Need a hand? Mario Party on N64

Mario Party

Everyone’s favorite memory of playing Mario Party games on the N64 is how blistered and broken their hands got after the first hour of play. There were even some documented cases of folks not being able to close their hands fully. However Mario Party was such a good game for its time, who could resist.

Unfortunately due to the N64’s terrible rigid plastic control stick it was hard to play some of the mini games. Kids of the time persevered only to bloody and mangle their hands, causing large deep blisters and sometimes often crippling problems. Office workers may know a lot about carpal tunnel, but that’s nothing compared to the plight of the hardcore Mario Party player.

Queue Nintendo’s answer. No not rubber caps to place on top of the control stick, but they vowed to send everyone sports gloves to be able to play the game comfortably. Come on, a rubber cap would have done it right?

It took a lot of complaints from gamers and parents to even get them to do this.The internet fails me in looking for an advertisement for the Nintendo gloves they sent out, which lead me to wonder. Did they ever get shipped? Maybe they’re sitting in some warehouse somehow while Nintendo simply said “Ya know what? Mario Party 2 won’t have those “rotate the control stick” games, that will appease everyone.”

Seriously did anyone even receive a pair?

The rest of us were left with large blisters and painful cuts through our hands. It may have been OK to some avid gamers because the awful Bowser claw design of the N64 controller meant unless you had a third hand, you probably couldn’t figure out how to hold it anyway right?

This appeared in the April 2000 issue of Nintendo Power.

 

 

 

All I can find on these special gloves was actually several news articles from 2000 when Nintendo made the promise. In the April 2000 edition of Nintendo Power and several news outlets. So either they exist in someones warehouse, basement, attic or perhaps they were shredded and tossed. Much like our own hands while playing Mario Party.

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