But how was the event itself? Well it spanned the expectation gambit. With everyone working at home, our star player was not able to make this year a record breaker like the last two. So we didn't break four digits this time, bringing in a total of $450. And while this is disappointing, I can't say the same about the total event. Once again in total we are just absolutely SMASHING records, hitting almost $12,500,000 before the big weekend ended. To put this into perspective, last year at this time we were just shy of $10,000,000 and we are right now easily in striking distance of the $15,000,000 total of last year. Everyone involved should be proud of themselves. But if you read this far, you probably want to know the details. So, read on, my friend... read on.
Once again, I made a point to take the Friday before and the Monday after the big event off as part of my preparation and wind-down. But this time, preparation was a little different since I was not going to have to pack up Mercury (my gaming rig) and bring it across state borders to spend the weekend in person with my team. Rather, with the virus being a thing this year, my group decided a virtual gathering would happen instead. And with the sudden upswing and legal challenges to staying overnight, the local states enforced that choice.
So instead, I used the day to prepare things around the house, starting with my grocery shopping for the week and weekend. In addition to my normal week supply run, I also needed snacks I could easily use at a PC without making a mess, and extra drinks. (I normally keep a few selections well stocked, but I wanted different since this marathon is also a celebration.) And of course, I wanted my secret weapon. This is the only event over the entire year I use anything to stay awake, so a box of 5-hour shots was necessary. Easy enough to get, but after this and a bike workout, the morning was over, so a lunch break was in order. After this I began making plans for what games I wanted to play during the event.
To this end, I did a check-list of sorts for the games I might expect to play as a group as well as where I was in the games I am trying to finish. Having just recently finished and writing the review for Amnesia: Rebirth, I knew the next game I had installed but not yet started, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, should last in it's own. It's companion game is an MMO called Phantasy Star Online 2, which I have been playing since launch back in August, had me a little worried not knowing how much of the newest episode remains. But if I finished the story missions I could stretch it if needed. This front was all set. And with handful of multiplayer titles ready to go, I figured I would be all set with my group as well.
The only thing left was what I wanted ready to go on my living room machine. The reason for my concern is that literally everything I had lined up this year needed Mercury's power or would be played there for the ease of using a keyboard and mouse a the desk she's on in my room. However any actual meal would be taken downstairs since I refuse to eat up there. I wasn't planning to play through the meals themselves but all choices I had made for the weekend involved either time to cook in the kitchen or waiting for the delivery and during those times, I wanted some more "arcadey" options for my medai center to play for me (Thorne). And a quick glance told me I was missing something I thought I had installed. A bit more of a shock told me I hadn't even added it to my portable hard drive to copy from. It did not take long for me to download start setting up "Abobo's Big Adventure." However, setup took a little bit more this time as the game was made in flash and does not support controllers natively at all. Still, I got it working with one quickly with a nice little program called AntiMicro. Long story short, it lets you emulate keyboard button and combo-button presses, mapping them to a controller instead. One more example of how in PC-lan if the devs wont do it, the community will (and I have plenty of old DOS titles I will make good use of this with over time).
With that done, it was almost dinner time, but a large lunch meant I would eat late... so Friday saw a "preview" stream of the beginning of Wolf 2, previewing the kind of things I would be streaming literally all day.
Saturday started at about 7 AM, an hour before the marathon. This was by plan as it gave me time to heat up a microwave breakfast and relax before settling into the marathon it self. I started light with a few hours of Phantasy Star Online 2, going between story and urgent missions as they came up. (Urgent missions are small sections that usually last 10-20 minutes which only are available for about 30 minutes when they start. These events are open to everyone, divided between difficulty and groups of up to 12, instanced for each and are arguably a highlight of the game, Where as story missions tell the tail of the episode you are playing.) Before long I had swapped over to continue Wallenstein 2, a first person shooter in an alternate history where the nazis beat the US to creating and deploying the atomic bomb, winning WWII.
I cycled back to PSO2 for a bit when Max Powers reached out to say good morning, informing me the team was playing ARK: Survival Evolved, a survival game about building yourself from literally nothing to a colony on a strange island, alone or with friends. Not my kind of game, but the others are hooked and I've seen them playing this for the past several weeks. It would be the game that they played for most of the event. Max, on the other hand only joined them for a bit, and had already this morning pushed himself through the first World Boss of a game I need to get to called Remnant: From the Ashes. This game is a post-apocalyptic world where you struggle to survive against the mutations left behind. Think a world more messed up then Fallout but on similar lines. Max is loving it for the most part, so that is definitely encouraging. After chatting for a bit over the games, we both broke for lunch.
While lunch cooked, I finally cracked open Abobo's Big Adventure and did so with a smile. For those who do not know this is a game in which you play Abobo, the big muscle bound villain form Double Dragon. Kidnapping is involved but this time around, it is Abobo's son Aboboy! And his rage-fueled dad will stop at NOTHING to get his kid back, rampaging through remake/parody levels based on varios NES classic titles. It is suprisingly well made, especially for a game made in Flash, but being a parody, I didn't feel it needed the main spotlight, and only finished half of it between the meal breaks planned around lunch and dinner.
Getting back to the main games, I came back to Wolfenstien and PSO2 (both of which are really good) for a few more hours before dinner break where I ordered pizza from a local place that delivers so I could show more of Abobo. After dinner, I came back upstairs for some group gaming as Max decided it was time for Dauntless. This is a fun little monster-hunter type game that does away with all the complex preparation others in the genre demand. Instead it's designed to get you directly into the action, spending only the necessary time to use the parts you got in battle to upgrade your gear and you are off again. And while we did this, the others made their way to their own creations with Minecraft (a game likely to need no introduction).
This would take us to the run-down... as during this time the party began to fall to a need for rest, the last of which was Max, telling me he was fading around 2:30 in the morning. Not wanting to play alone, I agreed to put it down and continue in the morning... which we did sharply at 8:00 AM. Max took up Remnant once more while I pushed ahead in Phantasy Star Online 2, not wanting to be drowsy while playing a first person shooter, and these are the games we finished up with at around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Overall, it was a fun experience as it always, but I hope it will be the last time we don't gather in person. Still, this need to be virtual did push how we handled, including finding a nice site called https://www.multitwitch.tv/ which we were able to use to share all our streams at once. It's a nice quick way to share multiple streams at once and however we handle next year I plan to use it again. And of course despite the event being over, Extra Life is still taking donations right up until the end of the year, and I know SEVERAL people who have schedualed their gaming weeks in the near future! So there is still more to come for Extra Life. If you would like to help in our team, there is still plenty of time to click that thermometer to reach our team page.
If you joined us, thank you and I hope you had a great time! See you again soon!
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