::A Geek in Korea::

Last week, a student brought in his Nintendo DS. I happened to have my DS with me in my bag. I let them know I had beat that game. They gave a “Sure, whatever. Go back to doing your old people things. Old man.” They didn’t know I’ve owned a Nintendo DS since it’s Japanese launch. Since I didn’t want my old school credibility to be shot down by grade schoolers, I did the only sensible thing I could do: I challenged him to a game of multiplayer New Super Mario Brothers “Capture the Star”.

I set up the game and got them linked to my system. I let them pick the settings and conditions of victory. Then it was, as the children say, “On”. There was a crowd around my desk, and the students were watching in amazement as I systematically destroyed my challenger. I won so convincingly that students started drifting away from the table and wanted to watch the results of the carnage on the victims screen first hand. As the boy got sick of being thrashed by the foot of my giant mushroom enhanced behemoth, he drifted farther and farther away from the table. Eventually, he just disconnected and refused to play a rematch. Lesson Learned: Don’t throw down if you don’t have the star capturing skills.

I offered him a rematch on multiple occasions, but he’s now not only declining, but is trying to stop all other DS owners from playing with me. If no one can play me, I won’t make him look worse by comparison. I threw the challenge to anyone with a DS in the school, but only one person offered to take me up. This student got his DS this week as a reward for a good score on his final tests. He’s only got one game, Mario Kart, and when he plays, he steers with his body like he’s using a Wii Remote. It’s adorable to watch.

Since he is still competing on the 50cc skill level (Which is basically walking on your hands speed), I gave him a few points on how to improve his times. He didn’t know how to get the speed boosts by drifting, or how to use items well. Next week he promised to challenge me to a few races. He might be terrible, but at least he’s willing to give it a shot at playing.

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Tags: NintendoDS, Challenge, old school