Last Saturday, March 28th, I went to a super secret "underground" Nintendo event called World 1-2. I got to demo the new Punch-Out!!, Excitebots, Rhythm Heaven, and the camera and music features of the DSi, as well as eat all the free Nintendo cheese I could stomach. This is my story.
Part 1: How did I get there?
On Thursday, March 12th, I received an e-mail from the i AM 8-BiT mailing list. (If you're not familiar with i AM 8-BiT, look up "i am 8 bit" at Google Images to see some awesomeness. It's an annual retro gaming art show in Los Angeles, and they sell a great art book, and they're opening a new show in Berlin soon.) The e-mail said they were doing a "super secret project that applies ONLY to hardcore 80's gaming fans that live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and love characters like Mario, Link, and Samus." It said they couldn't tell me what it is, but they could tell me it's worth my time. All I needed to do was reply to a different e-mail address (still somebody at i AM 8-BiT though) with my full name, my e-mail address, and "what makes you such a hardcore fan of 80's gaming and the franchises that dominated them." I replied with a decent but concise nerd resume (the full version would fill a book), professing my love of Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers, with various supernerdy details, and I included the photo of myself dressed as a goomba hugging a giant Atari 2600 joystick at a previous i AM 8-BiT event, to show that I'm not just a huge 80's gaming fan, but already a huge fan of i AM 8-BiT, and to seal the deal.
I knew I was going to be selected. I was born for this project, whatever it was. I didn't get a response until Wednesday, March 25th. It read as follows:
Hi Evan,
You are one of an elite group of devoted fans that have been selected to take part in an exclusive secret event hosted by Nintendo.
Nintendo has heard that you're a long-time fan and would like to invite you to a special evening celebrating the passion of its most dedicated enthusiasts.
If you’re interested in finding out more, call the number listed below by March 26. You won’t be disappointed.
The Nintendo Team at GolinHarris
So now I knew Nintendo was behind all this. It gave me one day to call them. I called them immediately, and got to a mysterious voicemail. It said they were busy talking to other elite gamers right now, about "the event." I called back later and got a human, who asked if I could keep a secret. I said I could. They told me I could bring one friend to a secret event Saturday, and if I'd confirm that I'd go, they'd get back to me later with the time and location. They still only referred to it as "the event" and told me nothing about it. I figured since Nintendo was already in town showing shit off at the Game Developers' Conference all week, they stayed in town to party with the fans on the weekend.
The next day, Thursday, I got this e-mail:
Hi Evan,
Congratulations on making it this far. The day you’ve been waiting for is almost here.
Print out the attached PDF which has all of the information you need to get into the event.
Each pass will be unique and only allow entrance for you and one guest. Print out this pass and a photo I.D. You will not be allowed in without these…no exceptions.
See you Saturday.
The Nintendo Team at GolinHarris
Part 2: World 1-2
This is one of the only two pictures I took with the flash on. Sorry.
On Saturday I print out my pass, and my guest and I hop on a train. We walk down a dark street, and see some security guards outside a door. They're the only people on the entire block, and they just let us in without even talking to us. Inside somebody looks at my pass for half a second and lets us in. There are brick wall tapestries hanging on the walls to make us feel underground. People are mingling and snacking like crazy next to some Wii and DS demo stations. Free food: several cheeses, awesome Greek pastries, yakkitori, macaroni and cheese, sandwiches, strawberry shortcake, waters, sodas, Snapples, and a bunch of other crap. There is an .mp3J, but he's not playing yet.
Delicious free Nintendo sandwiches.
After a few minutes, this Nintendo guy (I forgot his name) hopped up on stage with a mic and welcomed us all to World 1-2 and thanked us for being such loyal Nintendo fans for all these years. Then Denise Kaigler got on the mic and told us all to have a good time and that we could play some new games and there'd be some surprises later on. Then they turned on all the games and the .mp3J started playing some 8-bit beats.
After talking to some other guests, we realized that we'd all been tracked down in completely different ways. While I had to explain why I was their biggest fan, others got directly invited by Nintendo, including some U.C. Berkeley students who put on Smash Bros. tournaments on campus. Nintendo didn't even go through the school, but looked up local Nintendo fan clubs and invited them. We asked Denise Kaigler about this and she said they would never reveal their methods. Later Denise said they wanted us all to keep it a secret until it happened, and they'd been keeping their eyes all over the internet to make sure nobody leaked the secret, and that nobody did. She then said now we could all blog or twitter or whatever about it, and brag to our friends. It's a pretty sweet deal that I'm already a part of: I advertise for Nintendo everywhere I go, and they keep me happy forever.
After a while the first host guy got back on stage and asked who wanted to be part of a trivia quiz. I was picked first of course, because I am the loudest and highest jumping Nintendo fan with the longest arms. Six of us get selected. The prizes are 2 copies of Pokemanz Platinum, 2 copies of Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, and 2 copies of Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. The questions are ridiculous, like "How many pounds does Glass Joe weigh?" and "What Japanese artist did the music for Rhythm Heaven?" The only question anybody got right was "What are 2 of the lenses on the DSi?" Everybody was confused because they were reffering to the photo effects, not the actual physical camera lenses on the DSi. The guy just guessed a bunch and got it right. My question was the easiest and I still fucked it up: "What day does the DSi come out in the U.S.?" I got all excited and answered really fast, but in my dumbness I said April 4th instead of April 5th. Denise Kaigler laughed and said I'd be waiting in line overnight. Then they said they wouldn't be Nintendo if they didn't just give out all kinds of free prizes, and they gave us the prizes anyway. I ended up with a copy of Chinatown Wars.
This is me owning myself on stage and still getting a free game.
Part 3: The Games
There were 3 demo stations set up, for Punch-Out!!, Excitebots, and Rhythm Heaven, with about 4 systems each. There were also some Nintendo staff walking around and mingling, and a few had DSis on them to show off.
First I sat down at Rhythm Heaven. It was a fun game, but an awkward choice for this kind of demo setup. It had big screens for people to watch over your shoulder, but it's a game that relies entirely on the audio and nobody would be able to hear it over the DJ or all the other games, so each station had headphones. The game is organized like a WarioWare game, in that you start out with a few games to try, and then to unlock the next round of games you need to pass a remix mode with all the games in that round. The starting 4 games are completely different, but they all have the same beat, so when you get into the remix mode you have to keep changing what you're doing but keep the same rhythm the whole time. I had a lot of fun passing the first round and then headed over to Punch-Out!! so somebody else could have my seat. Lines were forming and people were wondering what the hell the weird-looking game was.
Everybody got to play the first 4 fights of Punch-Out!!. The remote/nunchuck controls worked flawlessley. You swing your arms to punch their guts, and you swing your arms while holding up on the nunchuck's analog stick to punch their face. Holding the analog stick left, right, and down, are dodge, dodge, and duck. Hold in A and punch with your right hand to uppercut if you have a star. I beat all 4 suckers with these new controls really easily, but if you want to rock it oldschool you can hold the remote sideways and play it NES style too. The game plays great and feels like they picked up right where Super Punch-Out!! left off. If you liked any of the old Punch-Out!! games you'll have to like this one, unless you're an ass.
Excitebots is just bonkers as shit. I had no idea what was going on. I hadn't played Excite Truck in forever, so I had to get used to the steering again, and was drifting and crashing all over the place. I think I drove a frog and a ladybug. Out of the few courses I tried, I came across a soccer ball to smash into a net, some poles that you swing around to gain momentum before you launch off, some weird melee attack item (but I never got to hit anybody with it), and tons of crazy jumps and drifting, just like Excite Truck. Sadly I didn't see any super sandwiches. I didn't play this one that much because there were people waiting and I was just crashing like crazy, and there was nobody in the free Nintendo cheese line, but so far it seemed like the crazier version of Excite Truck that I expected and wanted to play.
I got to mess around with the DSi, but since no DSi-only games are out and the U.S. DSWare store isn't open yet, I only got to play with the cameras, photo editing, and the music player. Nothing really new or crazy there. I got to play with the camera effects. It had good face recognition and an adjustable morphing effect where you can slide between 100% photo A and 100% photo B or anything in between. With the music player I could change the pitch and the tempo of the song in real time independently of each other. There were also several visualization options, and you could hit the shoulders to the beat to add a handclap if you wanted, or some cat meows and dog barks or whatever. And if you have headphones in the DSi when you close it, the music will keep playing. I'll finally have something to replace my shitty dead iPod that I hate.
Part 4: The Swag
Then on the way out, I got to fill out a tiny survey about how awesome the event was. And then they gave me a Nintendo messenger bag.
With a DSi coffee mug inside.
Now I have a Nintendo messenger bag, Wii fingerless gloves, a Game Boy fanny pack, and a Nintendo 64 manbag. I guess I just need a Nintendo hat of some sort. And Nintendo pants or shorts. My super suit is almost complete!
Pixel Art can be fun.
