If you’ve been following my surveys of various New York neighborhoods and their gaming scenes over the past few weeks, you know that the best places in the city for constant gaming competition are downtown. But if you’re stuck uptown in Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side, you’ve still got a shot to get in on some competition.
GameStops around the neighborhood regularly host a number of great gaming tournaments open to all players. I’ve got a report on some of these tournaments, and I talked to a few gamers in attendance to get a feel for how the tournaments play out, and whether or not they’re worth attending.
I’ve checked out three tournaments over the last year at a few GameStops, which frequently host first and second rounds of tournaments. I’ve been to the Super Smash Bros. tournament, the Call of Duty: World at War tournament, and the Street Fighter IV tournament.
The most immediate thing you’re going to notice about these tournaments is the absence of the gritty, spontaneous, underground nature of the Chinatown arcades. The tournaments start at 2 p.m., and they’re all held in (generally) well-maintained, well-lit, non-smelly GameStop stores. The GameStop at 85th and Broadway is a particularly nice store to begin with, so the smelliest things you’ll have to contend with are the dedicated fans.
In addition, the tournaments generally have pretty strict rules. The Street Fighter IV tournament, for example, forced all players to use whatever controllers the store provided and did not allow them to change button configuration at all. There are definitely a few techniques used in arcades downtown that probably wouldn’t fly at your local GameStop. One gamer named Frank griped about the rules, commenting, “I had never played this way before today.” He added, “some of the rules don’t make sense.”
Unlike in an arcade, GameStop’s competition is capped to make the tournament length manageable. One GameStop employee told me that the goal is to not let these things “get out of hand.” The upside, of course, is that participants can play some pretty different games in these tournaments. GameStop will be hosting a Major League Baseball 2K9-Home Run Derby tournament this Saturday. A tournament like this would never happen in an arcade.
Unlike in the arcades, though, where personal pride is all that’s on the line, GameStop offers very nice prizes for participants. Winners of the MLB-2K9 tournament will get All-Star Game tickets, and the SFIV winners will receive a limited edition arcade cabinet of the game. Imagine putting that in your dorm room.
Gaming competitions are more than plentiful in Morningside if you know where to look. GameStop hosts a number of fun tournaments that are free to join. So get in on the MLB tournament and enjoy the start of a fresh new baseball season.
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