I didn't get there as early as I wanted to because I had to pick up my fiancée at a bus station at 5 am in Oakland after not sleeping all night, and then finally passed out, and slept in. By the time we got to San Francisco on the train and ran around in the pouring rain until we found a place that would sell us a $6.50 umbrella (which broke 10 minutes later), we showed up at the end of the line at 1:30 pm. They were opening the doors at 2:00 pm. And yes, my fiancée came to the Brawl tournament with me. That's how I know she's the one.
The first 256 people in line would get to be in the tournament. We were 500th or so in the line. Everybody else would get free play. At 2 they opened the doors and let all of us extra folk in for our free play. The line of the 256 people barely moved, as they all filled out books and books of paperwork. We got to pass them up and go inside and look around. It was a dark and shady bar/lounge area with 4 Wii kiosks. The bar served only water and Red Bull, so I did not get to be one of the first people in the Bay Area to play Brawl wasted.
We went into the next room where they were setting up the tournament. They had a DJ playing late 90's and early 2000's dance/techno like Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers and whatnot, but mostly generic trance and dane, with bad samples. Cameras everywhere. Giant kickass Brawl tapestries.
There were ONLY 8 WIIS. They were going to play 8 1 on 1 matches at a time, for a million hours. We hung out for a while, and by the time we left at 3:30 pm, they were just introducing the lame MC, who tried to make a joke about how saying "Super Smash Brothers Brawl" was a tongue twister. Nobody laughed. I felt sorry for the guy. I'm guessing the match was about to start, and they brought 8 people out, and they were starting to pick characters, but we left.
But that's besides the point.
In the free play room... there were ONLY FOUR WIIS.
One had Wii Sports, one had Super Mario Galaxy, one had Metroid Prime: Corruption. I have no idea why. I think it was obvious that well over 500 people did not wait in line for hours to play these games that are already out. Mayhaps we were more interested in the game that was not yet available in this country?
One kiosk had Brawl, and a frothing crowd of nerds ready to eat flesh, fighting over controllers. There was no line. It was pure chaos. I hop into the crowd and start watching. The graphics are incredible. Sadly we can't hear the amazing soundtrack due to the shitty dance music blasting from the next room on the speakers.
But I notice that the folks playing are total dooshbags. They're picking Samus, Link, and Fox! They're playing 4 player FFAs with a 4 minute timer, and then all 4 people have to pass their controllers into the frothing crowd. They're playing with just Wii remotes, held sideways. I don't know what the item frequency settings were on, but each 4 minute match had 2 smash balls. I kept seeing Link, Mario, Samus, and Ike use them, over and over. I sneak deeper into the crowd, and watch my 2nd match, and then sneak even deeper to watch my 3rd. The only new characters people are picking are Ike, Metaknight, Pit, and King Dedede. Snake and Sonic aren't available, but Olimar and Pokemon Trainer are. I'm yelling at people to pick those 2 characters, because they are brand spanking new, really weird, and none of us have seen them in action. Somebody picks MARIO. Then the asshole who was player 1 got to pick the stage. Instead of picking an amazing new stage, he went to the next screen for classic Melee stages, and picked Corneria. He waited in line for hours to basically play Melee
After each game, they start to hand the remotes blindly into the crowd. After the 3rd, I use my super long arms to snag one, and then all these people in front of me get pissed when they notice how far back in the crowd I still was, and wonder how I was able to reach past them all. Suckers. I burst out of the crowd into the tiny space in front of the flatscreen and get ready to rock. I ask if anybody's gonna pick anybody new and crazy and awesome. I was planning on being Kirby and trying to eat all the new characters to try out a wide variety of moves and see some awesome Kirby styles. They all pick old boring characters. I've already eaten them all in Melee. So I can't decide between Olimar and Pokemon Trainer, because I'm actually willing to try something new! Oh my! I pick PT because I figure he's got 9 moves, and all 3 homies might play a little differently, so it's like trying out 3 characters in one 4 minute match, for MAXIMUM NEW-NESS.
Then the worst possible thing happens. The idiot kid who gets to pick the stage... skips over the Fire Emblem stage, skips over the Pikmin stage... and also goes back to the classic Melee stages.
Fucker picks Final Destination.
If I could tell which kid did that, I'd be in jail right now.
Needless to say, I was fumbling around trying to learn how to use 3 new characters while everybody else played as Samus and Link and Fox and shit and rocked my ass with their Melee skills on their Melee stage.
Regardless of all the tourney-dooshbags there, and the fact that I only played for 4 minutes as a new awkward character, and got my ass beat by 3 losers who fear change, Brawl is the greatest game ever made.
While I was in line, my fiancée kicked some ass at Wii Sports bowling, and a bunch of nerds hit on her because they were so confused as to why such a babe would be at such a nerd tournament. It was awesome. Everybody was asking her "for her favorite character." But she came back in time to watch me get my ass kicked.
Right after my game, they decided it was getting too chaotic and they needed to start a line, so they made the entire crowd start over from one side, pissing everybody off. People had been there for 45 minutes, way longer than me, and not played, and now they had to go to the end of the line.
Then we wandered around a bit more, noticed the tournament STILL hadn't started, and everybody had kickass fingerless Wii mittens on. They only gave them out to the people in the tournament. So I bought some from another kid for $20. Then we ran off into the rain.
The list of things I wouldn't kill or destroy to have Brawl early is getting smaller every day.
