New Super Mario Bros. Wii hits stores today, and it will probably be on of the biggest games of the year. (Little Tommy and Little Susie shouldn’t be playing Modern Warfare 2!) To celebrate the launch of this latest Mario game, Nintendo invited its fans to the Nintendo World Store in New York yesterday. In addition to being able to buy the game a whole day early, fans could participate in a Mario tournament, get their picture taken in Mario garb, play the older games in the series, and meet Gary and Alison from Nintendo Week.
It was basically madness. I strolled in, along with my younger brother (who desperately wanted to meet the Nintendo Week hosts… it’d be like me wanting to meet Brock Lesnar or Lionel Messi), and found the Nintendo World Store swarming with children. You immediately realized that yeah, for all of the money games like Modern Warfare 2 or Assassin’s Creed II make, Nintendo’s audience is completely different. That’s not exactly breaking news, no.
Unfortunately for the Nintendo faithful, New York was being battered by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, so it was windy, rainy, and gray all day long. That made standing in line to buy the game much more of a hassle, and meant that I was juggling my camera, an extra lens, and an umbrella while trying to avoid running into anybody while taking photos.
The line to buy the game was quite long, stretching about halfway down the block. I waited, like an everyman, and was out there for around 20 minutes. Keep in mind that I find the idea of waiting in line for a video game to be ludicrous, but you sometimes have to make exceptions.
That’s about it. It was a fun little afternoon, only hindered by the fact that it was something like 98-degrees Fahrenheit upstairs (where the tournament took place). I also ran into E-Rock from the Opie and Anthony Show, which was pretty great in its own right.
I’ll have my thoughts on the game itself in the coming days.
Update: The guy on the left in the picture there identified himself in the comments! Check out his page at Hardest Level. Thanks for being a sport.
