Yes, I know there were a few about this already here, but this is an actual event that I thought needed to be out there. So please bare with me, it is a fun story that needs telling.

So myself and a friend of mine, Mythicgriffon, went to the release of Smash Bro's last Saturday night. It was kind of a cool event. For the most part. Read further down to see the ups and downs of the event. But in any instance, I'll dictate in 15 minute chunks so you can try to get a grasp on how it all went down, at least her in Vegas.

10:00 pm

I arrive on location. Doesn't look like too big of a crowd standing out front. So I roll out of my car Camera in one hand, Bawls™ in the other, and a note pad in my pocket. I have big pockets. I just kind of saunter up to the door to check out what is going on and wait for Mythicgriffon to get done with the In-And-Out run.

10:15 pm

The nice people inside the GameStop come out and offer up free Water and snacks. I wrangle up one of the nice, and rather attractive, GameStop Girls and introduce myself and such. Both as myself and for part of the reason I was there, to write this article up. I ask if I can take a few images and that's when the manager interrupts and says, much like the Soup Nazi, "No Pictures!" Not just to me, but a couple of parents out there trying to support their kids and document it for themselves. Kind of curious on why he enforced it so much. And since my ninja skillz failed me, I wasn't even able to sneak a few quick images for this article.

So after all that, I talk to the girl a bit more and she takes my information for the Tourney. I selected Bowser as my combatant. I was the only one who did. Everyone else went with, well for lack of better terms, the "Girly" characters. By that, I mean the Pokemon and Princess characters. Odd in my terms, but maybe they knew something I didn't. But I Digest. Still not done laughing at that one. I get that all squared away and I continue to just mingle and schmoose the crowd.

10:30 pm

The crowd gets extremely pumped up as they finalize the entrants into the tournament. 43 people all together entered, and only one would exit. Very Mad Max of me. It was at this point they started to take people in to actually pay for their games and other stuff. At least those who preordered. This seemed odd, but it will make sense a little lower down.

So I go back outside and run into a few youngin's, by that I mean, 10 and 14 year olds. Surprisingly, they were there on their own. They lived in the area, and their parents let them go down to pick up the game. Funny thing was, they didn't know that they were in violation of curfew by doing so. So being the upstanding gamer I am, I told them that if they needed an adult, they could point at me and say I was their stepbrother. They were so pumped about the game I didn't want them to have to run the risk of being escorted out by security for curfew.

10:45 pm

My number gets called and I get to roll inside to take on my first opponent. I get "Good Lucks" from about half the crowd and venture in to take on the first player. The have the entire store moved aside and the demo console hooked up for it all. Balloons everywhere on the floor, I almost wanted to just run around and kick them instead of play, but I focused.

I took on Zelda on my first fight. Can't recall the name of the level, but it was a standard non-interactive one. I acknowledged the other player and told him good luck, then it was Bowser vs. Zelda time. This is where I found that I missed the motion controls of the Wii and resorted to good old button pounding to get the upper hand. One grueling minute later, I placed the controller down, shook hands and walked out the victor. Once again, half the crowd congratulated me and there was much High Fiving.

11:00 pm

I round into my second Bawls of the night and continue just to move about the crowd try to feed the energy. All the while just having a good time, but one the first round of the tournament had played through, it seemed that there was a lot less energy flowing in the air. Most likely because half of the competition had lost and the other half won. The beautiful employee walked by and handed out more goodies, but that didn't seem to get anyone charged back up. It kind of looked like things where going to be bleh for the rest of the night. Then they called my number for the second round and I made my cell phone blair out my ring tone, "The Funeral Dirge," and laughter broke out again and people got a little more back into it.

I walked in and went through the same motions again. BSed with the workers and then met another combatant in Virtual Mortal Combat. This time it was Bowser vs. Samus. The match started off pretty well. We had both got use to the controls from the first round and made a pretty even match for each other. Then came the doom. Well not doom too much, but a friend of mine called part way through the match. She worked at that GameStop and decided to heckle via the phone and the employees. And I got pwned. At least that's how I'm going to tell the story. Not that my opponent was actually much better and I just failed. The prior sounds much better. We shook hands and exited the building. There were cheers and there were people with consoling words around.

11:15 pm

Here's where it got a little odd. Just hanging back out doing the same stuff I had been doing all night so far. Then my buddy points over at a couple of people walking over to the crowd. All dressed in either Leather Armor or Renaissance period clothing. And for some reason, the chose me and my buddy to walk up to. So, not being able to contain my curiosity, it's blurted out, "Why are you in the garb?" They informed us that they were with a Renn-Fair in Boulder City, that's just a few miles outside of Vegas for those not from the area. So we continue the banter we've been having all night and find that they were here just to pick up the game that the "Leader" of the group had ordered. We called him the leader just for the fact that he kept treating the other two with him as a knight wound have. You know, ordering one to go "Fetch his helmet and shield."

I think they were trying to out nerd us. Me with a Bawls in hand and my friend with a WoW sweatshirt on. But I digress. Had to put the regular way to say it in there so as to not kill the joke.

11:30 pm

More and more people seemed to get less and less energy as the night progressed on. Up until these Renn-Fairers decided to go at it in the Parking Lot. Not in that way, but actually breaking out weapons to beat on each other with. Everyone in the area kind of had that look about them like, "Are these guys F*cking serious?" So even after a few people, including myself, telling them it probably wasn't a good idea, they said that they could do it because they had their Renn-Fair passes on them. Now me being a very observant person and already seen the security from the bar right next to the GameStop walk out for a smoke break. So I pointed this out to a few around me ad they went into the street to fight. This drew half the attention of the crowd. The other half more interested in the Brawl going on inside. The one on the Wii that is.

Well no more than a few swings in, cigarettes hit the ground and the security was on these guys to stop them. Every one burst into laughter at this and the crowd was once again invigorated. Nothing like seeing a couple of people get tagged when they deserve it. Look for it on YouTube, BTW. There were a load of people with cell phones out trying to record it.

11:45 pm

So after that fiasco, the manager and hawt GameStop employee came out and asked us all to get in line and get our receipts ready. This is why they had us all pay before now so we could walk right in and right out with our games. At this point, the chatter turned into a roar as the anticipation and time to release came to an end. The Renn-Fair people were let go so they could get in line for their game at this point too. Surprisingly, the time shot by at this point.

12:00 pm

So because they had everything planned and set up way early in the night, getting the game flew right by here. I was like 30 people deep in the line and it only took me about 2 minutes of waiting to get in and get my game. They were very efficient with this entire ordeal. So I wished everyone good luck, those still in the tourney, said my "Catch Ya laters" to all the people I had talked to and me and Mythicgriffon took off for the night.

12:09 pm

Ok, so I speed when I drive all the time. Made the 15 minute drive in about 6 or so minutes and was able to get the game out of the case. Popped it into the console and wrapped up the night playing until the time change happened. The End.

So yea, there ya go. First hand experience with the release. Hopefully you bared with me all the way to this point. You get a cookie. I do recommend getting this game if you loved the other versions. It was worth the wait and watching people get pwned by security for being idiots with swords.