Yesterday, GeeksAGogo dropped by the Nintendo tournament going on at Best Buy in Schaumberg, IL.
This was a small, casual event, but it was free, and easy to participate—and we had a lot of fun.
To sign up, all we had to do was go down to Best Buy between 10 AM and 7 PM, and sign up at the front door. They gave us a wristband, and we had to take our paperwork over to the game table.
We arrived around 5:00pm, and the attendance was already around 355 gamers and counting.
Once at the game table, we had six minutes to play through a few levels of some classic Nintendo games to rack up as high a score as we could.
The game went as follows:
Step 1: Play through level 1 of Super Mario Brothers until you collect 50 coins.
Step 2: Play through level 1 of Super Mario Brothers 3 until you collect 25 coins.
Step 3: Play Dr. Mario until you run out of time to rack up more points.
Given that I grew up with the original Nintendo system in the 80's, it felt as if I had spent my entire youth training for this moment. Super Mario Brothers was a breeze. I sped through level 1-1, and halfway through level 2, and it all came back to me. I hit all the hidden coin boxes, and I made it through in about a minute. Mario 3 was even easier. Who could forget that once you grab the leaf and turn into a raccoon, you can fly up into the clouds and grab most of the 25 coins that you need in one shot? I bet that last sentence sounds absolutely ridiculous to someone who has never played the game...
Anyway, I got to Doctor Mario with over 3 minutes left. Muscle memory built up through my youth got me through the first 2 stages, but piling color-coded pills on top of germs proved to be my downfall. I only killed one germ, and managed to pile up pills the wrong way until the rest of my 6 minutes was up. I did end off with a respectable 101,150 points, though. Not too shabby, but I'm sure that won't win me an invitation to compete in Los Angeles - the top scorer had 2,982,550 points!
There were a few give-aways, as well. Including some cool posters.
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