general fuzz

I was lucky enough to get an invite to a “super secret” Nintendo event, billed as “World 1:2″. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but it happened early enough on Saturday night to warrant checking out. I figured there’d be food and video games, and was right on target. I brought Dave SG with me, which turned out to be the correct thing to do.

The event took place in the gallery of an amazing non-profit arts organization called Root Division. I ended up talking with the director of Root Division for a while, and was totally captivated by their mission to both enable artists to work towards a sustainable living and enrich the community with free arts education. It’s a beautiful goal. Dave SG is a professional artist, and really lit up when he learned about the goals of the organization.

The event was for only 50 people, which is insane considering how much effort went into the event. Nintendo completely transformed this small gallery space bringing in huge amounts of scaffolding, a stage, and Wii Kiosks. There were contests, a DJ, shwag, and ample Nintendo staff. We got to play their two new unreleased flagship games – Excitebots Trick Racking, which was sorta fun, and the new Punch Out, which was AWESOME. They totally nailed bringing Punch Out to the current console generation without sacrificing any bits that made it so fun in the 80s.

My favorite part of the evening occurred when I went to the entrance to grab my water bottle. At this point I was down to my tee shirt, which read “I love Dave Stern-Gottfried”. The tee-shirt doesn’t lie. A lady from Nintendo’s PR firm was working the door, and asked if Dave was from Philly, which he is. Turns out she went to high school with his younger brother. She figured there couldn’t be a ton of Stern-Gottfried’s. That tee-shirt keeps paying out dividends.

As awesome as this event was, to me the most amazing thing was that Nintendo decided to rent out this non-profit arts space. I find it truly inspiring that Nintendo made the extra effort to find a space that really makes an positive impact on the local community community and surely needs this type of corporate sponsorship.

In my twilight years of being a reformed video game junkie, a new video game entering my life must fit these criteria:

1. It must be simple to pick up. I have no patience for complexity. The fewer buttons, the better.
2. I shouldn’t have to play for more then 10 minutes at a time without potentially accomplishing something.
3. They must be really fun.

Extra bonus points:

1. If it’s 2d. I heart 2d games. I have the tee shirt to prove this.
2. If I can finish it.

This eliminates most modern console games from entering my house. The Xbox and Wii have ushered in a new era of indie video games with their online downloadable capabilities. I’ve been most excited about this capacity, and now that excitement has transformed into utter joy, thanks to World of Goo. I’m not going to describe it, beyond saying its potentially the most fun, clever, and amusing video game ever made. And its only $15.