Nintendo is running a series of competitive events this summer at malls and amusement parks across the nation. My partner-in-crime, Catherine, and I got to check out one of these events at the Natick Mall, here in the uncomfortably hot-and-smelly say of Massachusetts. Words and videos that describe the event are to follow.

Sadly, I had no camera operator or video editing equipment to work with today, so I had to shoot everything myself, with no editing allowed. Get ready to see some of the most laughably bad camera work ever. You have been warned.

So without further ado, hit the jump and see what kind of fun we’d.

The event was pretty large, bigger than the Rhythm Heaven event and Wii for Women events from years past, but nothing compared to the Brawl tournament from 2008 (still the coolest thing I think Nintendo’s ever done.)

There were about twenty game stations set up, about thirty Nintendo employees on-hand wearing Wii-themed referee shirts, a registration booth, a kiosk for prizes, and a T-shirt design station. Registration went extremely fast. Sign a waiver swearing not to sue Nintendo if you injured yourself, give your team name, a team icon (chosen from a selection of Nintendo mascots) and then print you out a lanyard, and you’re done. They were also giving out some buttons at the registration booth, one with a Bowling Ball on it that stated “This is how I roll” and one with a Super Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros. that said “Grow Up!”

Ugh. Why Pun-is Why?

Catherine and I selected the name “B-Berry and Ala-Gold” for our team, in honor of the two undervalued Toads from New Super Mario Bros. Wii. We got to design free t-shirts in honor of our team, but there was very little to choose from to represent Bucken-Berry and Ala-Gold. There was King Hippo (hooray!), Link, Wario, the Koopalings, the usual Mario representatives, even a random screenshot from Just Dance. The closest we could get to Bucken-Berry and Ala-Gold was the “Ala-Gold, Mario, Bucken-Berry, Luigi” mug-shot pic that we’ve seen a million times before. There was no option to cut Mario and Luigi out of the picture, or take a picture of Toad and change the colors, so we had to improvise.

From there, we went to the “free play” area to warm up. Then were given the run down on how to win stuff and we got a closer look at the prize kiosk. Luckily for me, you didn’t have to do well in order to get prizes. Persistence, not skill, was the way to win stuff.