We store cookies, you can get more info from our privacy policy.
GC

What is a Gamer's Summit?

by Ed Shih - October 8, 2001, 2:02 am EDT

Last week, Nintendo held its annual Gamer's Summit and Ed's finally resurfaced with a look inside.

For those of you who don’t know, every fall Nintendo holds a Gamer’s Summit for various members of the media so they can get a sneak preview of the Nintendo holiday line-up. The event often takes place near Nintendo of America’s home offices in Redmond Washington, however, this year the event took place in Los Angeles at the site of the L.A. Cube Club and thanks to the wonderful people at NOA and their team at GH, I was able to experience it first hand.

If you’re hoping that I have some surprising news about the GameCube launch, I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen. The Gamer’s Summit is all about gaming...and I certainly did just that, spending plenty of time trying out a good selection of games (both 1st and 3rd party) that’ll be showing up on the GameCube later this year. Unfortunately, being the lone representative of Planet GameCube, I was unable to play all the games, though I must admit that my “sad devotion to that ancient religion” that is the classic Star Wars trilogy also kept me from having a full go at all of the games, too. Okay, enough excuses, let’s get on to the details.

As I mentioned before, the Gamer’s Summit took place in the actual L.A. Cube Club so if you’ve seen pictures of a Cube Club, or even better, visit one yourself, you can get an idea of how things were laid out. A handful of private screening rooms were off to one side while the main club consisted of several gaming kiosks set up around the walls, a dance floor near the center, a few more gaming stations set up near the dance floor, and a lounge area off towards another corner. However, unlike most Cube Clubs, there were not many people around (press only) nor was there any music competing against the sounds from the games. The overall impression was that of a cool arcade without too many extra people or the need to pay to play and with a good selection of kick-ass games.

And which games were there? Well, from Nintendo there was Luigi’s Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Eternal Darkness, Pikmin, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet, and NBA Courtside 2002. From 3rd parties, there was Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2 (Lucas Arts), Super Monkey Ball (Sega), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (Activision), NHL Hitz 2002 (Midway), Madden 2002 (EA), FIFA 2002 (EA), SSX: Tricky (EA), All-Star Baseball 2002 (Acclaim), and Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 (Acclaim). Tony Hawk 3 was certainly the biggest surprise, but the near complete version of Rogue Leader stole the show in my opinion, though I admit I’m a bit biased here (the Force has a very powerful influence on this weak-minded gamer).

Gameplay impressions for the titles I played will be in separate stories, but on the whole, I found myself a bit more excited than I was after E3, which is no small feat considering that I was elated to finally see the GameCube after over a year’s worth of anticipation. Most of the games offered solid gameplay experiences and promised to give the GameCube a solid game library by the end of the year. Oh, and did I mention that there was the near complete version of Rogue Leader? Thankfully, we’re already in October and launch is only a few weeks away...I doubt I could wait much longer.

Got a news tip? Send it in!
Advertisement
Advertisement