TDS.com to attend Hunters Tournament -London-

[chuddy_2001uk]

Nintendo, being them good selves, are organising a special and exciting event in several different places in the UK this weekend.

The official word from Nintendo is:

To celebrate the launch of Metroid Prime Hunters on Nintendo DS, Nintendo and HMV are teaming up to organise a nationwide Metroid Prime Hunters tournament being held at four of their top stores throughout the country from 9am - 5pm on Saturday 20th May.

**UPDATE: Recruitment for the tournament takes place between 11am and 1pm so arrive early if you want to participate. Tournament matches will take place from 1pm to 4pm, with the final taking place after all the matches have taken place.

The venues are:

Birmingham High St.

London Oxford St.

Edinburgh Princes St.

Manchester Market St.

Competitors can turn up on the day to have the chance of winning some fantastic prizes including HMV vouchers.

BT have provided a video feed link-up between the four locations so that the competitors can see their rivals that they are blasting on the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection

Of course I will be attending this alongside well known member: Alex. I will post up images, videos (maybe) and written content from the event as soon as I arrive back home. Members that have been with TDS.com for quite a while now will know that I wore a unique Touchds.com T-Shirt to the balloon festival last year. I will be wearing it again but this time, hundreds of DS fans will see it = more traffic!

- - - - - - - - - Wow! - - - - - - - - -

That word up there pretty much sums up the 20th of May. It was a special day where Nintendo fans could gather round and enjoy one of the best DS games so far: Metroid Prime: Hunters. It was a day that would also test the skills of many gamers, even those who had not purchased the game. It was a day to remember and I’ll tell you why… in my own makeshift diary entry exclusive for Touchds.com

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Wakey, Wakey… -6:30am
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Ironically I had set my DS alarm to wake me up; a rather appropriate choice I had thought. Stumbling in the shower, out of it again, having breakfast, getting dressed, doing hair and preparing my bag all in 80 minutes wasn’t as easy as I had thought but it happened. I don’t know how, but it did. I was shunted out of the house with multiple “good byes” and “good lucks” as I made way to the train station by car with my dad driving (thanks dad!). He bought my means of travel around the big city of London and I hoped onto the train, turned on my iPod and shut my eyes. The carriage was empty and dark: the weather was terrible with big gloomy grey clouds hanging over Essex. Snoozing for what seemed like 5 minutes I decided to take a few pictures...

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Quest to find Alex… -9:30am
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Upon arriving at Liverpool Street, London, I was presented with a text message from our dear member Alex saying that he would be a bit late. Fine. So I waited and waited, walked around a bit, took a few pictures of the station and sat on an uncomfortable chair that squeaked whenever someone sat on it. Starting to worry a little I opened my phone up to another Text from Alex explaining that the trains around his area had been shut and that he would buy me a coffee for being late. Brilliant, free coffee FTW!!. After a further hours wait Alex arrived in all of his glory and tallessness so we made (with haste) to Oxford street.

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HMV… -11:15am
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We got to HMV out of breathe but ready for the tournament. We literally ran to the back of HMV but nothing was there. No lights, no sound and no Tournament. Alex and I sprinted up to top floor but, again, there was no Nintendo in sight. We soon found out from one of the employees that we we're in the wrong store. So it was back up the road to the other store >_>. This HMV Store was absolutely HUGE. We decided to repeat the procedure of running to the game section and to our surprise... there it was: The Stage. Nintendo had really done it this time with a raised stage, colourful lights shining down from high above and awesome promo posters and reps surrounding the proximity. Massive plasma screens were set up with cameras linked to them providing people who didnt have access to the action a close up view of the goings on and what this was all about. A desk was located at the front stacked with leaflets, signed forms and T&C's of the whole event. After oggling at the beautiful settings we clambered up the steps and entered ourselves into the "Metroid Prime: Hunter's The Hunt Is On" Tourney. We finished signing the papers and got told to come back at ten past 1 for the first lot of matches so we thought to ourselves "What could we possibly do in this spare time that we have?". We both answered eachother with "let's grab a coffee and practice the hell out of this game!". So we did. In Starbucks.

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Your mission, if you choose to accept it… -12:01pm
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Settling down in a comfy chair, Mocha in one hand DS Lite in the other was nice from the already exhausting day. Alex sat opposite with a Banana and Caramel Frappacino; also DS was in his other hand. Not long after we had made ourselves comfortable, phoned Nintenjo and traded goodies on Animal Crossing we both booted up our copies of Metroid Prime: Hunters and began to practice a death match, everyone against everyone, bots set on 2 star game. We lost and lost and lost but then we started to win, win and win. In between, Alex cradled the ‘Lite and expressed his positive views on the sleek and sexy material that was in his hands. Soon after, we departed, went for a leak and arrived back at HMV ready for our battle. This was it. Time to get 0wn3d1.




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The Battle!…-1:00pm
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It was hot. Boiling in fact, so I took off my jumper, Alex took off his coat and we waited for the Nintendo Rep to point us in the direction of our very own DS station when our turn was up. This wait was agonizing; it’s been very rare that I have felt so much excitement surge through me. Both of us were trembling with excitement and (I’m sure Alex will agree) fear. Yup, fear. These guys were awesome at the game and some had never really played before but get this… some of them hadn’t even bought the game! Crazy stuff, this. As people were getting knocked off the board and almost reducing themselves to tears, we got a chance to chat to some of the participants and all of them were really friendly. We met a guy who goes by the name of Dcubed on our very own forums. He whipped out his Ice Blue DSLite which was signed by Reggie himself and shared his experience of meeting him in person at Nintendo world in New York. We also chatted about E3 this year and the things we liked from it. A Polish guy also came over and talked to us about Super Smash Bros. Brawl and how he thought it was stupid that Snake was appearing in it but I was quick to reply with my opposite and strong views. Alex and I then parted to tell people about Touchds.com and most of them took an interest asking when it was made and how.




Alex was up first. DS Lite stylus in hand and one hell of a height to show off he marched up to his Station. The Nintendo Rep then explained a few things that we just “had” to know, apparently, but Alex had his eyes glued to the DS screens soon before the battle started. He’s a good man our Alex. The battle began and Alex’s hands could be seen in a huge fury of fiery madness smashing those buttons and slicing that screen to pieces. Looking at his points it appeared as though he was winning but unfortunately that soon changed when he was knocked down to third. Things weren’t looking too good for our Alex as he was repeatedly plasma-fied by his competitors. The games shortly ended with Alex in 3rd place. He did try his best though but his enemies were just too good. Bad luck Alex. He then backed off but still bared a brave and un-beaten face … now that’s what I like to see.



Next up was my match against, as Alex had, 3 other players. Stepping up to the DS Station I had people around me watching me fight. As soon as I jumped into the arena I was blasted down to fourth, this wasn’t good. Not good at all. But then I transformed into the Morph Ball. It seemed as though the Morph Ball was my special gift but in fact I rarely used it before the Tournament. I stayed in my Morph Ball blasting around the level like a manic (see video) with the Left Trigger getting a right good hammering from my finger. Poor DS. The digit that told me what position I was in was constantly flickering between 2nd and 1st which didn’t help with my nerves as people were making comments in my ear that I was near to breaking the stand. Woops. The timer finally ran out and I (thankfully) came out on top with 1st place! I was relieved and my hands were sweating to prove so. Time to cool down.

Further battles took place and the back of HMV was now filled with a bigger crowd than before. People were gathering round to see what the fuss was about and even taking pictures with their camera phones. Music continued to blare out with a track list that somewhat resembled that of EA Trackx from Burnout Revenge.

I was called up again for my next battle of which I came second which meant that I was going on to the Semi Finals! W00t! The look on some peoples faces were awesome in the fact that they looked like they had lost their life… OWNAGE!!!!!! Anyway, It was time for lunch so we trundled off to Subway and scoffed down 1 foot long sub each and ran in the pouring rain back to MV for my next match. We we’re a tad late but they didn’t mind. Before the match we had a good photo opportunity so we made use of this and ran around taking loads of pictures and videos for you guys to see and to share the experience that we had, with us.

Onto my next match. This one was difficult as al the winners were coming together to rip it out of each other. But I wasn’t prepared for such torture and decided that I should come at least 2nd. I did. Again. By this time my hands were aching like crazy and I was getting dizzy with all the adrenaline rushing through my body. And this is only a video game… I had time to sit down and plan my next tactics for the Store Final. The store final was up next and I was there again at my DS Station ready for my next match, one away from winning a DS Lite. It was another 5 minute match but only with 3 of us. I had finally lost my touch and I was finally beaten. I had lost the Store Final but I wasn’t at all gutted because I had bagged my own copy of Metroid Pinball and Rumble Pak for getting so high up in the tournament which equals one happy chuddy and one excited Alex (I soon learnt that Alex had a thing for those types of games). I was knocked off but the games continued but this time it was London against Birmingham. The cool thing was that Nintendo’s partner, BT, provided us with cameras and a neat live feed to their HMV store so we could see who our London winners would be owning for the last match. The person who would win this would get themselves and their friend flown over to Seattle to see where the game was made so as you can imagine, this was a big fight to the dream of being the winner.

We all watched silently. The sounds of the game screaming into our ears from the speakers attached. Everyone was still. It was a 15 minute match and we got to watch Hunter: Mr. Birmingham get absolutely mortified as our London store winner obliterated his slack jawed opponent to outer space. Victory goes to London! When he did deal out the first blow we all went absolutely crazy and cheered for our winner. Well done mate, you deserve that trip.

Click the window to see Chuddy in action!

[bignds]

Omfg Im In

[Pilot_51]

Cool, we need something like that over here in the states, that video feed thing sounds really cool too (not that webcams aren't as good, but that you don't get that kind of thing at public events very often).
Good luck, have fun, and be sure to get loads of video whenever you get the opportunity. If you can't do video then get enough pictures so it could be animated into a video. ^_^

you guys better freaking practice and give us a good name

[alex]

lol i havent got the game im going to buy it tommoro and try to get decent at it if theres any tips you guys can give me to help me get better quicker it would be much aprecated.

[Lkr]

hmm...na gets games faster, but europe gets cool events and prizes. not fair :(

[bignds]

Alex, unlock trace, and practice the sh!t out with him.

[alex]

ok how do i do that?

btw are you going to go bignds?

[chuddy_2001uk]

Alex, tonight we shall go on wi-fi and practice: look around levels, find good spots to shoot from etc. By meeting someone on wi-fi who is a character that you haven't unlocked yet that character will be automatically unlocked.

[Fatvod]

Damn that sounds amazing. Why cant anything like that happen in the states? And also u BETTER have some way of representing us!! AND WIN!