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This past Saturday, over 13,000 gamers participated in Extra Life, a 24-hour charity gaming marathon benefitting Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Now that the games have been played, the lives streamed, and the donations more or less tallied, it's official: This was the biggest Extra Life yet.
If that 13,000 figure up there wasn't enough evidence, I have another number: 1.1 million, which is how many dollars the event raised before the ticker at the official website stopped counting. With more participants set to make their runs this weekend, that total will continue to grow.
For their part, as of October 16th the fourteen members of Team Bitmob have raised a total of $2,838.11 (every bit helps, but what's up with the 11 cents?). We also had the 55th highest fundraising total out of 1,654 teams. So all in all, the event was a huge success.
Are you tired of reading numbers yet? I also have a few pictures.
I livestreamed most of my day with this unnecessarily elaborate setup. The chat didn't always work, but at least it was more embarrassing when the nude scenes came up in Heavy Rain.
Speaking of Heavy Rain…holy crap, this is creepy.
My girlfriend and I spent three and a half hours playing Beatles Rock Band to get the "Day Tripper" Achievement (worth a whopping 15 points). This is my "Yellow Submarine" face.
After I played through all of Heavy Rain, I finished up Resistance 2 before moving on to Pikmin on the Wii and ending my run with God of War: Chains of Olympus from the God of War Collection. By the time the sun came up I had spent about an hour stuck in a room, unable to figure out what the game wanted from me. My girlfriend came out to see how I was doing and cracked the puzzle in under a minute. I was too exhausted to slap my forehead.
I asked the other members of Team Bitmob to let me know how their days went. Click over to Page 2 to read some of their stories.
I died. A lot. At the 22-hour mark I had strangers cheering me on as I fought this giant wolf in Dark Souls for the nth time (I played Dark Souls the entire time). I somehow managed to beat it by poking at it every few minutes or so when it got close, since I was too tired to dodge his attacks at the right time. It must've been the most boring thing to watch, but everyone still congratulated me upon finally beating the boss, and I got an extra donation out of it.
In the end, I spent 13 hours playing White Knight Chronicles offline (that game is the epitome of tedious). Then I found a way to get rest, play games, and still appear on a webcam: I laid on my bed playing my 3DS for 6 more hours. Then I finished it with Little Big Planet 2 and Portal 2. I basically winged it all day and got a lot done.
I chose to end my run by playing Dark Souls for 2 hours. [That's pretty brave, Derek.]
Not only was the marathon helpful for the kids, it was helpful for me as a video-game enthusiast. I was given an excuse in my busy life to revisit classics like Brütal Legend, Duck Hunt, and Resident Evil 4 (despite the controls of that last one not holding up to the test of time). I also got to start catching up on my backlog before the Q4 gaming season kicks into high gear.By the end of it, I was really there for the kids. I remember saying to myself, "Ughh, I can't do this anymore," and then thinking, "Yeah? How do you think the kids with cancer feel?" That shut me right up. It was a weird and awesome and kinda cheesy moment, but that's what I took away from Extra Life 2011.
I was great for the first half of the day. Played Dark Souls until noon when my roommate and best friend wanted to play Crimson Alliance. This lead to just myself and my roommate going through every XBLA game I owned that had co-op. I hadn't touched Heavy Weapon, Worms 2: Armageddon, or Final Fight since I had bought them. We played through games that I just never got around to and it really felt great.
Until 10pm. Even with constant breaks, I had started to feel sluggish and sore. All the coffee was keeping my mind awake but my body was still trying to sleep. Once we hit 2 a.m., I was in pain. I couldn't really focus on the gaming because I just wanted to roll over and make it stop. I even caught myself nodding off during South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!, pressing the A button on autopilot. My roommate called it quits at 6 a.m. and I was left to play Mario Golf with another friend who stopped by to see how I was doing. I told him how I was feeling and he said it sounded terrible. "Yeah, but this is nothing like what those kids are going through." We took a second and discussed what this really meant.
I'm planning on doing it next year. And I'm going to get more people involved with coming over. Maybe get them to get donations from their friends and family too. Because this was for the kids and I want more people to know about it.
So basically, a lot of people played Dark Souls.
Thanks to all the members of Team Bitmob and their sponsors for making Extra Life 2011 as special and successful as it was. Let's all meet back here next year.
