Sometimes you find a game that is more substance then style. You find yourself diving into layers and layers of lore or clever puzzles or even smooth as butter combat. Sometimes you find more style then substance and after you've played for a while, you start to get bored for how little is offered. And then you find a game like this... when there is this little content, literally all you have is style.
I knew this day would come. When you have an Xbox LIVE Gold account, you get "free games" once a month. (This is not the place to argue if the game is free or not since you have to pay for the account, so for the sake of argument, roll with it.) Unlike the games for Xbox One X and up, when your account expires, the 360 titles remain available to you, both to play and download at a later date, so I made a point to collect some here and there. This was one of those games. I knew it had a reputation as being one of the lesser games in the franchise, but at the time, I did not have any other in the series, nor was I willing to buy any of them. (Again a discussion for another time.) YEARS later the dice picked this one, as I knew they would one day. I had hoped, however, it would at least be an interesting, if not particularly good experience.... I was so wrong.
I can't say I have a history with this little game. Rather it was something I picked up cheap during a Steam summer sale because "why not?" These kind of purchases can be a bit of a gamble as I have found. Some turn out awesome, while others leave me wondering what the hell I was thinking. In this case, though, I think we have something more in the middle of the road. I may have liked it, but there really wasn't a lot there to like... or dislike for that matter.
Hi everyone. Time to check up on how we are doing for Extra Life! Now if you do not know what Extra Life is, I can explain it easily enough. In fact it started in 2008 to honor the life of a young lady who lost her fight to cancer. Back then it was a single gaming website (and perhaps the only site I ever saw as my online home) who's efforts all went to the hospital that had taken care of her and her story in full can be seen in a video on the site for the event. Doc, who ran the site, is a personal friend of the family and was absolutely devastated. I still remember listening to the podcast on my way into work that week, and it wasn't easy to hear him break down.
In her honor, a day was chosen where the site would get together and run a 24-hour gaming marathon, the goal of which was to raise money to help these sick kids. How could I say no? I am still honored to have been there from the beginning, to support the cause, to be a part of this community coming together, and just to be part of that moment.
But that would just be the beginning, for everyone wanted to continue this work, and so we did. Long after the site was gone, we continue as a gaming community to come together every year to help these kids, and help we do. Since my last update we finally have the final numbers for the 2020 marathon, and despite everyone staying home and even the number of jobs lost because of of the pandemic, we still managed to break records and raise $17,400,000 to help! We still have yet to have a year that didn't break a record for the previous one. You can see a complete breakdown that's been shown off on Facebook here.
And so here we are again, moving froward to the next big marathon in November, my team included. For my own, we have managed $220 already, and while that isn't impressive compared to some of the big numbers out there, we are humbled to bring anything to the table, and we ask you to help as well. If you are inclined there are two major ways you can.
First and perhaps most important at this point is to get involved. Get over to the Extra-Life website and sign up! Once a part of the event, you can directly help your local hospitals and the kids within by the donations you can bring in. The site even has ways to suggest to get the word out. If you think you will be busy on the big weekend, it's always an option to pick another as many gamers do. And any help you bring will be appreciated by all of us. If your gaming is less video and more physical, that works too. True it may be a bit more difficult to get going in these times because people can't really get together yet, but that doesn't mean it's impossible... and gaming isn't just of the video nature.
But if you don't really game or would like to help out in another way, then just like I'm suggesting those who sign up do, we are looking to bring in donations to help the children in our local hospitals as well. Any help you send our way is more then humbling. We are all here to help these kids. The following link will take you to our team page where you can donate to anyone on the team. https://www.extra-life.org/team/RedSectorShutdown. Thank you again and lets see if we can help even more kids with another record breaker this year!
When I finished the previous Corpse Party title, I have to admit, I felt like things were unfinished. To recall, the game did absolutely NOTHING to progress the story unless you got every ending and unlocked the secret last chapter, but even that was nothing more then a stinger leading up to this game. If I had not made a point to see that ending though, I would not have needed to finish things with this one. I should have just let it be.
Once again we are dealing with a game added to my backlog via my time subscribed to the Humble Bundle. In this case I was interested to see this as the early game in the month since all the buzz around it had my curiosity, but I wasn't ready to pick it up. Let me just say I'm glad that's how I got it because there is no way in HELL it's worth the asking price... and that the developer thinks it is is just the first hint of how up his own ass this developer must have been when making this. Let's step inside.
This is not a game I was ever going to buy on my own. It looked interesting, sure, but between tech issues as a game written in Microsoft's UWP platform and a single player game that demanded you use the network to stream videos, I was pretty soured on actually spending money on it. And while things did improve with the game moving to Steam, I still wasn't about to buy it without a huge discount. And thanks to Humble Bundle, I didn't have to. Now as I finish up, I'm glad the game just about literally fell into my lap. I would have missed out on one hell of an adventure.