====================================================================== ============================* COMMENTARY *============================ ====================================================================== ===========Set Courier as Font to see this page correctly!============ ====================================================================== The Dutch Nintendo Championship 2000 - by Steven Zwartjes COOL THING TO DO: Maybe some of you guys out there like to test how well you would do when you would join in such a contest. Well, what you can do is play the games we had to play and tell me your scores. See how good you are. Only one attempt! (Ed. Note: Steven played PAL games... now, for the usual problem, NTSC players should play a different amount of time in some timed challenges. I'll put a line where it needs) FIRST ROUND: THE NEW TETRIS 5 MINUTES MARATHON, GET AS MANY LINES. Not cool! Starting with a game I have never played before =) Patrick got 59 lines, Tim Donders 58 and I got 3rd place with 49 lines. Hmm, whats different about this tetris game? I heard its possible to get 200(!!) lines in 5 minutes! One thing I found annoying is the fact if a piece is dropped down and you want to move your next piece fast, you will notice the previous piece is still move-able =( SECOND ROUND: MARIOPARTY 5 MINUTES COINCOLLECTING, STARTING AT LEVEL 1-1. (4 minutes and 10 secs for NTSC) What??? Are we gonna play any games I know???? =) Probably not. Well, I didn't have to start as first so I watched closely what was to do. Damn, this is piece of cake! Hmmm, many people ended in the 70+ coins! Okay, my turn (You were not allowed to play same level twice, only if you had a MISS) Hey wow not bad! level 1-1: 34 coins (NAI WR!) level 1-2: 16 coins level 1-3: 33 coins level 1-4: 24 coins NAI WR tie =) -------------------- total: 107 coins A 27 coins lead to the number 2 =) I got first place, Seth 2nd and Patrick a......47th place(????) He messed up on level 1-2, three times a MISS before he got it. Just 41 coins for him. ROUND 3: MARIOKART64 WARIOSTADIUM, DRIVER: MARIO NO SHORTCUTZZZZZZ! (NTSC players should multiply by 5/6 the time they got) Ah, finally a game I know! Shit, boring track WS and with MARIO! Long waiting before it was my turn. I used 1-1-1 strat and drove a consistent race. 1'33 each lap (1'17"50 NTSC) and finished in 4'40 (3'53). For more information, that is about 4'28 (3'43) with Peach I am guessing. Top 3 times: 1st Steven: 4'40 2nd Patrick: 4'50 3rd Seth: 4'53 ROUND 4: DIDDY KONG RACING EVERFROST PEAK, DRIVER: DIDDY My aim was to get a WR here. 1'22 is the WR, but that is with TT of course! Ah, with diddy I don't have a chance of getting that! Anyway, I got a nice time. 1st: Steven Zwartjes: 1'41"00 2nd: Patrick Wessels: 1'50 3rd: Tim Donders: 1'53 ROUND 5: MARIOGOLF MINIGOLF, LUIGI'S GARDEN, GREEN. 5 MINUTES TO COMPLETE AS MANY HOLES AS YOU CAN, PLAYER:BABY MARIO (4 minutes and 10 secs for NTSC) Hmmm, what to do here? What is that line in the bottom for? Okay, a quick practice before I had to play this game, to not make a fool out of myself =) Patrick got a nice score! He completed the 7th hole with just a few seconds left! How to calculate the score now? Well, you are given 200 points. For each hole you complete, you get -10 points, then they check your total score. So for Patrick it was 200 points, 7 holes completed so 200-70=130. He got +1 for totals, so his score is 131. Many people got 130+ and even one got 129! My turn then. Dang! First hole in three shots! What's up with that? I expected hole in one =) I got 70speed instead of the necessary 60speed, so ball bounced back and then I missed again, me dumbo. But after that it went better and better. Birdies on hole 2, 4 and 7! Pars on the others. 5 seconds left I was about to finish level 8, but MISSED! Too bad. The place around the hole is not very flat here, that's for sure =) My score: 127 points because I got -3. 1st: a guy I don't know (?): 126 points 2nd: Steven Zwartjes: 127 points 2nd: Tim van de Lans: 127 points That was it for that day. Tomorrow the finals. Because I didn't feel like going all the way home again, getting up really early and get back to Waddinxveen, I could stay at Tim van de Lans his place (really nice guy). We played some Goldeneye multi, Dino Crisis for the Playstation (kewl game) and Resident Evil 2. ====================================================================== DAY 2 ROUND 6: DONKEY KONG 64 COLLECT (normal) BANANAS, 10 MINUTES, NEW GAME. Haha, this was a funny round =) We had to start at DK's house, do all the training courses first and all the other things BEFORE you could even start collecting any bananas. A few people didn't know the game and couldn't find the first level =) Oh well, that were just 3 people or so. Thinking, thinking...what to do? Just 10 minutes. Hmmm, get banana before Diddy's nose, Diddy speaking, shoot the 3 things to free Diddy. Nope, takes too much time. I'll do it the easy way. I collected the maximum 61 bananas, but had 40 seconds left to play... Maybe it was a bit cocky of me, but I just put the controller on the table and just sat there, watching the other players in action =) Everyone looked at me with surprise =) What are you doing? "I'm done", I said. The results for this round: 1st Steven Zwartjes: 61 bananas 2nd Patrick Wessels: 61 bananas 3rd Seth Rietdijk: 46 bananas After this round there was a list so you could see what rank you had til this point. For each round 1st place got 100 points, last place zero points, so after 6 rounds 600 points is max. RANKING AFTER 6 ROUNDS 1st Steven Zwartjes: 596 points 2nd Jeroen ? : 542 points 6th Patrick Wessels: 513 points ROUND 7: F-1 WORLDGRANDPRIX SETTINGS: ALL THINGS NORMAL, AUTOBRAKES ON DRIVER: MICHAEL SCHUMACHER 4 MINUTES PLAYING, AVERAGE LAP TRACK: ALBERT PARK (I think) Okay, in these 4 minutes you could drive 2 laps. Actually this round was quite easy as the racingline was visible (the really black line to follow the right path). So times were all close to eachother. Results: 1st Steven Zwartjes: 1'32"41 avg lap (1'32 high followed by 1'31 high) 2nd Patrick Wessels: 1'32"45 CLOSE!!!! 1'32 low first lap!!!! 3rd Tim Donders: 1'33"76 avg lap ROUND 8: WORLD DRIVING CHAMPIONSHIP TRACK: I have no idea =) DRIVER: ? SETTINGS: is there anything you can change then? This was the worst round for me, and I was playing so bad! I knew JUST 15 players would go to the next round! Results: 1st: 1'46 who got that? 2nd: 1'47 driven by a girl=) 3rd: 1'48 Tim van de Lans 7th: 1'50 Patrick Wessels 8th: Seth Rietdijk 11th:1'51 Steven Zwartjes 14th:1'53 Tim Donders Oh boy, we made it! That was close! ROUND 9: MARIOGOLF TOAD'S HIGHLANDS, BABY MARIO 5 MINUTES, COMPLETE AS MANY HOLES SAME SCORING SYSTEM (4 minutes and 10 secs for NTSC) Oh man! Not again! This time we had to struggle on the BIG fields, completeting as many holes as you can in 5 minutes. This was goodbye for one of Holland's best Seth Rietdijk. He had a +8 on hole 1 (?????) I REALLY don't know how he did that =) but he finished with a 190 score. BTW, just 8 best players went to next round. Patrick did well! He completed 3 holes and got the 2nd hole a birdie! 169 points for him! Then my turn. A PAR on hole 1, a par on hole 2... DANG! On hole 3 I wasn't doing great either. But then a shot from 80 yards. Whoohoo, it goes in! A Chip-In it said! Birdie! I was struggling on hole 4 and couldn't get it. Also 169 points for me! But man, somebody got hole 4 completed! This guy was doing great all day, but I just don't know his name =) Results: 1st ?: 161 points 2nd: Steven Zwartjes,Patrick Wessels, Tim van de Lans: 169 points ROUND 10: STARWARS RACER TRACK: TRAINING COURSE DRIVER: ANAKIN SKYWALKER NO UPGRADES Well, a piece of cake for Pat and me. The eternal 2 strikes again! (just kidding). But our times sucked =) The 5 best players went to SEMI-FINALS! 1st place TIE: Patrick Wessels, Steven zwartjes: 2'37"31 3rd place: Tim van de LAns: 2'48 ROUND 11: DONKEY KONG64 PLAY FOR A HIGH PERCENTAGE, 30 MINUTES START AT THE VERY START OF GAME (DK's house) This was the coolest round of the entire championship! Jolly good fun, playing 30 minutes non-stop! It was good fun for the audience too! Especially Diddy's Mine cart race! My goal was to collect everything in level 1 with Donkey and Diddy. I almost got it! I just missed the Diddy banana medal. I got the crown aswell. Patrick however was having some little problems. That's why he missed 1 golden banana. Results: 1st Steven Zwartjes: 11 bananas, 5% 2nd Patrick Wessels: 10 bananas, 4% 3rd Tim Donders: 6 bananas, 3% And here we have our 3 finalists! I got a whopping 7(!) 1st places out of the first 11 rounds! What can go wrong you say???? Well, everything. THE FINALS: We played on a screen 3 by 3 meters as usual. As soon as I knew the games we had to play in the finals, I knew my place already. It was a MULTIPLAYER final. SUPERSMASH BROSH THE NEW TETRIS DONKEY KONG 64 (again!!!!) None of these 3 I have EVER done (DK64 multi neither), so it was clear that there's only one place for me this year, and that's 3rd place. We started with THE NEW TETRIS. Marathon, multiplayer, 5 minutes, one with most lines wins. As I knew both Pat and Tim are superb Tetris players I had to do my very very best to not finish last. One good thing was though none of the 3 of us ever played TNT =) Me dumbo! When we started I was fooling around with the analoge stick! Nothing happened of course =) Oh yeah, you have to play this game with the normal stick. When I finally understood this, I saw the other 2 already had 3 and 4 lines =( Ahum, okay I was making lots of tetrises. NOT GOOD! They get my crap on their screens making easy lines!!!! Aw hell, I can forget it. (Note: if you know this game there are ways to get 200 lines in 5 minutes). Result: Tim Donders: 62 lines Patrick Wessels: 57 lines Steven Zwartjes: 54 lines SUPERSMASH BROS: Please, please, please! Can anybody tell me why this game is so cool????? I think it is just a MESS when you play 3player multi!!! Anyway, Pat and Tim had some experience with this game and I had zero. Here we go! Pat and I took Kirby character and Tim got Mario. Hey man, I was doing good in the beginning! I was ramming all kind of buttons, and noticed the most important buttons should be top C, B, and A buttons. Well, keep ramming those and I might win! I had 198% (????) and then died for first time. But 2nd time I just had 50% and then a suicide followed =) Pat was doing great, and to my surprise I knocked down Tim several times! Result: Patrick: +1 Steven: -3 Tim: -6 DONKEY KONG 64: Oh no, this sucks. DK64 multiplayer, who of you out there is playing this at home? I was hoping for the platform (circle) battle, but no, we had to play monkey smash in a big arena. Well, as we started I saw them both at a green room. So I went there fast, but to my amazement, they weren't there! Seems there are 2 rooms with the same color. I couldn't find the other one! In the meanwhile Patrick was knocking down Tim hard and had a 2-0-0 lead! Then Tim knocked Pat down, Pat knocked me down and I knocked Tim down making the score 3-1-1. There I heard: KNOCK KNOCK. WHO IS THERE? BLAM BANG KABOOM! PAT overwhelmed me with orange kaboomers! HOW RUDE! =) Final score: Pat, Steven, Tim: 4-1-1 Man, what a stupid final, all 3 games suck =) Not fair =) I was hoping we could have a good time with Goldeneye multi! Now that would rule! Okay, here is the final result of this championship: HE DID IT! HE FINALLY DID IT! THE ONE AND ONLY WESSELS! AFTER FIVE 2ND PLACES IN A ROW HE IS NOW THE NEW DUTCH NINTENDO CHAMPION! CONGRATS POETRICK =) you really are a beuker! And Tim Donders got his highest rank ever! 2nd place! And I can congratulate myself with a 3rd place. Oh boy! I am so happy now! NOT =) HEY, THATS IT! THE DUTCH NINTENDO CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE OVER! SEE U NEXT YEAR (maybe) The next BIG championship will be in the summer and will take place in....AUSTRIA =) GET READY TO GET SLAUGHTERED =) (Ed. note:you'll get what he's saying later in the Summer... and I won't be slaughtered by you, Steven!!!) That's the story! Please mail your comments to szwartjes@hotmail.com and don't forget to play these games as we did and give me result! Steven Zwartjes ====================================================================== The Dutch Nintendo Championship 1999 - by Steven Zwartjes Hello everyone! The Dutch Nintendo Championship: It all started at 8 o'clock in the morning! The 100 best Nintendo players of Holland were invited to compete with eachother to find out who's the best Nintendo allrounder in Holland. There were 5 rounds. In each round there were several games to play. The one with the best results in a certain game got 100 points, second one got 99, and so on. Nobody knew which games we had to play and what to do! ROUND ONE: * Waverace; Southern Island; Normal; 1st driver. * Super Mario Bros 3; 1-1; get as many points in 5 min. * Banjo Kazooie; Treasure Trove Cove; get as many notes in 3 min. * Mario World: Yoshi's Island 2; get as many points in 3 min. * F1 World Grandprix; Germany; timetrial; 1 lap. Waverace was mine! 100 points for me! Patrick became a good 2nd with 2 seconds behind me. The records weren't very good of course because you had to drive with that slow guy You weren't allowed to make any changes (grip etc.) either. 1'41 was the winning time then. Super Mario Bros 3 was cool. Everyone was capable of getting a good score! Patrick won this round with 386000 points! I became second with 369000! Banjo Kazooie then. This was a tough round, because the notes are everywhere in this level (TTC)! Second place for Patrick with 58 notes, Piet and I became third with 55 notes. Super Mario World: I got 177000, but later when I was done I discovered a very neat trick. I told it to Patrick. Then he had to play , used my trick and smashed my score and got 220000! World Grand Prix was boring. We had to drive with Jos Verstappen! Everthing was automatic too! Even my grandma can play that easy! A bad round for Patrick. Just 1'49. I got 1'45 and became third with it. Well, that was the first round! The rankings so far: 1st: Steven Zwartjes 495 points 2nd: Patrick Wessels 489 points 4th: Seth Rietdijk 6th: Piet den Dulk 9th: Michael Liem It went great so far! An excellent round for me. 50 players left. ROUND 2: * Super Mario Kart; Bowser Castle 1; driver Mario. * F-Zero X; Red Canyon; Blue Falcon; no changes with accelaration-max speed. * Yoshi's Story; Level 1-1; as many points possible in 3 min. Oh boy, Super Mario Kart, when was the last time I have played this one! No, I have practiced it a bit. No one dared to jump over the lava ramps! Seth Rietdijk's game! He became 1st with 1'49. Good time. I became second with 1'50. Patrick a good third with 1'51. Yeah, F-Zero X! Awesome! I just got this one with Christmas! But I just played Red Canyon once! Shit! Not too much boostin' for me then. I played a bit safe. I wasn't the only one! 1'32 for me. I became third again. Patrick went wild and got himself 1'29! That's more like it! But when you boost like crazy you can get 1'20, duh, so no one played that good in this round. Now it was time to become Super Happy with Yoshi! 3900 for Patrick, he became first, 3700 for me. 3000 for Piet and Seth. 2600 for Michael. That was round 2. Patrick became first, me second, Seth third, Piet 6th and Michael 8th in this round. ROUND 3: * 1080 Snowboarding; Golden Forest; Kensuki; Scout board; time attack. * Donkey Kong Country 3; as many bananas as possible; 3 min. * Mario64; level 1; as many coins as possible; 3 min. Ouch, a difficult round for me! Just 15 players left in this round! It started good with 1080. But you had to play with that dweephead and a bad board! But I crushed everyone's time! I got 1'24! 5 sec. faster than the number 2! So 100 points for me then. Michael failed a bit and got 1'32. I know he can do a lot better. He needed those points so much! A few players RETIRED! Shit! Donkey Kong Country 3! Never played this one. A 14th place for me, duh! I just got 145 bananas. Patrick got a whopping 214(!!!!) bananas. Wowi! I didn't do so well with Mario64 either. I got 46 coins. The best got 56 coins. The rankings. Did I make it? The best 10 players went to the next round. Piet den Dulk: 2nd (aweseome round for him!) Patrick Wessels: 3rd Steven Zwartjes: 6th Seth Rietdijk: 8th Unfortunately Michael Liem didn't make it. He became 14th. Art Man became 13th. For Michael it was too bad, because the next round would have been much easier for him. ROUND 4: Mariokart64; Banshee Boardwalk; driver Mario. Lylat Wars; Corneria; as many hits in 3 min. Not a difficult round for me and Patrick. I messed up a bit with Lylat Wars, but it wasn't that bad. I knew it was good enough to be in the top 3. I won Mk64 with 2'18. I think that's about 2'12 with Toad. Pretty good for 1 attempt. I didn't have any competition with MK64. Patrick was the closest with 2'21. Ranking: Patrick: 1st Steven: 2nd Piet: 3rd Seth: 4th Tim Donders:5th Yep, these are the 5 finalists. ROUND 5: Just 1 game in this round. Which one. You can guess! ZELDA 64!!!! Good for Patrick. He had practiced this one very good. What to do: The sword and shield were already collected. Now you started at Links house. From there you had to go to the Deku Tree, work your way through to the Boss and finish him off. Then stand up. The 3 best players where going to the final round then. Patrick and I were the only clever ones to not Collect the Map and Compass. You don't need it! So we both won valuable time. Patrick ran like a mad man and finished first in about 10 minutes (I'm not sure). And yes!!!! I finished 2nd in about 2 minutes behind Patrick. About 5 minutes later it was PIET DEN DULK who joined us! Allright!!! THE FINAL ROUND: Now some changes were made. The best players played on screen of 1 by 3 meters. Chairs were put behind it, so everyone could watch the final! It was a racing final! First F-Zero X! 3player VS on Devil's Forest. What a final! It was the last round. Patrick and I fought for 1st place. He was in 1st postion and I was just behind. I took a risk! I boosted like crazy and landed just before Patrick. I had no energy left!!! Yikes!!!!! Patrick could destroy me with double Z, but JUST missed me, because I was going far left. I lost speed again, he boosted once again and took over first place. Well done Patrick! Result: Patrick: 1st Me: 2nd Piet: 3rd But it wasn't over yet! WAVERACE! Twilight City with no changes again. Patrick made a few mistakes and got 2'01. I knew what to do! I was in excellent shape, didn't make ANY mistakes and finished in 1'54"3. Allright! But then there was Piet den Dulk, the best Waverace player of Holland. Oh boy, was he doing great or what? Same lap time mine! Then the last lap. All went well. He ALSO finished in 1'54, but got 1'54"7!!! Yes! A 1st place for me! Just one game to play! MARIOKART64!!!!!! What a chance to win the competition for me! DK's Jungle Parkway we had to play, driver Mario. Patrick and Piet were too afraid to fall into the water after the boost ramp. They just stayed on the right and lost valuable time. I just knew I could do it. 2 jumps close to perfection winning alot of time. With a respectable 2'36 I won the competition!!!! So it's official, I'M THE BEST NINTENDO PLAYER IN HOLLAND!!! Patrick: 2nd (3 times in a row!) Piet: 3rd That's the story Bye, Steven