Hows my online experience with Brawl?
I'll let you know after i finally play some online matches in Strikers.
But seriously, it hastn't been great. At first I wanted to hold off on replying to this thread because I'd only recently been able to connect to the WFC service enough to brawl online. I felt that I didn't have enough online experience to properly make an opinion on the matter. Now I'm realizing that Brawls offline frustrations are part of its online experiences.
Before I go into detail with my experience with brawl, I'd just like to backtrack a little and mention that before Mario Strikers Charged launched I had purchased the Wii LAN adaptor straight from Nintendos online store (before they were easily available at retail locations) in preperation for not only that game, but for Brawl as well. I thought that on day one, with Strikers, I'd be easily able to connect to the servers and play against the lot of you reading this. I was wrong. I've stopped playing the game because of how unreliable its online service is. I don't have many friends nearby to easily come over and play so I thought playing against "friend-code' friends as well as anonymous gamers would be fun and be worth the $50 price tag. I might as well of bought the original Strikers for half that if it was just going to be sitting there collecting dust.
Now to Brawl, the game I just KNEW would have awesome online becuase it was Nintendo's goal all along, their promise to the fans. I was also wrong. I really wanted to believe that the games delay was to ready up more servers for the flood of gamers that'd be connecting to eachother for some awesome matches, but that wasn't the case was it? Attempt after attempt, after attempt and I couldn't brawl with friends or strangers, close or far. So I spent $50 on a game and something like $35 on a LAN Adaptor (not to mention the great length of cable to connect my router to said LAN adaptor) to spectate matches that SUCK?! I could start ranting about how I should return the game and the system and use it as credit towards an xbox 360 or something, but I won't.
I will say this, howerver, that after weeks of trying to brawl online and constantly being disconnected from the service, I've tracked down a used Wi-Fi USB adaptor for my PC to see if it would change my luck, and... it has. To my surprise its outshining my direct high-speed cable connection and I've been able to face off against some people on my friends list (2 so far), and with minimum lag I might add (varying on number of players and levels of course..) so atleast things are just starting to turn around for me. It just annoys me that I spent the money shipping the LAN adaptor to me from Nintendo and I won't even be using it anymore. This is, by the way, after returning a used wi-fi adaptor from a best buy a few months after wii's launch because I was unable to use it at the time. Now its discontinued! So even if I didn't want or need this for my Wii but wanted to use it to get my DS online (which I actually do since I've never played that online) I wouldn't be able to without effort in tracking one down because Nintendo decided to cut this option.
So in away I still cant comment much about my actualy ONline experience with brawl, because I haven't had enough time with it, but I sure as hell can tell you its been a crazy ride just to get where I am. Too many headaches and too much money have gone into this. Even if I was able to get online right away and didn't spend so much on all the extra equipment, I would still call the service bad, because Nintendo doesn't show any signs of wanting to fix it. Their "wait it out" approach is just disgusting. I can play Brawl now but its killing Mario Strikers Charged's online gameplay (awesome slideshows), and when Mario Kart Wii comes out.. whats going to happen then? I get the feeling more people will be playing Brawl over Mario kart, so maybe I should just take a "wait it out" approach with that game.
I'm with S_B when he says he'd gladly pay a fee for a GOOD online service from Nintendo, because I would too. I think alot of us would over what their giving us now. Sure its free, but thats no excuse and I'm tired of it being thrown around as one. The only reason I bought Mario Strikers Charged over the original title (which I never owned but loved playing at a friends house) was because I could play it online. The reason I dished out another $50 bucks for Brawl is because I could play it online. If i knew I wouldn't be able to use those online features, I'd stick to playing Melee for 10mins and getting bored at not having another person to play with. I didn't pay for the graphics or the new items or modes, I payed for the online capabilities, so why isn't any of that money going to building a better online structure and keeping it "free" for us? Like I just said, I didnt buy Brawl for its graphics or sound, hell even Nintendo said it doesn't want or need to compete graphically, thats part of the wii's package right? Well I might as well be playing GC games like Melee on the system. I can't play them online and I'm using the same controllers anyway