I think my issue was the lack of organization, and I’m not sure if Nintendo or Best Buy is to blame. Our local event in Glen Burnie, MD also fell victim to the Microsoft sales team. While we were there, some asshole in a white Microsoft shirt kept shouting stuff like “You’re looking at the wrong console, but at least you’re all wearing green!“, obviously talking about all of the green Luigi hats. Stay classy, Microsoft.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, there are 4 possible games to play a demo for – Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. If you play anything but Wind Waker HD you can play for 7 minutes. Wind Waker HD has about a 10-15 minute demo.
I arrived when the event started and there were already over 100 people at Best Buy waiting in line, which was expected, but for everyone to get 7 minutes (or more) of playtime, I would have had to wait more than 10 hours to play.. which wasn’t possible since the event ended at 5pm.
They only had one console set up with a demo disc that had the demo for each game. So rather than have one console per game to move the lines along, a lot of people just sat back and watched others play instead. You had to sign up for which game you wanted to play, wait in line, etc., etc.
I was fine not playing any of the games because I’m already sold on buying all 4. I really just wanted to see how they looked in action, but it seemed that every single person only wanted to play Mario Kart 8 and Wind Waker HD. After about an hour and a half and only seeing those two games being played, I asked the Nintendo rep running the event when the next person in line playing Super Mario or DK was, and to my surprise it was over an hour away. So I left.
From what I’ve seen of Mario Kart 8, the game looks amazing, seems to have responsive controls and never had a single drop in frame rate. I don’t know if it was just the tracks in the demo, but all three tracks seemed a little on the short side, taking about 25-30 seconds per lap. You could play the entire roster, but you were only able to run 2 lap races on three different tracks.
Wind Waker HD needs to be seen live to be fully appreciated, as the E3 gameplay footage found online really does not do the game justice. Wind Waker already looked amazing on the Gamecube, but when it’s upscaled to 1080p and running at 60fps, it really adds another layer of polish to an already fantastic game.
I really wish I could have gotten a good look at DKC Tropical Freeze and Mario 3D, but there was no way I was going to stand around for another hour and a half to watch people play Mario Kart 8 over and over again.
Overall, I’m glad I went just so I could experience seeing both games in the flesh rather than live streams or other forms of streaming media online. I didn’t walk away with any other free stuff since I didn’t actually play any of the demos, but I did get a Wii U lanyard and got to talk video games with a fellow spectator.
Cheap Boss Attack 
You know, I’m actually playing through the GameCube version of Wind Waker right now — and to be honest, I’m convinced that its graphics have largely withstood the test of time. So to hear that this new version takes it up a few notches, I can only imagine that looking at it is something along the lines of having pizza absorbed into your body and hundred-dollar bills shoved into your pockets by a bevy of nubile young ladies.
Presumably. It’s either that, or something related to hot dogs.
Actually, I’m more interested in Mario Kart 8 than anything else in the Big N’s lineup (barring Smash Bros., obviously; I gotta represent Villager and Wii Fit Trainer, if only to troll my brother). I’ve been playing a bit of MK Wii recently, and having a grand old time with it; if this new version makes some tweaks — on top of graphical improvements that are no doubt a given — then I’d say that the game’s bound to be another winner. Plus IIRC the Wii version is one of the system’s top sellers, so I’d imagine that this new game will do Nintendo some real good.
Alongside Smash Bros., obviously. That SOB is going to be more valuable than water when it comes out. And it’ll probably sell better, too.
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I usually get excited about anything Nintendo puts out aside from, maybe, Mario Party or Wii Fit stuff. I love Mario Kart and played the hell out of most of them, but Mario Kart 8 in action is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
A few months back I went through a phase where I wanted to see how all of my Gamecube games looked upscaled on a Wii with component cambles (el oh el), and Wind Waker looked delicious. It’s very pizza-absorbing-through-body and money-given-by-wimmenz worthy, so you won’t be disappointed.
Zelda and Metroid are my favorite series of all time, so when Retro decided to go with another DKC instead of Metroid, I was bummed out. I would have been more bummed out if Tropical Freeze looked like it was bad in any way and if Returns wasn’t one of the best platformers I’ve played in my life.. but still.. Metroid. I need dis.
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The word is Nintendo were very pleased with the Best Buy events on the whole, despite Microsoft’s frankly pathetic attempt at shameless self promotion. If now, and it’s a long shot I know but if a few of these demos started popping up on the eShop, even if only for a limited time Nintendo would really please the fans who didn’t get a long enough chance or any chance at all to play them at Best Buy.
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