MAGFest is over.

MAGFest has been over for a few days now, so I'm definitely late posting this. I should start off by mentioning that I did not get the Shin Ankoku run that I hoped for. Nate's camera was in working order on the 3rd, but that left with me with a single day to complete the run. That might have been possible (hello all-nighter) under normal circumstances, but this was far from it.

I'll say it quite plainly, because it's the truth: DS recording is absolutely hellish. You have to hold the DS in a specific area in order to get both screens, try not to shake the thing too much, AND actually pull off a good segment. Unfortunately for me, I was either sucking huge donkey nuggets or just simply getting screwed by the in-game timer. Seriously, I did what looked like an acceptable attempt (time-wise) of Prologue-1 that came out in the 43 - 5x range. What the heck happened?

After Nate came back in the room, I just gave up on the idea entirely. I had spent something like 20 minutes or so getting nowhere. It seemed pretty clear to me that I was wasting my time trying to do that run, so I just told him I was giving up. I hated to nag him about the camera and then drop the ball like that, but things were definitely not going my way that day.

Speaking of DS recording, I'm hoping that Trihex will post the videos that he recorded when we were getting the camera set up. In addition to hearing my comments on the whole thing (if that interests you), you can also see the amusing placement of the camera. For those who don't know and don't mind spoilers: It was placed in a coffee cup with things thrown in there to pad it.

Anyway, MAGFest itself was pretty decent overall. I often found myself quite bored, since I wasn't interested in doing any NES challenges and I don't like "shmups." Because of that, I mostly wandered around and just watched people play stuff. That also got old pretty fast, because I didn't care for (or simply haven't played) many of the games in question. Quite obviously, there wasn't a Fire Emblem game for me to watch on a ridiculously huge projector or anything.

Speaking of Fire Emblem though, there was a dude selling a bunch of import games in one of the rooms. Two of these were Ankoku and Gaiden, and he charged way too much for both: $34.99 each. I don't care that they had the box and (most likely) manual, those games are simply not worth $35. $20 for either one in any condition is perfectly acceptable to me though, but unfortunately, Spineshark didn't bring the copy of Ankoku that I was supposed to buy off of him. I even reminded him the day before the event, but oh well.

There were also a ton of other things for sale there, so I picked up a copy of Streets of Rage ($5 and it had the case), S.O.S. ($6 loose), and a plush Mario star ($10). Most of the cash I had after that went to Domino's and I bought a $2 bottle of Bawls near the end of MAGFest. I don't plan to drink more than a sip or two of that bottle, because I don't do energy drinks. Instead, I plan to give it to a friend of mine who is already used to things like Monster.

I should also point out that the copy of S.O.S. is NOT the crappy game known as Sink or Swim. S.O.S. is an awesome game about a sinking cruise ship where you have one hour to escape (alone or with others). Sink or Swim, on the other hand, is a horrible Lemmings (which is a good game, though not my cup of tea) rip-off. Helpful warning to readers: Avoid Sink or Swim like the plague.

Anyway, I'll just do a point-by-point list of the things I remember about MAGFest, since my memory is getting a bit hazy now. I'm leaving at least a few details out, because I'm not some big meanie head:

1. I sat around for HOURS waiting for someone from SDA to show up in the hotel. Seriously, my Dad and I got there at around 8 A.M. and Mike's group didn't see me until around 5 P.M. (I think). Mike says that some of them checked out the area at various times, but I never saw/recognized them. I noticed a guy who looked a lot like Andrew Gardikis fairly early on, but I didn't say anything to him. As it turns out, that was him.

2. Andrew showed off some cool glitches in Super Mario Brothers while we were there. Pretty funny stuff, I have to say.

3. When Nitrodon and I went up to the registration table with Nate, we ended up right beside Walter Day. For those who don't know, Walter Day is a Twin Galaxies guy. As far as I remember, he's actually the big cheese...though I could easily be wrong on that. Anyway, the cameraman was standing on Walter's left and I was on the right. This makes me wonder if they'll upload that footage with me in the background. Haw haw.

4. It's worth noting that Nate was right behind the dude...and didn't know who it was. Maybe I should have told him? That might have been worth a few laughs. Either way, I told him later and his reaction was a bit amusing.

5. Some of us took a trip to Best Buy, Radioshack, Target, and the mall food court. Good times there, though the Dairy Queen didn't serve chicken sandwiches. For a picky eater like myself who eats chicken and/or pizza every freaking day, that's a bummer. I looked at the Popeye's menu there and decided against that purchase. There was no way in heck that I would buy a 6-piece tender meal for almost $9. Instead, I waited until we got back to the hotel to order from Domino's (much better deal).

6. We stayed in the food court for quite some time and talked about a variety of things. Off-hand, I remember math talk, stuff about girls, and Metroid 2002 related things. I really enjoyed talking to Trihex, Carcinogen, and Nate (all of which were present), so this part of the MAGFest trip was probably the high point for me.

7. The auction near the end of MAGFest was a lot of fun as well. The hosts were making some humorous comments about the items being sold, and there were some good deals there. Sadly for me, I only had $3 in cash to spend...and I didn't want to withdraw anything from my checking account. I tried to snag a few things, but ended up settling for the bottle of Bawls.

8. Freddy walked up to me in the game room one day and asked me about selling my Gamecube Hori pad. I like the controller and still use it from time to time (quite often as of right now), so it wasn't for sale. After thinking back on what a cool guy Freddy is, the amount of usage he would get from it, and the price/rarity of such a controller nowadays, I feel kind of bad for not helping him out.

I realize now that I should've let him borrow it for a month or two and then he could have sent it back to me. That should still be an option (I'll ask him about it), but shipping things out of the country might be an issue of some sort. I'll have to ask Mike about that later.

Like I said before, I found MAGFest to be pretty decent overall and I'll consider going to any future (U.S.) meet-up that might happen. If there isn't going to be more of a focus on actual hangout time though, I'm thinking I'll just stay home. If it was at MAGFest again, perhaps I could convince someone to visit me at home? Ha, probably not.