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With only 2 weeks left, the Nintendo Street Team decided to head to Central Park and tour it large green land. This was one of the best tours and results that the Street Team had as all walks of life travel through Central Park, from children on field trips to tourist just touring the park and relaxing. This was the perfect opportunity for New York's Street Team to help everyone relax by getting them into some videogames. As the unit headed into a park they noticed that there was large gathering of kids on a rocky hill. When the unit got a top of the hill they were rushed by the kids as they automatically saw the Game Boy Advance SP systems on there belts. Most of the street team had to be there for this one as 15 plus kids all needed a game to play. They played on for 20 minutes to a half an hour, and were given gifts for those who completely challenges, such as beating a score or completing a stage.
As we further traveled through Central Park we covered a large amount of it but knew that there was no way we were going to cover the whole park. We got to a part where we went into what seemed to be a mini castle. We climbed a lot of statues and took a lot of pictures, got people to play a lot of games, and over all enjoyed the park. One of the funniest things that I can say about our promotional task is that videogames, and parks work well. Very well! Somewhere inside the park we met a kid wearing a "know your mushrooms shirt" and was worth taking a picture with. Then we encountered a elderly lady who said that the last time that she played a videogame was back in 1971, when she was at a college in Mississippi. She said that she never really got a chance to try out the games then, and she wanted the opportunity to try now, so we were more than willing to give her that chance. We decided to head back to the Armada but before we got there, Ric saw a star from All My Children in the Park and wanted to take a picture with her. He made her a big issue. I couldn't understand it only because I do not know that much about soap opera's but we took the picture anyway. Back at the Armada we had a lot of people playing Super Smash Brothers Melee, a very popular Game Cube Game that seems to never get old. As the day came to a close, we headed back to the office to make plans for the next day event which was a street fair down at 47th street mid town Manhattan.
As the next day came into play Time Square was filled as usual with thousands of people and on that day there was a street fair from 47th to 57th street. Ten blocks of people each block filled with a estimate of 500 people per block. The Armada was parked on 55th street, and being parked in the middle of a street fair made our work a lot easier. People flooded the scene trying to get a play of everything we had to offer. It was funny as we saw a lot of gamers show up with hotter Nintendo wear than what we had. I found that to be hilarious. I notice that Troy was holding down a streak in Super Smash Brothers Melee. Then a couple of guys wanted to have one on one matches for prizes, and the opponents choose to fight me all the time. It was an unfortunate situation for them for I had to defend the street teams honor as gamers, so you can imagine what happened. For the first time I witnessed a perfect in Smash Brothers Melee. 0% with all three lives still intact after a 4 man melee, I didn't think I had it in me.
For the most part of the day it seemed to be game day as we couldn't even get a chance to hit the other 9 blocks. People flooded the Armada and we had to stand by and fend them off with Game Boy's and Game Cubes. This was to my liking as it was still work but more play at the same time. The only down part to it was, that day it was very chilly and rain did interrupt us as times. However for the most part the day was still a good day, until closing time came and the generator of the Armada died. Once that happens, we all knew it was time to close up shop and make plans for the next day. Next stop the Pokemon Center.
As Sunday came into play, I arrived at the Pokemon Center 10 am in the morning with my wife Wyldflower as we both worked at the same place for the day, and awaited the other members of the Nintendo Street Team to arrive. I started to hand out flyers to all the customers and gamers there that were playing the Pokemon Card game in the plaza concourse of Rockefeller Center. I was given a free Pokemon Limited card by one of the card players. The flyers that I was handing out was about at "Event Party" that we were having on Tuesday August 10th 2004. Free games and a huge tournament with give away prizes. I headed back upstairs to the 2nd floor of the Pokemon Center and stood by and watched a private party going on. I had no idea that the Pokemon Center held private parties. My wife has been working there for 2 years now and I was unaware of it, well at least I found out then. Shortly afterwards, the street team arrived with the Armada parked out in the front of the Pokemon Center. The Street team entered the Center as I showed a couple of the members which was there first time being at the Pokemon Center, around. I showed them both floors of the Center and the concourse plaza where Pokemon Gamers and Card players competed in either the card games or the actual Game Boy Advance games. We dropped off a couple of premiums to the gamers down there and returned topside.
As we arrived back top side we noticed that the Armada was crowed with gamers all playing NBA Street 2, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Soul Calibur 2, and even in the Pokemon Center Pokemon Coliseum. Everyone was playing something. It was enough people to run a tournament, as members of Empire Arcadia arrived. Burning Mirage , Starlight, Dieminion, Kreymore, Sepia Soule, and Malak . (?Link all names to respective profiles) My first reaction was that this was not going be pretty. There were to many Empire members around. I decided to sign up for the tournament just to get put in the first bracket with two other Empire Members, Kreymore and Dieminion. That's my luck for you, as the fight began we all looked at each other knowing that only two could advance forward, and did "shoots" for the spot. I lost, and I had to jump off the screen allow both Kreymore and Dieminion to fight another street team member. Being that Kreymore and Dieminion are twin brothers and only two people can advance out of four, well you kind of know what happened. A lot of good players were there, like Rob P. However other than Dieminion, Kreymore, and myself, there were no other "professional" players there, like Wes, Isaiah, David, and or anyone from the Smash Brothers community; thus making the tournament very easy for Dieminion to win.
But it wasn't a waste as everyone parted with a prize from the street team for competing. There was a female gamer there that made it to the second round that I was very impressed with, as she was the only female gamer there. I was impressed with her courage to fight among so many other male gamers. Although we are suppose to look at it as "A gamer is a gamer no matter what" the fact that it is rare to see females in (certain) types of gaming competition other that quake first person shooter games, it was a pleasant surprise to see the change of pace. I hope to see more in the future. Everyone who attended the tournament that we had by the Armada was given and invitation to the Nintendo Street Team of New York City Event party.
As we all returned to doing our work, a couple of Pokemon's came out to greet us. Meowth and Pikachu took pictures with us. I am not for the cute stuff that much, but I had a urge to beat down the Pokemon's because they looked funny and cute. As our final day of the weekend came to a close we returned back to headquarters to make final preparations for our Event party tournament that we had planned at Neutral Ground on Tuesday
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