Extra Life 2025 September Update

Hi everybody! It's been a few months since our last talk but time is flying by as we get closer and closer to the big marathon in November. I have to admit, I am looking forward to it as I always do. But I have this bad habit of getting ahead of myself here. I don't even know if you are new here or have been keeping up with Extra-Life!

For those of you who are new here, Extra-Life is a charity event that I have been lucky enough to participate in since it was started in 2008. Back then, it was a lot smaller affair, and one sadly born from the pain of loss. From my own perspective, I was at the time a happy member of the Sarcastic Gamer community, spending time on the forums and listening to every podcast that came out talking about an overview of the gaming stories of the day. But one day that podcast would be one of the hardest things I would ever listen to. The founder, fondly known around the site simply as Doc, literally broke down and cried mid-stream as he had just gotten the news that a family he was friends with had lost their daughter, a young girl named Victoria, from cancer. But he would not leave her legacy to end in tears. Instead, he came to us collectively with an idea.

To thank the hospital for their efforts, he rallied the site to have an event where for 24 hours we would all get online and play games as a fundraiser for this hospital. Needless to say, we were all in... site-wide. It wasn't a big event, but it was a successful one. And we were already hungry to do it again. it became a tradition of the site for a few years before Doc would leave, joining the team at Children's Miracle Network... and he took this event with him. No longer limited to a single (and sadly now defunct) website, the event could now expend to more hospitals, with more participants helping more children! And I have been incredibly honored to watch it grow through the entire process. But it's not fair to not let the event tell the tale for itself, so you can check out the about section here for their own take on it.

Today, Extra-Life is MASSIVE and has collectively raised well over $132,000,000 to help these poor kids who need it most, and it is truly an amazing thing to take part in and as I noted at the beginning of this post, I have been honored to be able to be there for since the very beginning.... and it's time for you to jump in too! So how do you do it? Well that's the easy part!

If you are a gamer, sign on up and get in here with us! You don't have to play video games, but really anything nerdy is good for this. Just get on the Extra-Life Website and click that signup button! The site will guide you the rest of the way including how to setup your own page, link any streaming channel you might wish to use for it, and even what team you want to play on. However the most important choice you will make is the hospital you are playing for. One of the unique points of this charity event is that what you bring in goes specifically to the hospital you are playing for. I myself an playing for Boston's Children's Hospital, but you can pick any hospital in the Children's Miracle Network you wish. With that in motion, you will have access to tips, tricks, and tools to help you kit up for the event, so time to get going and bring in what you can to help those kids. And all your efforts will culminate with a 24 hour marathon we all always look forward to in November.

In previous years this was date would traditionally be the Saturday of Daylight Savings in November, creating an actually 25 hour marathon, a lofty goal to play through indeed. But there was a problem with this: one weekend for every Extra Lifer can be a pain for many people's schedule. I should know. with family events almost always coming on the same weekend, it made tough for me to make it, which is why I was always thankful for the often used "rain date" the following weekend. But this year is different. The organizers have decided to try a new solution by letting us as gamers pick our days, defining a game week instead of a single day! This year, "GAME WEEK" will start from Saturday morning on November 8th and run all the way through Sunday night on November 16th. You pick when you put in your 24 hours to celebrate what we could do for these kids (as well as a final push the marathon represents). We here will have to pick our day still, but I will be updating here when we do.

And speaking of, that brings us to the other way you can partake in this event. If you can't or don't feel like you should be playing yourself, you can always donate under the name of your favorite gamers to help the hospital they play for. As noted above, I myself have chosen to play for Boston Children's Hospital, and if you would like to help me (or any other member of my team) thank you so much. We really can't do this without you. You can reach us three ways:

1. Look us up on the Extra-Life page: I am including this one first simply because it can be used for anyone you want to show support with, but in the page header, there is a "search for player" bar. Use it to find literally anyone you want to back.
   
   
   
2. Donate on our streams: When I stream, it is always for this event, as one of the two reasons for it: getting pictures for reviews on this little space online and (more importantly) to draw attention to this event so we can get more players and to offer an easy way to help us help the kids if you so incline. And while the reviews are why you never see me on screen (video, picture, anything really), you can find the panel below in the about section of the stream page. The donate button there will take you directly to our page where you can donate to anyone who is a member.
   
   
   
3. Click the button below! At the bottom of this message, I will leave a button to reach our team page as well. Feel free to use it if you just want to get there without any hoops.

As for when you can catch the stream, I finally have set a solid schedule for streaming games. Wednesday has remained the same, but I have reserved Friday nights as well, if for a different more action built franchise. In both cases we celebrate the gaming past, even as we try to help kids have a better future:

• Phantasy Star Wednesday: This has not changed, but every Wednesday around 7 PM, I am playing my way through the entire Phantasy Star franchise in order of release. Currently we are making our way through Phantasy Star IV, but it won't be much longer before we make the jump to the first MMO in the series.
• First Person Friday: Yes the games we play on Friday, beyond the franchise, will have a theme, as this is arguably where a lot of my favorite games live, but we are starting with one of the big Granddaddy of them all with Wolfenstein. As I write this, I have finished Spear of Destiny and our next stream will be to start our adventure in Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

But on that note, I think its time for me to get going as I have gotten very long winded today. Please join us for the fun and helping kids who truly do need it the most.

Thank you for listening,

Megabyte

Wolfenstein 3D (PC) Review

For many guys my age, this is where it all began. With these titles, they had their first taste of the new and exciting world of first person shooters, and we fell in love with it! Still that was over 30 years ago now (the first Wolfenstein game came out in the year of 1992) and the genre of similar games inspired here would grow and expand what they could do exponentially since. Hell even this team blew the tech side of this out of the water the very next year! Which begs the question to many today: Why go back and play such an old game? Well if you are like me, the memory of a truly legendary franchise alone is worth revisiting, but for anyone else is it worth it? Enthusiastically I have to say "YES! It ABSOLUTELY IS!" but... maybe with some tweaks.

What are those tweaks you ask? Well in the past 3 decades we have seen even the very key combinations we use to play games change dramatically from these ancient times. And to that end with iD having long ago released the code for these games as open source, gamers have taken the time to build new versions of the engine you can use to give the old games some quality of life updates without changing the core game. I put a link to the one I used in the system requirements below, but you are welcome to use any that suit you better.

And finally this is a dual review because if you buy this game today, you get both Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny as a bundle, complete with a menu to select which one to launch at startup. They are no longer separate. The links below will take you directly to the one you want to read.

• Wolfenstein 3D
• Spear of Destiny

Shadowgate II (PC) Review

I have to admit, I've been lucky so far. Most of the time when I pick up a game, good or bad, I can at least see the people making it loved what they were making. Up until this moment I could point and laugh at the clear examples where this was not the case in the AAA world of gaming and the grilling the team got for their efforts. I knew that at least for what I was playing, the devs loved what they were making, even if they whiffed at doing it. I can't say that this time. This game just feels like modern day slop both in how it plays and how it treats the previous title it claims to be a sequel to.

Alone in the Dark 2 (PC) Review

After completing the original Alone in the Dark, I was expecting more of the same this time around. That is not a bad thing however, as I would describe the first title as an aged classic: it shows it's age, but the game underneath the creaks and cracks is still as good as ever and something anyone interested in the game history should give a while. But this would prove both true and false at the same time. The game is more of the same mechanics, but trying to support a style of game that just doesn't match that.

Machinika Museum (PC) Review

Once again a relic that's been in my backlog has made it's way forward after years in the dark, presenting something rather unique compared to my usual fair of game to try. But the intrigue of what was in here kept my attention when the dice called it forward. And I can't say it was a bad call. This is what for me would be a very comfy game, and I'm glad I got a few hours with it. If you are like me and enjoy a little bit of technical tinkering, you might just think so too...

Thimbleweed Park (PC) Review

This is one of those games that has spent years waiting for it's day in the sun. In fact, it was one of the first games I got when Epic Games started giving away free games every week. But was it worth the wait? Well, I can't say it really was, unfortunately.

Tomb Raider Legend (PC) Review

I have very little contact with this franchise. Outside seeing the first movie in theaters back in the day, I really had not done anything with it since playing the demo of the first game on my old 486. And while I enjoyed myself playing that demo, I had other games I wanted to play more so my interest never went any further then that. Then came the summer sales this year when I got this little title for about $1, curious what I had missed. I wanted to like it, I really did, but the big warning came up. When I have a hard time deciding whether to play with a controller or my mouse, it's usually a bad sign. It was here, and I'm glad it was so cheap, cause much more and I would have felt cheated.