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I
believe it was my mother that discovered an article in the
newspaper advertising the Nintendo World Championships happening
in Milwaukee (about an hour drive away). I had not heard
of them before that, and didn’t know what to expect.
I have no recollections of the ad itself, but I do remember
practicing up on some Super Mario Brothers and Rad
Racer before heading to Milwaukee. That same year, I
had just switched schools, and I was having a bit of trouble
finding a new friend to go along. I ended up taking an old
friend of mine along, and we headed out on Saturday morning.
As we pulled into a parking space, and were standing in
the ticket line, my excitement level was growing by the
minute.
Walking
into the HUGE room, the first thing we came across was the
Power
Walk.
The Power
Walk
featured dozens of games set up that were either brand new,
or not even released yet. It was very similar to the gaming
stations commonly found in stores today, but back then,
there was nothing like it in stores to let you test new
games. I recall Mega Man 3 being a big highlight,
with one of the longest lines. These games would automatically
reset every few minutes, so the next person in line could
get their turn to play. They had a similar set up with a
Game Boy section, but they were not nearly as popular. They
had a large stage set up on the far end of the room, with
shows happening every so often. One of the shows featured
Nintendo game counselors giving away tips that could help
out in the competition, and a question/answer segment where
the audience could try to stump the pros. A different show
displayed some up and coming games, and gave the audience
a chance to win prizes with various Nintendo trivia.
My
friend and I went to try the competition. As everyone probably
knows, you have a time limit of 6 minutes, 21 seconds. You
start by collecting 50 coins in SMB, then you move
on to Rad Racer and finish the first race in the
game. Finally, you get as many points as possible starting
at Level 0 in Tetris. One last thing to add…
your SMB score is multiplied by 1, your Rad Racer
score is multiplied by 10, and your Tetris score
is multiplies by 25. Obviously, in order to do well, you
have to be a Tetris whiz. When you went into the
competition area, there were hundreds of competition stations
lined up in rows. There was a small fee to compete, and
I’m guessing it was necessary to keep people from competing
over and over just for the heck of it. When you competed
in this pre-stage area, you had to finish with a score of
at least 150,000 points to move onto the stage. I was able
to qualify with a score of about 175,000. My friend didn’t
fair as well, and was done. For the next round, they let
you up on the stage, where they had a total of 7 gaming
stations set up. Six were up in front, and then there was
the throne, which was an actual chair to sit in, and it
was in the back of the stage. Each station had a tv display
on the front, so the audience could see what was going on
with all of the competitors. In addition, they had 2 huge
video screens displaying 2 competitors at a time. I’m
sure I was nervous a bit at the time, playing in front of
an audience like that, but when I concentrated on the game,
I was fine. To qualify past this round, you needed 200,000
points. I was rapidly improving, and after this round, I
qualified again with over 400,000 points. The whole time
while playing, the emcee of the show was doing commentary.
He was walking around on the stage, and changing the 2 big
screens every so often, to show different players. I was
on the far-end console, and unfortunately, he never had
my game screen shown on the big screen, even though I was
the highest scoring player of that group of 7. After qualifying
to the next round, I was handed a NWC
Semifinalist Cap
(I’ve seen Semifinalist shirts in some pictures, but
Milwaukee wasn’t that lucky I guess), and I received
a pass for competing in the semi-finals. I noticed right
away on the pass that the semi-finals took place the next
day, so I was a bit disappointed, but overjoyed once my
parents said I could come back.
After
competing, my friend and I were free to check out everything
else. There were costumed characters that came out every
once in a while, who we greeted. There was a big set up
for the NES power pad, sponsored by Nike. The power pad
had its own area, where you walked up some stairs, played
World Class Track Meet, and then went down the stairs
on the other side-not very busy (I think they were expecting
a large line). I believe there was some sort of fruit snacks
that were sponsoring the Mario Rap-you pay a fee, make a
rap video with Mario, and then they give you some fruit
snacks. I can’t say that anyone made the video that
weekend. My friend and I tried out various games in the
Power
Walk area,
but never stood in line for the very popular ones (didn’t
want to wait in line that long). I know I tried out some
Solstice, an RPG with first person view (Swords
& Serpents) , and many others. We went to the stage
area and sat in for a couple of the shows. In the show where
they were doing Nintendo trivia, I won a prize and my friend
won a prize (2 separate shows). For my prize, they flashed
a screen shot of a game for 1 second that you had to identify.
Then, they had the camera man pick someone in the audience
to answer. Somehow, he made eye contact with me, and then
turned his camera around to face me, the emcee came over,
and I answered Mega Man 2, and won a shirt. For my
friend’s prize, they did the same sort of question.
They flashed a shot of Willow on the screen, but
absolutely nobody in the audience was raising their hand
(I didn’t know it either). The emcee had to give a
hint “it rhymes with pillow” and then I told my
friend the answer, who raised his hand, and the emcee came
over. He won a pin with Mario on it. Later on, my friend
gave it another go with trying to qualify, but unfortunately,
he did a little worse the second time (he lost a life in
SMB, which hurt him). I remember seeing one of the
higher scoring players on the big screen at one point. It
was amazing how fast he was placing blocks. It was like
the down arrow was held down constantly, with a little maneuvering
left & right. The hardest part for me was starting on
Level 0. I was so used to playing Tetris starting
on level 9, where I don’t bother too much with holding
down to place blocks. That speedy player on the stage ended
with a score well over 1,000,000, so my score of 400,000
was not looking too great anymore.
The
following day, my parents brought me back to the competition
mid-day, close to the time when the Semi-finals would begin.
There was a huge line of semi-finalists. In fact, in the
12-17 age category, they could only let in half the people
at a time, even with those hundreds of NES stations in the
pre-stage area. The game started, and I was in the zone.
I got through SMB very quickly, drove through Rad
Racer in a very respectable amount of time, and then
it was time for Tetris. I tried doing some quick
maneuvering with the blocks like I had seen the day before,
getting as many tetrises as I possibly could. When the round
ended, I waited for the final screen to pop up, and there
was my score. 625,000! Everyone stayed at their machine,
and one of the officials started calling out “If you
scored more than 1,000,000 points or more, please raise
your hand.” A few people raised their hands. Then they
called out for people scoring 900,000, and then 800,000,
and by that time, they had their 7 people. Then, our group
exited, and they let in the second half of the 12-17 age
group of semi-finalists. In that group, they had some more
people that scored over 1,000,000, so unfortunately, for
the guys that scored 800,000 & 900,000 in our group,
they were out of the top 7. I wasn’t in that top 7,
but the thrill of watching the finals from the audience
was still full of excitement. They started the finals with
the adult age group, and then the under 12 age group. The
scores were high, but not nearly as high as the 12-17 age
group. I know they got Game Boys for prizes. Then it was
time for the 12-17 guys to take the stage. It was incredible
to watch the speed of these guys compete on Tetris.
When the timer neared the 10 second mark, the audience started
counting down along with it. They took the top 2 guys, and
had them compete head to head to determine the final champion.
They got going, and through SMB and Rad Racer,
they were neck and neck. Then, came Tetris, and they
were going for big points. Unfortunately for one of the
2 guys, he had waited for a long piece, but it just was
not coming at all. His stack of blocks was nearing the top,
and he realized that he had to get rid of some lines quick,
because that long one was not coming. Unfortunately, the
height of the blocks was too great, and his game came to
an end. He had to start over on Tetris. Meanwhile,
the other guy was raking in the points, and there was no
hope of catching up to him. The audience did the count down
again, and when he was done, his score was over 2,000,000!
It was amazing to watch. As the place emptied and we
were leaving, I had high hopes of another event the following
year, but it never happened.
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