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Nintendo DS is Headed Straight to the Top of the World.
Apr 26, 2005
Nintendo DS Is On Its Way To The Summit of Mount Everest
Neal Mueller and Chris Grubb are on a mission to become among the youngest people in history to ascend the world's tallest mountains on all seven continents. They’ve already reached the peaks of five of the Seven Summits, the highest points on each continent. Their latest expedition: the foreboding and treacherous Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. Fortunately, Neal and Chris won't be alone. They're taking their Nintendo DS units with them!
The Nintendo DS will be the first video game system in history to reach "the Top of the World." The DS wireless capability will allow Chris and Neal to play games against each other, as well as send each other messages and drawings.
The wireless ability is critical for the pair as they climb to the higher altitudes. At base camp, there is a 40-person dome tent they share with other hikers, but as they ascend up the mountain and the high winds increase, only one-person tents can be managed. With the DS, they’ll be able to keep each other and the rest of the climbing team entertained from their individual tents (even the native Sherpas have DS units with them)!
Who is this Adventurous Duo?
Neal Mueller, 27, and Chris Grubb, 25, are poised to be the youngest people in history to climb the world's tallest mountains.
With their odyssey starting back in 2001, the pair began by climbing the tallest mountain in Europe - the daunting Mount Elbrus, which rises 18,000 feet above sea level. They then conquered Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro in 2002. A month later, they came back to North America to conquer Mount McKinley (Denali, the Native American name), a 20,000 climb in the wilds of Alaska.
Then they set forth on their most ambitious climb - South America's Mount Aconcagua for a 23,000 ascent. That bolstered the pair to tackle Antarctica’s Mount Vinson, a 16,000 climb, but some of the toughest terrain known to man.
Now they are facing their second-to-last challenge - the foreboding Mount Everest - all 28,000 feet of it, their most ambitious climb ever.
After they tackle Mount Everest, their final quest will be Australia's Mount Kosciuszko, a 7000 foot mountain that they'll be climbing with their families! Neal said the climb will be a nice way to pay his family back for the holidays, such as past Christmases, that the two have missed while making their climbs.
Updates from the Top of the World
Neal and Chris are already well on their way, and their Nintendo DS systems are proving to be essential mountaineering gear! Nintendo.com had the opportunity to chat with Neal and Chris via e-mail, during precious rest periods between climbs at Base Camp.
Why did you decide to bring Nintendo DS systems with you?
The DS systems combine our love of gaming and our interest in staying social, which is accommodated by the DS being wireless. The idea to bring the Nintendo DS systems with us to Mount Everest was originally conceived while we were stuck in Antarctica waiting for good weather so that a Russian cargo plane could come and pick us up and fly us back to South America. We passed the time by passing books around camp, but knowing that we'd have two months on Mount Everest (a lot of the time spent acclimating, resting and waiting for good weather), we decided that we needed a more social way to pass the time and the idea of bringing the Nintendo DS systems was born.
What games did you bring with you?
We brought Super Mario 64 DS, Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, Madden NFL 2005 and a game that has a number of smaller games contained on the same game card.
Which games do you play most often?
When just the two of us are playing, we almost exclusively play Madden. Our highest game so far was played a couple of days ago at 21,000 feet. We played Denver vs. Denver in a "four mile high" match since we believe they have the highest stadium in the NFL and thought it was appropriate. When more people are playing, or we're trying to teach people who have never played video games before how to play, we play Metroid Prime. The game is pretty simple to explain and people catch on to running around with a plasma gun or missile launcher pretty quickly.
How do you charge the batteries?
We run everything off of solar power at Base Camp, including charging the DS systems when the batteries are getting low. We had a scare yesterday since it had been cloudy and snowing for two days and hadn't been able to charge the systems, but we woke up to sun this morning and were able to get everything fully charged again to survive another string of bad weather if necessary.
Do you use PictoChat?
We do use the PictoChat function. We usually draw funny pictures and send them to each other. We try to save the batteries for game playing and yell when we need to communicate between tents. It can be fun to get 4 people in a single chat room at once, but it can also get a bit noisy.
Overall, has the presence of Nintendo DS made your experience more enjoyable?
Absolutely, the DS systems have given us the opportunity to meet a lot of people that we either would not have been able to meet or would have a larger issue communicating with once we met them. Even if you don't speak the same language as someone, video games have become a pretty universal medium through which to communicate. It's also given the two of us entertainment when we're stuck in the tents for hours at a time waiting for our next push up the mountain.
Who's the better gamer, Neal or Chris?
Chris rules Madden! Neal dominates at Metroid. He camps the missile launcher on most levels and times when the health refills are reappearing to stay alive and keep his ammo and weapon selection. Chris has got an unbelievable streak going in Madden. Last week he pulled off an upset of the Patriots with his favorite team, the 49ers (at least they can win in Madden, if not in real life lately). Gamer's tip on Madden: use B then X to intercept poorly thrown passes and audible (Y) while on offence to keep the defense guessing.
Why do you elevate up the mountain, and then return to Base Camp? Don't you want to climb, get higher and stay at that point to keep climbing?
The body begins to literally break down at altitude as the air gets thinner. We push up the mountain to try to push our bodies to the absolute limit in terms of the efficient use of oxygen (at Camp II, 21,000 feet, there is only about 45% of the oxygen in the air that exists at sea level for example). The composition of your blood is changing at altitude so that your body can extract the maximum amount of oxygen from each breath. After spending some time above Base Camp trying to push our bodies, we must return to Base Camp to rest and recover. We lose weight while at higher altitudes and we must spend time putting that weight back on while at Base Camp to keep our strength up for the final push to the summit.
Have you met gamers at Base Camp from other countries?
We probably met more gamers on the trek to Base Camp (where the average age is much younger than at Base Camp itself) but we've also met some gamers while at Base Camp. A lot of people are playing laptop-based games like FreeCell and Solitaire (BORING!) and jump at the opportunity to play the DS systems instead. We haven't met anyone else that brought DS systems to Base Camp, but we'll keep looking. Based on different climbing schedules up and down the mountain, there are still a number of groups that we have yet to meet.
If Everest were a "Level Boss", as it will be for your sixth of seven summits, how would you describe that Boss?
We're going to have to go old-school on this one, a little 8-bit action. So you're playing the original Super Mario Brothers, and you're at the final boss (you know, the dragon, breathing fire and throwing hammers at you) about to save the princess, but you've lost your fire balls and super size. Now, usually, you just run through the boss, lose your super power and then make the bridge drop while you're in your two seconds of invincibility, right? So when you're small, you have to wait for the perfect time, when you can avoid the hammers, not get hit by the fire and then run under the boss as quickly as possible just as he jumps up and leaves the bridge release exposed.
In a similar way, Mount Everest has avalanches, snow storms and falling blocks of ice that you have to avoid, but even avoiding all of these won't get you to the summit. You must be in the right position on the mountain when the weather allows you the smallest window to make a run for the summit, and only when all of these things come together will you have the opportunity to stand successfully on top of the mountain. So we'd say that this "Level Boss" is hard, challenging, tricky, dangerous and at all times deserves your complete respect.
Good luck to Neal and Chris, and stay tuned to Nintendo.com for more reports as they continue their quest to reach the Top of the World.
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Hahaha! 
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, deve ter sido prai à uns 3/4 anitos +/-) fui à Vobis e estavam todos bué caros para akilo k eram, fui à Worten e não é k para meu espanto estava lá um com 6/8 butões (já não me lembro bem) + D-Pad + 2 Saidas (porta jogos e usb) não era nada de especial, mas estava a 4.99€, páh por este preço pensei k era fruta a +, mas azar peguei nakilo e fui para a caixa e lá, "PUMM!" acusava 24.99€, disse: "não senhora por esse preço não kero, o preço afixado lá é de 4,99€", ela chamou um colega e ele foi lá comigo confirmar k de facto o preço lá estava errado, tirou o preço logo de imediato e eu pensei "bem era bom mas olha", para meu espanto ele foi novamente comigo hà caixa e disse o senhor tem razão foi erro nosso tens de lhe vender isso por 4.99€... hehe fikei completamente "ESPANTADO", ao ponto de depois de ter pago o comando foi ter com o homem e perguntei-lhe porke é k me tinha feito o k fez, ao k ele respondeu +/- "é um erro nosso os preços afixados dentro da loja tem por obrigação estarem correctos, se não estiverem o cliente tem TOTAL direito de levar o produto ao preço k estiver afixado".![[;)]](./images/smilies/old_wink.gif "Old Wink"){kind=small}
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