The official Smash Bros. blog released a few interesting pieces of information this week, most of which we reported on the day of. We were also given a brand new stage to drool over today from one of the most memorable moments of Twilight Princess.

New Item: Assist Trophy
As reported earlier, a brand new item (or items), was shown. Similar to Pokeballs, players will be able to call on one of many characters to help them do battle. In the introductory post, it was revealed that the Nintendog from last year's trailer actually originated form this item. They also showed a Hammer Brother in a couple of the screen shots.

New Assist Trophy: Samurai Goro
In a separate post, another brand new Assist Tropy character was revealed. Samurai Goro from the F-Zero series will pop out of one of the trophy cases and slash at everything that moves (except for the person who got the item) while he runs across the stage. He will be invincible, so it was noted that it is best just to run away. He sounds like a combination of the Marill and Scizor Pokemon from Melee.

New Character: Bowser
Another Melee combatant got some return confirmation this week as Bowser was officially announced. The blog itself hinted that he will have a slightly different flavor (along with many of the other characters) but initial screenshots reveal an incredibly similar move set, as his fire breathing, slash, and shell spin all seem to be returning. It will be interesting to see just what makes him feel different.

New Final Smash: Bowser's Giga Bowser Transformation
Remember fighting Giga Bowser in Melee? Well now you'll be able to fight as him as long as Bowser can find some of those Smash Balls. From the sound of the post, Bowser will be virtually invincible and immeasurably strong while in Giga Bowser form. It will only last a short time though. I wonder if barrels and crates will ever contain more than one Smash Ball at the same time. Three or four final smashes going on at once will be insane.

Game Mechanics: Smash Attacks
Another announcement that we reported on earlier was the confirmation that the basic attack controls would remain nearly identical to what was used in Melee. Smash attacks will be done the same way; by hammering the analog stick in a direction and pushing the attack button. The only exception is when players use just the Wii remote, as there is no analog stick. In that setup, players must push a direction as well as both the 1 and 2 buttons to achieve a similar result. As brought up by our own Mike Sklens and discussed in the talkback thread for the earlier article, this seems to imply that some special attacks may no longer be affected by a smash like motion of the analog stick (Like Samus's missile in Melee). This feature may be removed, changed, or maybe people who play with just the Wii remote won't be able to perform the move. It's hard to say.

New Stage: Bridge of Eldin
We already know that both Link and Zelda will be taking on their appearance from Twilight Princess. With today's announcement, it's obvious that the momentous game will show up in the Brawl even more. Bridge of Eldin will be a stage that is strangely reminiscent of The Pit from Mortal Kombat. It will be one single flat area for people to fight on. At random times throughout a match, King Bulblin will arrive and wreak havoc. How will players dodge him on such a skinny little bridge? Who knows? He will also use bombs to destroy the bridge, possibly completely separating different combatants. Luckily Midna will be transporting new pieces in to fix it throughout the battle.

That's it for this week's updates. Stay tuned here for more announcement summaries every Friday as well as articles throughout the week on big items of interest. Also, don't forget to check out the official blog yourself.