Man, just hold a character contest without Link. If Mario wins due to being a Link proxy, well, awesome for me!
I don't really care about a fictional character contest, but then again, I'm probably one of the few people in the world who has had a significantly more exposure to video games than to any other fictional medium since if I'm not doing something VG-related, I'm probably reading a science book, watching The Discovery Channel, or doing something similar. I'd like to know if there's anyone on the board who shares this sentiment.
I'll mention right now that I was lucky to be born into a neighborhood where Nintendo consoles seemed to easily outnumber non-Nintendo consoles (plus my cousin brothers seemed to be more into the GameCube than the PS2 - the only PS2 game I remember them showing to us was Tekken Tag Tournament, and they owned the GameCube versions of multiplatform games like Soulcalibur II and Pac-Man World 2, to say nothing of stuff like Melee, Mario Party 4, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, The Wind Waker, and the rest of the Nintendo parade), too, so Mario was basically the first fictional character I knew about. That does not help matters.
On a side note, Super Smash Bros. Melee turned 10 years old yesterday, didn't it? Wowzers. I remember getting the game with for my cousin brothers right in the month it came out (and I got a copy for myself in Summer 2002 with my GameCube). Heck, I even remember that the first multiplayer match my cousins set up with each other featured Link and was on Brinstar. And I remember thinking "man, this Samus guy sure looks cool as heck". I didn't know "he" was female until I got the game myself.
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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War