Squid of Man

WASTE. OF. TIME.

I really don't know what's wrong with Nintendo Australia. Maybe it's a lack of money. Maybe their hands are tied. Maybe they just don't care enough. I don't know. But for a 20th birthday party for Mario, this was pretty weak.

They had some demo pods with such DS "AAA hits" as Over the Hedge, X3 and FIFA: World Cup, a SNES in a glass box playing Mario Kart and some bored-looking 15 year-old girls "hosting" the thing. It was...horrible.

As an event, it was a failure. It failed as a games event because there were poor games on display, and it failed as a PR event because there weren't enough freebies on offer (are stickers not cool anymore?).

Perhaps the most galling thing was the stench. As you can probably surmise, this thing was attended exclusively by small boys and large..boys. Large, sweaty teens aged between 14-19, with wispy facial hair and official Nintendo-themed DS carry cases. Fanboys. And merciful God did they stink. There must have been 100 of them crammed in there, and the pungent fumes were over-powering.

The upside? Got my photo taken with the man himself, who was a lot shorter in person than I was expecting.