Extra Life Marathon Report Part 2

Now that we have covered the general marathon results, it’s time to recap how things went for us specifically. There are probably many who could care less about this, and you, I encourage to skip this entry. But for those of you who want to see, please, read on….

Our day began at about 7:00 AM, an hour before the event. At this time, I got up, got myself presentable, and went downstairs to make sure we were setup for a proper broadcast: my 52 or so inch TV with an HD webcam in front of it, connected to my new laptop. It isn’t the most powerful machine you will ever see by any stretch, but my old machine would literally run hot with this webcam at low settings, so I was glad to see I could improve things over last year.

With this in place, my next move was to test a few more things that we were thinking of using but never got to and start gaming a few minutes ahead of time. The only condition was that no matter what, we would always strive to have a game running on this TV for anyone who cared to watch, and since my PC couldn’t be used at this time for that, I personally opted to start with a console game.

I turned on the WiiU and started right with Mario Kart Wii for some online racing. I managed to slowly move up the ranks and finished with a 3rd place and remembering how much fun this game was, but only in small doses. So I moved on to see what downloadable games I could play with. Before long I had played with Master Blaster Overdrive for a little bit, and found I will have to spend a lot more time on that game before I could enjoy it, but it would simply not stand to the old 8-bit classic in any significant meaning.

Being done with the WIiU, it was time to go to the PS3 and look into some demos, and right away, I found myself turning on Pacific Rim. Wow… that is really the best word to describe how bad this game is, and it hit some serious red-flags before I began playing, most notably when the loading screens put up a large hexagon pattern where every tile contained the words “Pacific Rim: The Game” like the title screen does. And then the game started, displaying clunky controls, slow to respond actions, and a terribly planned buttons. I was having flash backs to the old game King of the Monsters for the SNES, and laughing at just how bad this shit was.

Still it was far from the only piece of crap demo I would play that morning. Alien Rage, and a tile-based RPG both proved fairly bad, but at least the tile game was different enough to keep my entertained for a little bit. But a real gem was found in the form of the Wolf Among Us demo. TellTaleGames, again, created something simply awesome, and I have to admit, I both recommend everyone check it out and I will be getting this one myself.

But with demos aside and my roommate/newest writer to the site up and moving, it was time to get to the meat of this event: multiplayer. And to this end, we opened up CastleCrashers. While playing I discovered a few interesting details: I was able to use attacks to literally fly across the screen as long as I juggled an enemy or 3, and it IS possible to have a draw when you fight for the affections of the princesses. We succeeded with the last hits putting both of us on the groud and the princess simply standing there like this was normal. Suffice it to say, we both thought it was hysterical.

Following this game, Diligent decided to get working on dinner, so I opened up the game Unfinished Swan on the PS3, and I found myself completing the game from start to finish. I am currently writing the review, but it is an experience I would recommend offhand for anyone who enjoys games like Journey.

From this point we had to close the broadcast for a short while because Diligent had to work with Blizzard to get his account going for Diablo 3. Then it was time to play Borderlands and go for the gun of the day. Diligent wound up going for the gun MULTIPLE times, but the borderlands masterpiece stiffed him many times. Thankfully, he got his gun in his bank this morning, so Im guessing there were a lot of people having this issue.

And shortly after it was time to play Path of Exile with a mutual friend. If you have a PC and liked Diablo 2 back in the day, you owe it to yourself to try this game. Imagine making Diablo 2 pretty by today’s standard, swapping out gold in exchange for using identification scrolls (and 5ths of them) to buy items and weapons, making a linked skill tree that is insanely huge, and finally keeping the gameplay IDENITCAL to the old classic while making the game free-2-play (as in you NEVER have to buy anything to win), and you have what this game is. I plan to make this game the one I will actively be playing to complete as soon as Im done a few last details with FEAR 3. It is simply a great game.

This would be what I would play for the most part for the rest of the marathon until I had to call it in at around 6:00 AM due to starting to black out in front of my keyboard, ending a marathon fueled by a good cause a modified Metroid drink we were making to make it more alcoholic then one shot of vodka per glass.

Now we are here with a month left before the event is over for the year, and already planning for next year when we plan to have a few friends over to join us.

Thank you again, everyone, and hope you all had as much fun as we did!

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