With 2012 off to a good start, it’s time for us to take a look back at 2011 with our annual The Year in Screenshots feature that highlights our favorite games of the year. Rather than argue about awarding a single game as our game of the year, we here at SmashPad prefer to just tell you our 25 most favorite games of the year and give each game equal billing.

If you want a glimpse of the numbers ..read more

Lately, there has been a great deal of rebooting, both in movies and games, and our favorite pink mascot is in no way exempt. Nintendo gave the hero a shiny new gloss and a few friends in his newest adventure on the Wii.

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land brings the puffy hero to crystal clarity on the Wii and into the hearts of generations both new and old. This title tells ..read more

Over the course of video game history, we’ve seen Kirby’s round, pink figure float into our hearts. We remember fondly when he inhaled his first enemy and magically, donning a similar hat, adopt the same capabilities. The most recent title for the Nintendo DS reveals a side of Kirby we never knew existed.

Kirby Mass Attack immediately reveals what to expect from our lovable hero. The story behind this chapter starts with Kirby napping in a field on the Popopo ..read more

Activision’s upcoming Spider-Man: Edge of Time feels like it’s going to be a lot more of what we saw in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. While not a true sequel, it’s pulling ideas from the game by focusing on The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099.

The Amazing Spider-Man, the “standard” Spider-Man casual fans know of, is killed by a time traveller from 2099. The killer is a scientist named Walter Sloan, from the corrupt scientific company Alchemax. Not content with his present, he ..read more

It really wasn’t all that long ago that Nintendo looked like an old champion on the verge of a full return to form. In terms of marketshare, they have already, at least for now, reclaimed the industry they once dominated, and looked like they were about to make a similar move for the hearts and minds of gamers who felt brushed aside by the Wii’s casual-driven approach to gaming.

Then E3 came and went.

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime asked us ..read more

Nintendo uses their press conference to celebrate The Legend of Zelda’s 25th Anniversary, give a shot in the arm for the Nintendo 3DS’ fall lineup, and unveil their next console, the Wii U.

Nintendo began their press conference with a miniature concert to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda before talking about their full plans to continue the celebration for the rest of the year. Those plans began with the release of The Legend of ..read more

In the last few articles we speculated on what the Big Three could and should do to make their keynotes a success. Now though we’re going to branch off a little bit and let our editors express themselves a bit more. This time it’s more personal and will focus on what we’re looking forward to seeing at the show.

I think I say this every year, but I really mean it this time. This year’s E3 will ..read more

Nintendo potentially has the most exciting show of all with a brand new console to show off and a new handheld that debuted a few months ago that will be getting its second wind at E3. Their press conference begins on June 7 at 9 AM PST (12 PM EST).

Before we get to the new console, let’s take a look at the Wii. Nintendo recently dropped the price to $149.99 and changed the pack-in game (Wii Sports) to Mario Kart, ..read more

Though nobody expected a Cleveland Brown to win EA’s Madden NFL 12 Cover Tournament, the Cleveland Browns fanbase pulled through for running back Peyton Hillis to earn the cover of Madden NFL 12 with a huge 66% of the vote. With over one million votes being made between Philadelphia QB Michael Vick and Cleveland RB Peyton Hillis, it’s surprising that Peyton won with over 700,000 votes, which tops his previous highest total of over 500,000 votes that it ..read more

While the players and owners do as much as possible to make sure that we will have a terrible NFL season ahead of us, EA is keeping our fantasy football hopes alive with the Madden 12 Cover Vote that pits 32 potential cover athletes against each other in a March Madness-style tournament to determine who will be on the cover this year. We are now in the semifinals with four remaining athletes that include some expected players and ..read more

With the Guitar Hero series being nixed by Activision, it seemed like a good time to look back at the various titles in the franchise and figure out what worked and where it started to go wrong. This is by no means a scientific study of mechanics ..read more

As our 2011 backlog is already starting to build up, everybody here at SmashPad has taken the opportunity to look back upon the games we enjoyed the most from 2010 for our annual The Year in Screenshots feature. Rather than go through the hassle of dwindling these games down to name a Game of the Year or come up with a ton of crazy categories to give many of these games some artificial sense of recognition, ..read more

Just a friendly post to let all of our readers out there know that we have not disappeared and are just recuperating from a long stretch of holiday gaming.

The holidays brought with it fun, tons of gaming, and sadly not enough free time.  The majority of us have real life jobs with real life responsibilities and there simply was not enough time to play games, write about them and keep this site routinely updated.  In the next few days, however, ..read more

The NBA season is underway, and whether you’re a fan of the world champion Los Angeles Lakers or you’re a loyal Warriors fan wondering when it’ll finally be time to believe again.  That time has become because NBA Jam is back.

If you’ve never heard of the NBA Jam series, you must be really young.  Because of its outrageous gameplay, NBA Jam was once the pinnacle of basketball games.  Dunks from the free throw line, the lack of referees, ..read more

Are you ready to rock? Yes? Well then Rock Band 3 is on the shelf over there. If on the other hand you’re looking for some awesome beats, then stick around for DJ Hero 2.

DJ Hero 2 is the second in the DJ Hero series developed by UK based studio FreeStyle Games. In this relatively new take on the rhythm game genre, you work to mix two different tracks together into one coherent cut. ..read more

Neversoft has been plugging away at the Guitar Hero franchise for several years now. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock marks their latest, and last game in the series. Is this a worthy entry for the franchise, or does it show signs of fatigue?

The Demigod of Rock has been imprisoned in a stony tomb by The Beast. He is unable to fight, but can still influence events in the world. He calls out to prospective ..read more

The Metroid series has always been about discovery.  Even with the Prime trilogy making its debut on the GameCube in 2002, Samus Aran has always roamed different planets alone in an attempt to solve historic mysteries.  Now Nintendo has once again taken the series in a different direction: Back to its roots and tributing Prime’s first-person mantra–to help with this, Team Ninja (of Ninja Gaiden fame) has come along for the ride.

Metroid: Other M is the 12th Metroid ..read more

Madden and the Wii; it’s a match made in heaven. The Wii is the best-selling console in the United States, and Madden has always been the best selling sports game for quite a few years now.  Year after year, EA Sports has done what they can to make the Wii version of the game stand out, and this year’s entry stands out once again, with emphasis being put upon what’s arguably the most important mode in the entire series.

Madden NFL 11 ..read more