Nerd Mentality

The Tallarico Chronicles, Part II: The Final Day

Posted May 13th 2006 by Stephanie DeSiena.

SUDA 51 is cooler than Yuji Naka.

There was a post on our forums either yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure, that had a conversation between some random E3 attendee and Yuji Naka himself where Naka reveals that he is developing a new NiGHTS, accidentally. The post is sloppy, copied from NeoGAF, and highly unbelievable. Why is it so unbelievable? Because Yuji Naka would never reveal to some random peon that NiGHTS is being developed. Yuji Naka would have never responded to the guy who asked him in the first place. Yuji Naka would have never even given him the time of day. That is because - and I can be quoted on this until the end of time - that SUDA 51, the designer of the absolutely brilliant killer7, is way cooler than Yuji Naka.

Yesterday, on the last day of the conference, I was playing Phantasy Star Universe when who should step besides me but Yuji Naka himself. Those of you who read my blog have probably gathered by now that SEGA as a company contains some of my video game heroes, Yuji Naka being one of them, and up to that point I was kind of bummed that I hadn't met any of them at all during the entire conference. But, there he was. Standing right next to me, watching me play Sonic Team's latest Phantasy Star. I stopped playing, looked at him, smiled, extended my hand, and said "Mr. Naka, I'm such a huge fan of the Sonic Team and your work". He looked down at my hand for a second, and eventually smiled and shook it. And directly after, without even saying a word, he turned around and walked away from me. I know for a fact he is fluent in English. I stood in front of the monitor as some unholy beast beat my main character down. The controller was in my left hand, extended as close to the floor as it could be. The crowd walked away from the kiosks. The lights dimmed and a faint spotlight was all that was left illuminating my face, which had a look somewhere between expressionless and absolute confusion. The man who helped design the game that would become my bible of interactive entertainment cold ignored me. And as I walked back to the Kentia Hall to meet up with Daisy I played back the exact movements of every muscle in his face after the shake, which I will now refer to as The Shake, and pictured it all disappearing in a moment as if I didn't matter, and video games didn't matter, and nothing even mattered at all. And then, when I met up with Daisy, I finally admitted to the one thing that I have been in denial with for so long, as I was reserving judgment until I was able to experience an encounter with the man himself.

"Add another big video game dude whose hand I shook today to the pile."

"Oh? Who did you meet?"

"Yuji Naka."

"You did?!"

"Yes. And he is a jerk."

So, Mr. Naka, if you're reading this, I hope you realize that I am no less of a fan of Sonic Team or anything that you have ever done due to this experience, and I hope your new development studio is successful and received in the highest regard. But the next time someone tells you they are a huge fan of you and everything you do and have ever done, please, at the very least, say "thank you".

And Mr. Suda, if you're reading this, thank you for being so friendly and cool with us.

Shortly before this encounter with Mr. Naka I was back in the Kentia Hall with Curtis. We had an appointment at the café towards the southernmost point of the hall. The appointment was with Mr. Goichi Suda and Mr. Nobuhiko Nakamura. They are the president/director and product manager of grasshopper manufacture, respectively, who are the development team behind critically-acclaimed games like killer7, michigan, and more recently Contact, which is being published by Atlus in the states for the DS in a few short months. We walked to Tradewinds, saw a sea of people seated with no spare seats, while looking feverishly for the two. And then we turned around and there they were, standing behind us, and looking around for two random fansite dudes who were going to ask them a few questions about the Wii and... stuff. We introduced ourself and looked for a table. We couldn't find one. Mr. Suda and Mr. Nakamura led the way outside of the noisy hall underneath the staircase leading up to the path to the South Hall. While looking for a chair for Mr. Suda to sit on, I told them that we were both such huge fans of killer7 and their faces lit up. They thanked us so much, and they were so nice to us, that we took off running in the interview. I was floored. Curtis and I both were, I think. I was really excited not only just to meet him, but because he was talking to both of us about all kinds of cool things. I'm very happy with how the interview turned out since it really was my first interview with a big developer. I haven't started transcribing the audio recorded and organizing it into a full-fledged interview, but when I'm cleared to post it I definitely will and you'll be able to read all about it.

Also, during the interview Mr. Nakamura gave me this amazing portfolio of grasshopper manufacturer's games and it has the most beautiful artwork I've seen the entire convention. I think Curtis saw how excited I was and let me keep it. It's so killer.

So, thanks to both Mr. Suda and Mr. Nakamura for talking to us. If I go back next year I would love to do it again.

A lot of big names were wandering the floor yesterday, I think. Actually, Scot Ritchey from NoA got us into the Wii booth and let us cut some lines. I got to try the shooting demo and Super Mario Galaxy, finally. Apparently we even got two N-Sider in front of the Zelda lines as well. Scot told us Mr. Sakurai was wandering the floor and no one recognized who he was, so he was just walking around freely through the Wii booth. I knew what he looked like, because I'm cool like that, and Daisy knew who he was because she had a conversation with his after Nintendo's Smash Bros. Brawl conference. I never got close enough to shake his hand, though.

I find it kind of strange that no one was recognizing who he was. Strange and kind of sad, for gamers. I bet barely any of them even noticed Koji Kondo conducting the Wii Orchestra game in the middle of the path to the Wii booth, either.

But, I, NightsB, am also going to be a mondo hugigantic celebrity in a few short... hours? Maybe? In the Wii booth I got to try Spike's Necro Nesia, a very unpolished and robotic game about a horrible bug infestation, or something, when who should appear right behind me but Carl and Silver from GCCafe. They were filming some footage in the Wii booth and got me playing Necro Nesia as I commented on... how bad it was, generally. I don't know if they're putting it straight on the site or on their new E3 2006 DVD or if they're scrapping it altogether, as I haven't checked their site all week, but look out for that! Actually, if anyone from GCC is reading this right now, why don't you just drop me an e-mail to let me know if you're doing anything with that footage at all, maybe you can sell another DVD. My address is on my staff profile.

This year was probably one of the most successful E3s I've ever seen for N-Philes, and I'm very glad I had a chance to ignore my real-life responsibilities for a week. I'm sitting in LAX right now as I type this, without internet access, while waiting for my flight to take off. I had an awesome week, I've met some awesome people, and I hope I get a chance to meet everyone again before I get too old for these ridiculous shenanigans.

Luckily, I don't think I'll ever be to old. At least not for a long, long time. Like, not at least until I'm 21, or something!

Now, if you'll just get your gloves on, because I'm about to drop some names and I'll need your help picking them up. Some of them are a bit greasy. SS4GoVinny, thanks for letting me stay in your room on Monday night. Sorry I couldn't come back for a bit after that. Cowface, thanks for driving us around on Monday morning and not kicking me in the balls right off the bat. MegaByte, thanks for pointing me towards the Sonic stuff. Chupperson, sorry I ruined your conference video! David Dayton, thanks for the stickers (all 30 or so of them!). Rimmer, nice handshake, wink wink. Fox, thanks for getting me in big with Nintendo Norway! All (most) of the journalists and exhibitors I got to talk to were very cool to me and N-Philes. Michael Quiroz and Vinny Goodwin, thanks for the cool N-Philes info and tips, I'll try to remember to bug you for those zip files. Thanks to all of the people that I've talked to from the Nintendo fansite community - I guess we aren't such huge jerks "irl" after all! Thanks to Raika and fudge - you two actually came up in quite a few of our conversations! And especially, thanks to Curtis, Jordan, Xavius, Nik, Rogue, danytoca, mohd, Max Bunge, John O., GreenNight and the media team, Daisy, and Arker. I'm so sorry we couldn't make it last night, I wanted to thank you in person again, but Rogue wasn't looking too hot. You guys are so rad. I had an awesome time.

So, E3 2007. Do it.

| Comments (0) | Permalink