I’ve sat at home for the last 2 rounds of the Nintendo Cube Clubs, and it was finally my chance to see Nintendo’s US Marketing strategy up close and personal. It was also a chance to get my hands on some later builds of games and, well, just have a good time gaming. At about 5:30 pm I left for the Mall of America to see if Nintendo could persuade me to purchase a Nintendo GameCube…or something like that. Crap! Too late… err… I mean, I don’t wanna be a fanboy now do I? So what if I was there from the beginning to the end!

The Cube Club in the Mall of America was on the 4th floor. If you’ve never been in the MOA, the 4th floor is where all the bars and restaurants are. It’s the perfect place for a Cube Club if you ask me, but if you didn’t know it was there you could have missed it (thank God because it was crowded enough as it was). There was no huge Cube Club banner or anything outside, so it was hard to tell it was there. Since my geek-dar was on full geek, I found it with no problem.

The Cube Club was inside a space that used to be the home of Fat Tuesdays, a bar that used to have 9836529435769435 slushy alcoholic drinks on tap before they were forced to close down due to something that happened that would be rated for Adults-only by the ESRB. Anyhoo, it was a tight fit for everything, but cozy enough to geek out and have a good time. I think the first thing I thought when I saw it was, “It’s E3 all over again.” The setups were exactly the same as the ones they had at E3, right down to the Dolby booths. I think it’s a great idea. Let the people see the games. They’ll love it. And you know what? People did. Everyone I talked to was impressed. I barely heard anything negative.

I met the Team Nintendo Reps, a whole lot of readers, a guy from Gaming Age, and the rental reporters IGN hired to cover the event. Everyone was basically just hanging out, playing games, and having fun. Which ultimately was what Nintendo wanted you to do. Sure, I played a lot of these builds before, but some of what I played was new. In a sense, it is E3 all over again. 4 days, free stuff, cute chicks, and lines. God bless America.

So does that mean I am going every day? You bet. Just like Nintendo, I’m trying to get the vibe of the people that are there, and what they think. Okay, well… I want to play a heck of a lot too. Sure me. I mean I have to drive like 10 minutes to this sucker. Ahem. So then, according to my observations, here were the busiest stations tonight….

1. Rogue Leader - Rogue Squadron 2

2. Smash Bros. Melee

3. Super Monkey Ball

4. Star Fox Adventures

5. Luigi’s Mansion

Did that surprise me? Not really. You see an X-wing that good and what are you going to do? Exactly. Smash was generally full with 3-4 players. Monkey Ball? Well the ladies seemed to love it. I would say though, all stations were pretty much full until closing time at 11pm. It was nice to get to play a lot.

One thing I have to note as the coolest thing of the evening....

As it got later and there were less people there, a couple guys looked around suspiciously, scoping out the scene...and then moved a couch from the wall so all four of them could play Smash Bros. Melee more comfortably. To those four brothers I raise my Mountain Dew. Word. Man, I wish that was the case at E3 or Spaceworld. I'm down for reclining La-z-e-boys at all Nintendo events from now on!

That’s all I have to say. There were no serious lines like E3 and Spaceworld. The longest I waited was about 10 minutes, and that was for Madden due to the fact I arrived right when the game began, and I just wanted to check it out.

Overall it was a good time. I’m not going to post any impressions tonight, because I have an early morning of work (hopefully with Pikmin), plus a late night with Cube Club beginning at 6pm once again. I will say one game that really grabbed me was Madden 2002. I have the PS2 version, and the GameCube version is definitely better. They haven’t put all the players in yet, and have some tweaking to do, but the graphics are much nicer, and playing it with a GameCube controller makes me much happier.

So is there any news so far? Well sort of. Quickly…here’s what I found interesting or worth pointing out….

- The demo version of Pikmin shown is the exact same as the E3 version.

- Pikmin and Madden 2002 will have wide screen modes.

- There are better graphical menus and font changes between the US and Japanese version of Wave Race Blue Storm.

- Chicks dig Pikmin

- New boss battle available in the Star Fox demo.

I think that’s all I have for this evening. It’s time for bed. More Cube Club impressions tomorrow. If you’re heading to the Mall of America tomorrow, feel free to find me and say hello!