Written by Kevin "Malik" Nelson

I guess a good place to begin is the setting. Since gaming had a stronger taboo in the days of the NES as being something mainly for kids, this sort of contest was not only a big event, but also a bit of a ground breaking to what would become far more common in the future. What first got my attention about the events was an ad on the radio that mentioned a chance to play brand new and not yet released games. As a kid, this was about the most exciting thing I could ever hope for. So, I was able to convince my dad to buy a couple of tickets, despite how he never was a fan of video games. It was about a week or so later that I learned that this was not just a chance to play games, but it was actually a preliminary round of the giant Nintendo World Championship tournament that was starting to get some mention in Nintendo Power magazine.

So, when the day arrived, I was one of many people waiting in line for admittance a half hour before the doors opened. Most of the crowd consisted of pairs of a bored looking adult walking with a child that looked like it would explode from the excitement...considering how chances to play new games and actual gaming tournaments were pretty rare at the time, it was quite easy to pick out the game fans from the parents who were dragged along just to keep an eye on their kid (although there were a few parents who did look as excited as any of the kids present; they always struck me as really cool since I never saw much of gamer-type adults as a kid).

When to doors finally opened, the area consisted of the better half of a baseball field (this was at the Kingdome; former home of the Seattle Mariners) covered with small gaming booths, broken into two sections. The larger section consisted of about 125-150 or so NESes (each hooked up to a 15 or so inch monitor), while the smaller section had about 50 Gameboys secured to a booth. The two sections merged in a "V" shape with a large stage and roped off area at the open section of the "V". This was the area were the tournament was staged to happen.

For the first hour or so, the stage remained pretty empty as the crowds flooded to the GBs and NESes. Each console was set up in a small enclosed cabinet, like one would find now in an EB or Gamestop for demos, with a couple of controllers. For the most part, there was one of each not-yet-released titles (with a few of these titles being on two consoles), and about 3 or so of each of the released games being showcased. Unfortunately, I cannot recall too many of the games on display beyond Final Fantasy, Heavy Barrel, and Adventures in the Magical Kingdom for the NES, and a wide assortment of some rather mediocre Gameboy games (such as the first GB Spiderman game, Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle, and another couple of other games quite similar to BB:CC), along with the standard assortment of Tetris, Mario Land, Alleyway, etc. Every 7 (I think it was 7...it might had been 10) minutes, all of the systems would have their power cut for a few seconds and you'd be encouraged to go to the next station; which was probably a double-edge way to make people move on, since it ensured that everyone could play a good selection of games, but it made anything that required a fair amount of time to begin to appreciate (like Final Fantasy) look poor and unentertaining.

After that first hour was up, some presentation took place on the center stage. The stage was a large stage with a gigantic monitor in the back to project a large image of the speaker (and later to show some of the people playing in the championships). Most of the stage events consisted of welcoming addresses or some Nintendo representatives hyping the latest games. However, some of the more exciting parts included hearing some small bits of news about the next generation of Nintendo consoles (the SNES...mainly this was just a Nintendo rep dropping hints that Nintendo had a big surprise in the works and that it would push the power of consoles to a new level), a lot of information on Mario 3 (which will probably never be beaten for the most news worthy game of all time), and a few small panel-type discussions. I have to admit that I didn't pay too much attention to the events taking place on the stage since this was the ideal time to play the games that had the longest lines since most people were gathered at the stage at this point.

A little while later, it was announced that the local level of the Nintendo World Championships would begin shortly. At this point, most of the payable consoles were abandoned completely as the crowds surged towards the stage.

The majority of the competitors were almost impossible to see as through the crowd, but a few screens were barely visible (usually only one or two at a time as the crowd fluctuated and reacted to the energy of the all of this). From what I saw, most people took on the Super Mario leg of the challenge, which consisted of collecting either 50 or 100 (hard to remember the specifics since it was so long ago), coins as quickly as possible, with no problem. Considering how Super Mario Bros. was one of the most popular games of the day, even after being around for a few years, finding the required coins required little, if any, effort. In fact, the players I could see seemed to be mostly on auto-pilot for this leg.

As for the Rad Racer leg, it was a bit more of a challenge for most players (I cannot recall if it was Mario first and RR second, or the other way around). Rad Racer did not seem to be as familiar to most of the competitors as Mario or Tetris, so this leg was one of the most decisive in eliminating the dead weight from the champions. During this part, many more of the contestants seemed focused and stressed than any other part; probably due to Rad Racer never being as popular of a casual gaming choice. Sadly, I cannot even remember what the challenge was for this leg of the competition since I was never a fan of the game, so I mainly just tried to watch the players, that I could actually see who were on the Mario or Tetris parts of the competition.

The final step of the triathlon of gaming was Tetris. This was where the truly skilled players seemed to just lose themselves to the gaming. Since the goal was to finish the competition with the highest score possible in Tetris with the time remaining after the first two legs, this was where the biggest variety of strategies could be seen. While some players hoped to press their luck by only going for the Tetrises, some went the safe route of numerous single lines as quickly as possible, and a few played more casually (like one would play in the comfort of their own home). Of the players I could see, the ones who went only for tetrises seemed to fail for quicker than anyone else. This was mainly due to the games not giving the precious straight pieces often enough for a timed competition. A few of these risk takers came out pretty well, but the majority just seemed to crack under the pressure of the competition and the rarity of straight pieces. The ones who played it safe with getting every line possible also suffered some bad fates. Since the score value of these tactics is so low, they survived the entire Tetris time, but just didn't have the scores to make the grade. In the end, those who seemed most at ease, who were mainly going for the triples, and a few tetrises when possible, were the ones who did the best. These players were able to score the quickest and most consistently, but still pull off good points for their lines. Deep down, the leg that mattered the most was this one. In fact, many of the better players at the end of the tournament usually did rather poorly in the Mario and Rad Racer segments and were able to pull off some major upsets and comebacks in the Tetris gaming. In fact, this always struck me as a little lop-sided about the tournament.

Unfortunately, the best players were the ones I couldn't see through the crowds. The winner of this local branch of the Championships was someone near the front of the stage, and thus way too far off to see from my place near the back of the crowd. The crowd only became more excited and jumpy as the games were played, so by the end of the competition, almost nothing could be see besides the back of the person jumping ahead of you.

Overall, the crowd was about the most excited of crowds one could hope to see. Considering the rarity of a championship tournament of this caliber, and the high number of gamers, the energy was unbelievable.