::A Geek in Korea::

Last Friday, I issued the Mario Kart DS challenge to my students. The boy that was playing at 50cc just last week not only brought his Nintendo DS for the challenge, but had it charging in the classroom when I arrived. He wasn’t about to let a dead battery ruin the possibility of a show down with his teacher. To allay an worries, I did teach an entire lesson, and waited for our break time before firing up the DS for a spirited round of Mario Kart.

We played local wireless. No one else in the class had a system, so we were alone on the courses as we raced. One student said he’d be pestering his mother to get an Nintendo DS now that he saw he could link up with friends. I need to start getting a commission for all these sales. As the crowd gathered around the two gamers, we got down to business. Since I’ve had the game for a while, I had more characters unlocked. He still doesn’t have two characters in the game, and was completely shocked when he saw I could choose multiple carts and different characters than him.

He had choice of venue as well as speed. He picked 50cc, his current difficulty. It is so slow I can do some horrible snaking all course. While I was playing, we’d go back and forth. He picked some of the tracks I disliked most, but wasn’t extremely good at them to take advantage. I didn’t handicap myself with items or karts, but I did let them catch up once secretly so that I didn’t beat them too badly. The students would switch out after every race and try to beat me. I went 6 -1 (THEY GOT LUCKY!)

While one student was playing, the others would watch my “advanced” techniques. They didn’t know about shooting items like a turtle shell backwards, or how to keep a long power drift going. They also had no idea there were secrets on some of the courses that cut down times significantly. I shared my secrets so that they’d have more of chance at beating me, as well as improving their times to beat some of the higher difficulties.

They had improved considerably in a single week. I have the feeling they’ve been practicing. The challenge still stands for next week. I also told them there is store where they can get games used. They were really interested when I told them they could get games cheaply. It should prove interesting if they get more good games to play. I’m up for it.

Tags: ds, nintendo, class, challenge