I realized I was not getting any pictures of myself on the show floor, to prove that I was in fact there and these are not just anybody's pictures of nerds, so I had Laurie take the following picture:



I wish I could say I was inspired, due to my proximity to the Nintendo booth, by Mario's "I Got A Star!" gesture, but actually I am just a dork and my fingers do that on their own. Lest you think that is the most ridiculous gesture I will make in a photo, I behoove you to keep reading. Seriously, I am behooving SO HARD RIGHT NOW.



Check out these guys who were unfortunate enough to try out Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix while I was taking a picture. I sure feel bad for that guy on the left, because I am about to type "Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix is so much fun that it causes grown men to inflate their buttocks with pure joy." Harsh. Anyway, it's fun, and if you don't like it, I'd say you're one of those people who tries so hard to be cool that they inevitably die unhappy and alone and covered in wrinkly tattoos. The game features many songs from Nintendo's happy back catalog, as well as some bleepy classical music favorites. The only possible snag is that, despite featuring no less than five difficulty settings, the absolute hardest one was pretty easy compared to every other DDR mix ever. I'm hoping this is because Nintendo wants to extend the life of their dance pads by never requiring you to go too crazy on them, and not because Nintendo is determined to shoot itself in the foot yet again by removing anything that might interest DDR fans. This game is a must-buy for anyone who likes to laugh, because for the first time we get a real feel for what constitutes "dancing" in the Mushroom Kingdom, and I shouldn't have to tell you that it's damn funny.



Also, if you're a fan of "funny," build yourself a time machine and go watch this year's E3 attendees attempt to play Donkey Konga. From the looks of things, I wasn't the only one who hadn't played it before. This, combined with the sheer impossibility of Donkey Kongaing adequately at E3, made for a funnier two minutes than the outtakes on the Special Edition DVD of Chris Farley's 1996 film classic Funny Fat Guy Fall Down. Note that the Bongo Controllers include a microphone to sense clapping, which is an integral part of the game; now imagine playing the game amongst the cacophony of E3, next to six other people who are playing a different song than you. Needless to say, the onscreen Donkey Kong was mightily confused, and simply settled for clapping his hands spastically and failing you.



This is Nintendo's Chibi Robo, which was overlooked completely by gamers, who waited for hours to see Legend of Zelda: It's Not Cartoony Are You Happy Now and are programmed (by hours and hours of playing Tom Clancy's Unimaginative Bullshit Squad) to ignore anything colorful or creative. Chibi Robo combines the compulsive cleaning of Mario Sunshine with the general scale of Pikmin to create something irresistably* adorable. You play as a tiny robot of the near future, who has a PSP-like battery that must be recharged every five minutes; this is accomplished by lugging your power cord over to an outlet and plugging yourself in. You can take out a little toothbrush to mop up spills, toss trash into your infinitely accommodating head, and don various costumes for unexplained reasons. It was fun, but nobody cared. Poor doomed Nintendo, what with their continued insistence on developing fun, original game ideas. *(Please ignore that I spent the first part of this describing how everybody resisted it.)



Here's an interesting sight: Nintendo fans eschewing the three-hour wait to see Zelda in favor of a three-hour wait to successfully download the new Zelda trailer onto their DS. Laurie got hers to work (probably because the file server knew she was a girl) and, uh, I guess Link is a werewolf elf cowboy? (Sorry, "shepherd.") Also available for failed download were several DS game demos, which could also be experienced by walking five feet to the DS demo kiosks. I don't blame Nintendo for attempting this, though, because 1) all the wi-fi interference at E3 made most DS/PSP connectivity a frustrating proposition, and 2) if I were Nintendo I would not pass up the opportunity to watch loyal fans gather reverently around a monolith and stare patiently at things they have already purchased rather than go to some other company's booth and see some stuff about a "powerful new game system" or whatever.