Extra Life 2014 recap

Hello again, and thank you to everyone who joined us to play and/or donate for the children who need it most. Last weekend could simply not have happened without all of you, and happen it did. Before we recap the events of the night, let’s talk numbers.

Last year, when the donation pages finally closed down in Dec, we had collectively raised over $4,000,000 for sick kids around the world, doubling our previous year, and 1/4th of that was after the big Extra Life night. As of Sunday morning, without any extra time, the Extra Life total raised was…

$5,102,500

This is now officially the biggest Extra Life event we have yet to have, and it hasn’t stopped yet. In just the few days, we had an announcement from Extra Life’s Facebook page that we had broken $5,500,000! And on top of that, this weeken we will see a raindate of sorts for people who couldn’t play last week AND people who want to go again and do more! In fact, a friend of mine will be doing her 24-hour run this weekend, so please support her!

Of course if you want to support us as well, we are more then happy with that choice, too, and you can find our team page by clicking the Thermometer to the right of this page. But with these details, in tow, how was the marathon? Read on, my friends, read on.

Extra Life Update: 10/23/2014

Well, Extra Life is now coming up fast as this Saturday gamers the world over will be playing for the kids, having a great time as we do what we do best in their names, honor, and to help them in their times of need. And so far, we are doing an incredible job!

Case 004: Costume Quest (PC)- Cranky creatures curious caper to capture candy!

 

It’s October, and here at the Red Sector we like to celebrate with style. That means a sick amount of candy and booze. Games are good too! Being that time of year I thought I’d dive into some games that showcase this holiday’s essence and boy does this one have it in spades!

Case 003: Of Orcs and Men- (PC) The rising of a rebellious revolutionary rumpus!

 

 

Oh, it’s you. You’ll have to forgive me, I had JD for breakfast. Normally, I don't take to drinking so early, but I bend the rules when I get my ass kicked before the early cycles. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before, talked to the wrong dame, talked AT the wrong guy. You know how it is. Anyway, let me say that this is a case file that surprised me and I think it will surprise you too.

I found this file while cleaning out some of these data caches, this is relatively new, so give it the once over while I get something for this shiner.

Shadowgate 2014 (PC) Review

To explain why I absolutely needed this game, you have to go back to my days as a young child. My parents had bought me and my little brother an NES for Christmas fairly recently and we loved playing on that thing. In fact we were into it enough they actually subscribed to Nintendo Power for us, and this was how I met Shadowgate for the first time. One of the earlier magazines included a walkthrough for the game up till you face off with the fire drake about 1/3rd or so through the original title… and I devoured every inch of those pages, loving everything I found about the game. I knew a game this intricate HAD to be in my library.

My parents were apparently listening as I got the game for my next birthday… and then I had my first encounter with the grim reaper. Maybe as a kid, I had not had enough exposure to horror to be ready for it, but that thing creeped me right the hell out, and yet I couldn’t let him beat me. With that in mind, I faced off with the game again and again and finally, it was, if I’m not mistaken, the second game I ever finished since I started playing video games. (In case you are wondering, the first was Life Force, which I borrowed from a friend and took out with the 30 life code.)

Suffice it to say, this game stuck with me, enough so I would speed run it a few more times before I put down the cart forever due to the nature of the game itself. And I would ultimately get an N64 almost exclusively to play the one sequel I was aware of (even if I got it after it finished it’s run cheap). So when I saw the original being remade with new puzzles on Kickstarter, I got excited and already knew I would have this one too. And now that I finished my first playthrough of the new version… I have to say, it was worth the wait. Welcome to Castle Shadowgate!

Destiny (Xbox One) Review: Second Opinion

Once again, please welcome Joes Xbox Name with his own take on the game Destiny:

On September 9^th 2014, Destiny was released for Xbox360, PS3, XboxOne and PS4. Being Bungie’s first outing since the well-received Halo Reach in 2010, and the most expensive original IP to grace the videogame industry, Destiny has been heavily watched during its four year development cycle. Not only was Destiny produced by the company who created a defining game franchise of the FPS genre for the past decade, but the longevity of the game was bolstered through a ten year additional content plan after the initial release. To many this seemed like the end all be all for the FPS genre if not for the entire generation of gaming. But does Destiny live up to the hype?

Extra Life Updates 10/4/14

We are now in the final lap for Extra Life 2014, and things are moving for the event with as much momentum as we could collectively hope for! For starters, Extra Life has now broken the big $1,000,000 barrier on October 1st. According the entries on Extra LIfe’s facebook page, this is double the speed we reached this barrier last year… and last year we broke records with a grand total of over $4,000,000 raised for the hospitals who will help kids with serious illnesses and injuries. Since then the donations have continued to roll in and as I type this, we are now at $1,116,022 according to the official Extra Life page. And we still have 20 days to go!

Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition (Xbox One) Review

Written by Joes Xbox Name

Diablo III was originally released in 2012 exclusively for PC. Having waited the better part of a decade for a sequel to my favorite PC game of all time, I splurged on the special edition. Although the skull with the soul stone thumb-drive and giant box were pretty awesome, the game itself was a disappointment. This was due to the loot system’s real money auction house making the drop rate of any useful item infinitely low, the graphics were subpar, and the character customization was severely limited. Tack on a lack of PvP and fixed online status, I ran through the game once, put it in its box, and never looked at it again.

Destiny (Xbox One) Review

And here we have it, the single biggest hyped game of 2014, and for my brothers, it was the reason they both bought Xbox Ones. I promised them I would play with them, starting with this game, so of course reserved and picked it up myself. And now I’ve finally put my controller down as I have finished playing. So what did I think? Well, to be quite honest had I known what this game was going to be like, we would likely not all have Xbox Ones yet. This was simply not worth it.