Submitted by: kirkland on Sunday November 05th, 2006 at 07:55 PM EST

Their eyes were bathed in electric blue. Their jaws clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed, a sign that they accepted the free chewing gum handed to them.

And though the faces of these mostly young men bore muted expressions, the hour-long lines they formed to play barely five minutes of a video game signaled a tacit approval: This new Nintendo system was playing better than they expected.

On the floor of the Nintendo Fusion tour, a combo rock concert and video game festival that hit Roseland Ballroom in New York last month, gamers got a taste of the latest iteration of the Nintendo game system, the Wii.

"I haven't had that much fun playing a game since 'Mario 64,'" one of the brothers, Julio Grazales, 25, of Jersey City, said as he hoisted a whiskey and cola. He was referring to the trailblazing entry in Nintendo's famous "Super Mario Bros." series, which introduced console gamers to 3-D game play.

"I think it's going to be the most fantastic system of the next gen war," said Jamie Mac Rae, 14, of Parsippany, after a single play of a Wii tennis game. "Sony, I personally think they're going to lose miserably."

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