Written by Rob Budrick

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the NWC back in 1990 in Worcester, MA. I believe I was in 6th or 7th grade at the time (or maybe the summer between them).

The competition I bombed in because I sucked at Rad Racer. I crashed several times but did pretty well in Tetris and SMB. However, after I lost, the real treat was all the upcoming games that were set up in kiosks that people who attended the event could play.

I remember Astyanax and Snakes Revenge. I also remember Dragon Spirit being there, along with Castlevania III. Ninja Gaiden II was there and I vaguely remember being able to beat the second boss before the timer reset the kiosk (they were all on timers). I remember wanting to see the carts in these kiosks, to see what these pre-release carts looked like, but the systems were hidden away in the kiosks. I don't recall that there were any differences in these carts compared to the later released versions of them, but then, I obviously didn't get to put them side-by-side.

I also remember this crappy-ass rap group trio playing there and they sucked. BADLY. At one point all these people were standing around in awe at how much they sucked and the young girl in the group said, "Every body say HO!!" Everyone looked at each other thinking, "Why on earth would I want to do that? What, like Thundercats, or a prostitute?" The stood motionless and silent. My friend said "Ho!," basically calling her a ho. Ahhh, laughs all around.

I also remember a Q&A with the Game Play Counselors. When I was younger, I figured these guys to be gaming gods and wanted to be one when I grew up. I remember that whenever I called the hotline, there were certain Qs that they wouldn't answer (it was sort of a policy). For example, they wouldn't say how to beat a last boss or something. One time I called the hotline, and they wouldn't tell me how to beat the last boss in Wrath of the Black Manta. So, on this stage setup where you could ask a GPC anything, I asked them this question (which I by now knew the answer to) at the NWC and he answered it. Those cheap bastards! They cheated on their policy when put on the spot! I remember feeling a bit cheated on many long-distance calls that they could have answered but didn't.

My greatest memory of the place was also when we were about to leave. My friend Kevin Murphy, with whom I went to the NWC with, was an unstoppable GB Tetris player. It was the height of the Tetris fad at the time and we ran into Ben Smith, the head Game Play Counselor, and if memory serves me, he had a significant part in organizing the event. My memory is fuzzy, but something tells me he had a role in running the NWC show at the time, or at least had something big to do with it. I believe he went to move up in the company into product development or something (I asked a GPC this once when I called the hotline some months later). Anyway, he was holding a gray NWC cart and I said something along the lines of, "Any chance of getting one of those?" and he said, "Sure, if you've got three grand." It was sweet to see that cart, but our meeting with him got better: My friend challenged him to a head to head game of GB Tetris and Ben accepted. It was a great game. Kevin barely beat him...it was real close. He won by a hair. They were both excellent players. So, we were just absolutely psyched that happened. On top of this, I got Ben's autograph on 6 of those NWC pamphlets we see pop up every now and then. They all say "Ben Smith GPC." Hey, it ain't Billy Shakespeare's sig, but cool to me nonetheless.

Later, Kevin moved away to Georgia (from my hometown in NH), and I believe he attended the Atlanta show. He made it to the semi-finals, I think, but they only took the top 7 to move to the finals..he was eighth. Yeah, he was pissed!