Gamestation Diary: Day 2

Well as the day started we opened up the deliveries. The usual bunch of new accessories and games (10 copies of Sonic Mega Collection +?) as well as 2 promo packs. The first one to be opened was the Nintendo DS one. Oh dear. 10 adcubes with a slightly worrying slogan (touch me?!) and about 100 dummy, blank DS cases. What the hell is the point in that? They do look good though. After that lot was out the way we got to the next promo pack for Mercinaries. That showed how to make a promo. 3 military profiles on the characters, a big military map of North Korea, a dossier on the game's story and 3 $20 bills with the characters on them. That caused enough excitement to last about half an hour.

In today were Mark and Kev who I profiled yesterday as well as Matt and Reiner.

Matt
Top boy. Friendly and funny, he was my partner today in terms of finding the games and getting them out to the customers. Cut off at 3pm though.

Reiner
This guy is the complete opposite. Annoying, cold, unfriendly and lazy. Slouched in at 11am and did pretty much sod all day.

At around 12:30 the Nintendo rep came in and the moment I was waiting for arrived. The Nintendo DS. We got Super Mario DS and Metroid Prime: Hunters. Heading for a VS game in each against Matt (using the reps DS). At first startup you have to enter the date, time, your birthday and also give your machine a name. This name will represent you in multiplayer games so make it your gamer handle (e.g. my DS is gonna be called NJ while I named the Gamestation one gstation). The DS guy's named his Jenga for some reason. So Super Mario DS is pretty much a straight port of the N64's Mario 64 but with a few changes. There are now 30 more stars to find (that makes a total of 150) and you have to rescue 3 of the other playable characters from Bowser's clutches. Those 3 are Luigi, Wario and MARIO!! Yes the president of the Mushroom Kingdom has been captured by Bowser at long last. Because of this 'unfortunate' turn of events you now start the game as Yoshi. You also have to find a key first as having now gained some common sense Bowser's locked the castle door. Everything works well and the VS modes are great involving racing to collect stars that appear around one of the 4 arenas. I beat Matt 3-1.

Next up came the one I wanted. Metroid Prime: Hunters. This demo version of the game contains a single single player level as well as a fully functional multiplayer mode. It is also included with every new DS. Wow. The stylus control is slick, smooth and easy to get to grips with and shooting with the shoulder buttons quickly becomes second nature. In a battle with Matt I won 3-2. This is gonna be the reason to own a DS.

Overall the DS is a solid machine which carries on Nintendo's habit of making awesome handhelds. Again the link up with another machine is going to be key but this time it comes with the GBA game slot in the bottom. The example of this I was given is this. Pokemon Dash, a racing game coming out on launch day has 50 tracks from the start. That in itself is impressive but when a Pokemon game resides in the GBA slot a bundle of new tracks get added. Once all 4 Pokemon games for the GBA have been leeched for tracks there will be 320 tracks!

That dominated the rest of the day. A bit of processing went on with a rapidly filling PS2 bin and endless people asking whether Knights of the Old Republic 2 is out yet. IT'S OUT ON FRIDAY!

After Mark and Matt had gone for the day things calmed down a bit and I eventually made tracks at 5:20 borrowing a copy of Final Fantasy VII. I WILL FINISH IT!!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 is out on Friday
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is out on the 4th March
The Nintendo DS is out on 11th March and will cost £99.99 with Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt and Pictochat
The PSP is out in May and will cost around £180

Tomorrow
What's in the toilet? What's in the fridge? What is the flat?