Nintendo’s Corroboree

Anyone ever had one of those mornings where you pass in and out of consciousness? When the dreams feel so real you have conversations with the people in them later about what they said in the dream and they look at you all confused? That has been me all week, passing in and out of consciousness inside my E3 mattress fort. I told Bill I was going to snuggle up for an hour before the Microsoft conference, when I woke it was dark and cold and when I woke again I was eating bananas and Vita-bix while Jack Tretton announced an htc phone as the new Playstation. I’m not really sure when I woke up or if I was ever asleep, but I’m here in the university library now and I have to tell you about the other part of my dream; Nintendo’s Corroboree.

For the unAustralian amoung our readership, ‘corroboree’ means ‘wara wara’ which means ‘charivari’. Look them up if you’re lost. Anyway I was in Los Angeles lining up with other people wearing lanyards that won us admittance to the Nintendo Media Conference. Everyone is really excited although some were comparing the body readiness checkers Nintendo had established outside the doors to the theatre to the process required to board a flight in America. Most of us passed the body readiness checker but I saw a few people nervously led away to a body preparation zone behind a towel draped over a desk. I don’t know exactly what happens but I heard screams and whimpering from within. Once we were all inside though it was unmistakably a corroboree, with people mulling about but with a magic in the air had as all anticipating what would be a spiritual event.

Reggie walks in. He’s in a slick suit but wearing an odd translucent bowl over his head. Like some sort of space helmet. Suddenly a whistle blows and confetti falls over the crowd. Without explanation or reason the attendees and I begin to assemble behind Reggie. Reggie just has a natural draw, a man amoung men, able to kick arses and impregnate women with just a suggestive look. Reggie was aware of us assembling as he lifted his right arm up the crowd surged over the gather to the right of him. Reggie lowered his arms and turned to face us, “welcome to E3,” he said, broadly gesticulating with his hands as he is known to. “Today, we’re showing our renewed focus on the hardcore, we’re venturing out onto the mean streets of downtown Los Angeles.”

A variety of smartphones in the crowd went off, interrupting Reggie. It was Iwata tweeting:

#iwatasays We are preased to announce Pikmin 3!”

“Yes, thank you Iwata, Iwata will be meeting us at Union Station in his spaceship, think of the walk there as our own little Pikmin adventure,” Reggie explained and suddenly his gimmicky helmet made sense. As Reggie lead us back out of the theatre he continued speaking, “you might find the adventure more fun if you arrange yourselves into groups of the same t-shirt colour, it’ll be easier for me too…”
“Anyway, where was I? Yes LA. Did you know Los Angeles is the most hardcore city in the world? it’s true! They birthplace of hardcore punk, gangster rap and the city in which Grand Theft Auto V is set!”
Was that a confirmation of GTA5 for WiiU? Reggie seemed to have a wry grin but he was also winking at varies young women in the street who would clutch at their ovaries afterwards. Perhaps he was just feeling cocky?

Dramatic drums started playing! Where were it coming from? The sky? Was this a dream? It feels so real! My girlfriend is here with goon (translator’s note: ‘goon’ is wine from a box) so it must be. Reggie stops in his tracks and looks around, searching. “THERE! THE GORMLESS ONE!” he yells and rushes forward towards a fringed, casual suit wearing man. We all follow quickly behind. Reggie stops again, leans back and grabs the nearest journalist, a skinny blue shirted man from NintendoLife, and throws him over his head, like a soccer throw, at Dan Mattrick, the gormless exec type we rushed towards. As the journo is mid air Reggie seizes another blue shirt attendeeand tosses him at the target

#iwatasays Kinect with that dorky Americant

With the gormless Dan Mattrick defeated, a few attendees went to assist their projectile comrades. “Leave them,” Reggie said, his voice commanding such fear that we all obeyed. “This is what being hardcore is all about right? Maybe you casual kiddies would appreciate Lego City Stories instead!” Reggie’s tone was vicious now and his face seemed to decay and distort. A frenchman was laughing at him, Zombie Reggie tossed him against a wall. The wall began to crumble and with a few more throws Reggie had destroyed it, the Havok physics causing the rest of the building to follow. A Sega sign wrapped in tissues was the last piece of debris to land in the pile of rubble. Then, from within the rubble, Michael Patcher appeared. He screamed “PATCH ATTACK!” before launching into a diatribe about why Nintendo needs a Call of Duty subscription on the 3DS to take on Android or something. We didn’t hear much of it because Reggie was furiously throwing all the white shirted attendees at him.

#iwatasays Quick! Hurry home before sunset! Pikmin that get reft behind will be eaten.

By now I couldn’t tell where I was reading Iwata’s tweets from, the first few were on my phone but I checked and they aren’t there anymore. I think this one was written across a cloud formation. Reggie turns to us with a glint in his eye and says, “I hope your bodies are ready, you’re the man now kid.” With that he turns, pulls his hat on and steps inside Union Station. An explosion is heard and a rocket takes off, splutters and faltering on it’s way out of the hell hole that is Los Angeles. I think I catch a glimpse of Iwata laughing from a porthole but I’m distracted. Groans and cries are heard from all around us. “What do we do?” cries a journalist, pointing at the hoards of homeless people now staggering our way. I turn to my girlfriend and she grumbles and pulls the sheets back from me.