The Nation

Last week I talked about the now almost 14 year old game we know and love called Super Smash Brothers Melee. There was a tournament called The Big House 5 held in Dearborn, Mi sometimes recently that I also talked about last week. Well, this week I was honored to actually be able to go to one of these Melee tournaments and not just watch a stream of it. Now let it be known, compared to TBH5 this tournament was basically nothing. It was held at MSU and had about 20 or so player actually in the tournament. Among those players was the guy that actually ran TBH5, he is known as Juggleguy. To me it was pretty crazy actually being able to see him and person and see him actually playing the game. The room that it was held in was kind of like a lecture room with 3 big projectors up front, and 4 long tables that stretched from the wall to wall of the room. Each one of these tables had 3 of those old school box TVs that seem to have no use in the real world today, and either a Gamecube, a Nintendo 64, or a Wii u. I wasn't actually in the tournament I just decided to take the trek down there to check it out because I always wanted to go see what a melee tournament was like. Let me tell you one thing about these tournaments, no matter how many people are there it will get loud. The people in the Melee community are so passionate and so into this game, that when something cool happens in a game the only thing that seems right to do at the time is to yell. Even if you don't really know exactly whats going on in this game, it feels like you just get swept in all the emotion and can't help but joining in on the yelling. Another thing to keep in mind if going to one of these tournaments, is that there will be very few females. Now I am not trying to be sexist in anyway, but it just seems that all throughout the video competitive scene in general, it is very male dominated. Anyway, this tournament was actually a lot of fun to attend even though I wasn't playing. Watching the intensity in peoples faces and the way they can manipulate the characters they play and how they handle the controller is breathtaking. If you have ever played this amazing game we refer to as Melee, I highly, HIGHLY encourage you on watching some high level players play the game. The mix of nostalgia and amazement of the game in front of you will be worth it I promise you.