nickelodeon-themed platform fighter, but now that I know I can bring it around town as SpongeBob, I'm eager to see what the high-level Melee folks do with this.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is coming to PS4, PS5,? Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC sometime in Fall 2021.

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Who needs to enter the ring?

This week, we got the reveal of a new Smash-alike, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. It looks like it's a platform fighter, pitting beloved animated Nick characters against each?? other in a multiplayer brawl. Rad, right?

That's what the internet at large seemed to think too, as my social feed was soon inundated with memes and videos. Mixing fighting game with childhood nostalgia led to a flood of memes, combining fighting game jargon with jokes from the shows. It was, to put it simply, beautiful.

//twitter.??com/True_Dragon_Ki?d/status/1415011288049242123?s=20

But as I sit here, contemplating the potential of Patrick Star as a grappler, I'm also left to think about the many other characters I want to see in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. A supposedly leaked box art has some silhouettes on the cover that indicate characters like Ren, Stimpy, Korra, and more coul?d appear.

There's even more potential out there, though. Nickelodeon has been running for a long time, and as one commenter noted on our news write-up, you could easily tell the age of those commenting by who they wanted for a spot on the roster. SpongeBob and Patrick might be obvious choices, but there's also shows like CatDog or Ren and Stimpy, or even the Avatar: The Last Airbender series to dr??aw from.?? Toph would be pretty cool to play as in a platform fighter, I'd think.

I want to know, who's your dream addition? Which staple of the Nickelodeon lineup needs to get their time in the ring in All-Star Brawl? Is it Jimmy Neutron, or Timmy Turner, or maybe even Nickelodeon GUTS announcer Mike O'Malley? Let us know below!

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As Nigel Thornberry would say, "smashing!"

Nickelodeon is getting in on the platform fighting game genre with its animated cast of characters. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was announced today for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch this fa?ll, and it's got a whole host of Nick stars ready to? brawl.

Revealed over at IGN, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl looks like a platform fighter, or put a little more directly, a Super Smash Bros.-alike. It definitely seems like there's some knocking around of opponents, and the moves definitely have the sort of animations and attack style you'd expect from a Smash.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESR3cvErqCg

There have been plenty of other platform fighters in the past, and Nickelodeon is no stranger to show-crossover games. The prospect of fighting on some platforms wit?h them, tho??ugh, sounds kind of entertaining.

The full lineup isn't announced yet, but here's? a rundown of who's?? confirmed to appear in the game so far:

• Michelangelo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
• Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
• Nigel Thornberry (The Wild Thornberrys)
• Powdered Toast Man (Ren & Stimpy)
• SpongeBob SquarePants (SpongeBob SquarePants)
• Oblina (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters)
• Lucy Loud (The Loud House)
• Lincoln Loud (The Loud House)
• Helga (Hey Arnold!)
• Reptar (Rugrats)
• Zim (Invader Zim)
• Danny Phantom (Danny Phantom)

It's a pretty solid lineup, though I'm hoping that it being unfinis??hed means there's a certain element-bending Avatar on the way. Though honestly, Powdered Toast Man is not a character I would've ever expected to see in a video game in the ye?ar 2021.

There are also 20 levels based on Nickelodeon shows, like Jellyfish Fields from SpongeBob, as well as both local a?nd? online support for four players and unlockable new moves for fighters.

We'll see if this has any sticking power??, but any fighting game ??that includes Nigel Thornberry in its cast has my attention.

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