Nintendo World Championships

[NovaXpress]

I can't be the only one around here who participated in this. I was in it three years in a row. I made the final 10 for Ohio the second time. The games I played:

 

1990: Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, then Tetris

1991: Super Mario 3, Pinbot, then Dr, Mario

1992 (SNES): Super Mario World, F-Zero, then Pilotwings.

 

Ever year had the same pattern. First get a certain Mario score as fast as possible, then finish the secong game ASAP, then score as much as you can in the final game until time runs out.

 

The first year I was held back by poor Rad Racer skills, I never had enough time to run up my Tetris score.

 

In the second year the requirement was to score 100,000 in Pinbot. There's one little target worth 100,000 that you can hit with your first shot. Hitting that target was the key to winning, because it gave you plenty of Dr.Mario time. I was killing at this until the final round, where I missed the target and ate shit.

 

In the third year I totally sucked at Pilotwings and didn't even make it through two rounds.

[Susuwatari]

 

Cobo hall, Detroit, MI March 1990. I went and tried for the championship but bombed in Rad Racer. I did enjoy the chance to test play several games before they were released, particularly Final Fantasy.

 

PS here's another way to score big in SMB/RR/Tetris. Instead of getting 50 coins, get to world 3 as fast as possible and do that unlimited 1-up trick. The amount of lives does add to the final score and getting 95 lives would push you into the next round easy.

[Brad2600]

Is there a site of some sort for the Nintendo World Championships?

 

When I was a kid, I dreamed of making these championships but I was never that good at any particular NES game.

[JerseyDevil]

When the first NWC happened, I was 25 I don't think I would have fit in.

[Tempest]

I just wasn't intersted. I had "The Mad NES Skillz" as they say, but I never liked to show them off in front of a crowd. Too much pressure.

'

Tempest

[NovaXpress]

My local regionals took place at Ohio State University, so we actually had an older crowd.

 

They had 10 systems set up, each with a monitor so that the crowd could watch. You'd play in groups until everyone was eliminated.

[chrisbid]

the later two tournaments never came here, or i never heard about them. i attended the 1990 show, and made it to the semi finals. i too wasnt great at Rad Racer, but i think i surpassed 200k which isnt too shaby (the winners were in excess of 700k during the finals)

 

there was also a Sega Genesis College Championship that featured Columns and some other early Genny titles. these were the pre sonic days, so the Genesis was mainly marketed to older kids and adults at the time.

[NovaXpress]

the later two tournaments never came here, or i never heard about them.

 

I promise you that the last two years did indeed make it to the OSU campus. I was a student there at that time. Nintendo showed up for 2 days with 2 trailers, 1 for competition and 1 to demo new products.

[chrisbid]

i grew up in cincinnati

[jhd]

I have a few questions about the Nintendo World Championships:

 

1) Were these just held in the United States? More to the point, were there regional competitions in Canada?

 

2) Did the competitors know in advance what games they would be playing?

 

3) Were these generaly new titles, or somthing that had been out for a while?

 

Disclaimer: In 1990-'92, I was struggling to finish a Business Degree and was only vaguely aware of the existence of the NES (much less the NWC).

[chrisbid]

i think it was the US only

 

The games and the even were publicized in Nintendo Power Magazine, in 1990 the featured games were staples of the system (SMB, Rad Racer and Tetris), that most NES fans have played, the later tournaments had somewhat newer games

[SteelerFan]

refresh my memory...was it the carts used in those tournaments that bring big bucks or am I mistaken? I remember one about six months or selling for $2500 or something like that. I remember that there were only like 26 or so made...of course, I might be just crazy and mistaken!