Extralife 24hr Video Game Marathon

I will again this year participate in the Extralife 24 hr video game marathon on the 20th of October. This will be my 3rd year raising money to support the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney and helping sick Kids.

So I thought I would do a quick post on what games I will be playing this year. I have picked 12 games so roughly 2hrs on each one. And this is in no particular order.


World of Warcraft I need to keep leveling for my regular Monday night group
LOTRO I love the Tolkien universe and am a long term subscriber
Age of Conan  Love the world and always enjoy going back to ride my Mammoth
Illyriad Will be giving this another try (after all I'm part of their team!)
Wizard101 An old favorite, been playing with the Kids since Beta
Pirate101 Keen to give this new one a try
FreeRealms Another fav with the Kids (they will be helping me stay awake!)
Dragon Age  I would like to explore this further (I don't play single player much)
Portal Will try to finish this one this year, last year I got close
Mass Effect Also love this but don't play enough
Minecraft Need I say anything? The Kids will be helping explore our world
Planetside 2 Beta Need to check this out a bit more.

This list is very loose. I have many other games I might jump into for a quick look, and I have my Android phone to play on if I need to lay back on the couch for a break. Games I play on it are mainly Order and Chaos, Star legends and Pocket legends.

If you would like to help me this year please click here to visit my donation page.

Game Masters

Recently I spent the day at the Game Masters exhibition at the ACMI studios at Federation Square in Melbourne. It was a great day out and I had lots of fun.

It claims to be a world first exhibition showcasing the work of 35 of the worlds leading video game designers, and boasts 125+ playable games. I did have trouble finding time to play them all!

After a nice walk through the Park and past the MCG and Yarra River on a beautiful Melbourne day I entered the exhibition to be find a couple of rows of old school stand up arcade games.

First I played Space Invaders. Of course this was the first Video game I ever played and what started my love for games. I have a how to play guide (possibly the first of its kind) in a box under my house somewhere (I'll try to find it one day), it came with a large poster which was the start, and the pride of my Teenage poster collection!) Anyway, I was proud to get through the games first stage without any problems, but then moved on so I could play others. Next was Asteroids. Also a favorite, I fondly remember playing it in arcades around town. I also was surprised, after not playing these games for so many years, how comfortable I felt at the controls. But chuckled to myself after forgetting about the Hyperspace button and warping unnecessarily into the path of a fast moving chunk of space rock!

Then to top off the Arcade machines were Pacman, Scramble, Missile Command, Virtua Fighter, Centipede (which I only remember playing on a friends System 80 computer), and one of my all time Fav's Outrun ( I got to stage 3 first try). They had an After Burner machine but unfortunately it was not in operation. I would have liked to have seen a Street Fighter II machine, but I did get my fix of that a couple of weeks ago on the neighbors Wii!

Then I moved on to look at some old PC games. There was Populous, the original Sim City, and then Sim City 2000 (which which came out in 1993 and I remember playing a lot of at work along with my colleagues. shh, don't tell anyone). Then had a quick go at Grim Fandango, Black and White, then Dungeon Keeper. I remember buying  Dungeon Keeper in about 1996 soon after I bought my first house. I was amazed at how bad the Graphics were and actually even tried to change the settings because I was sure they were set too low! I guess that for the time it was ok, and our imaginations fill in the gaps and then we remember them to be better.

There were plenty of console games but I was never a big console player so didn't look too closely. I did have a quick go of Super Mario on Nintendo, quite a long time since I played that one! And also checked out Lego Clone Wars on the PS3 and thought I will have to get that one for the kids one day.

Other Sim games were of course The Sims, which I have never played, only heard stories from my Nieces like the drowning of characters in the swimming pool by taking away the ladder etc. And Spore was there too. I stopped to read a little about it because I remember back in 2008 when it came out, it was supposed to be the greatest thing. But it never really took off like the makers would have liked I don't think.

One game I have to mention is Child of Eden. Which according to Wikipedia "sees players shoot at various targets which produce melodic sounds upon destruction" It was set aside in its own room, very dark with no lights. The organizers had it hooked up to a projector on a huge screen, great sound and also 3D. I stood in the middle of the room with the controller and 3D glasses, for a completely immersive experience. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but it turned out to be a great ride! It apparently can also be used with Kinect and Playstation Move. You can check out the 2010 E3 trailer for some game play demo.


They had a section dedicated to Indie Games in which I had a look at Machinarium, Minecraft (also hooked up to a big screen projector, and Blueberry Garden. Blueberry Garden is a nice little Indie Title that I picked up last year in an Indie Bundle. And anyone that follows me on Raptr will have noticed that in the last week the Kids and I have been playing it quite a bit!

Then onto the Phone and tablet games. Of course Angry Birds featured heavily here, and you could play it on a large LCD touch screen attached to the wall. A couple of Australian developers also had a big presence , Firemint with Flight Control, and Halfbrick the makers of Fruit Ninja.

The last display at the exhibition was from Blizzard. You could play some Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. Also World of Warcraft got a mention (the only MMO) but only had a video display running showing some of the major bosses, among other things. Here, I watched a short interesting documentary with Rob Pardo and Chris Metzen talking about their various IP's.

The exhibition also had its own game: Game Masters: The Game which you can download free for IOS and Android. It's a "Pong like" game that sees one or two players moving a paddle with their finger to hit a ball and score a goal against their opponent. It also had a giant touch screen to play on, set up flat as a table (kind of like Air Hockey!)

After Game Masters I went on to another exhibition at ACMI, Screen Worlds The Story of Film Television and Digital Culture. It was Surprisingly good too! Among lots of Film and TV memorabilia, they also had some historic Game stuff. They had working Pong, an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64. I was able to play some "Way of the Exploding Fist", which I remember playing heaps of back in the day with my friends. I actually still have my C64 under my house complete with a copy of that game. I'll have to get it out one day and show the kids, hope it still works! There also were (non working) ZX 80 and a ZX spectrum on display. Also I have to Mention that they had a boxed copy of "The Hobbit" for C64. It was one of the first licensed games from J.R.R.Tolkien. It was developed here in Melbourne by Melbourne House in 1982, and sold millions of copy's worldwide. I remember playing it well.

They also had four PC's set up to play a death match in the original Doom. But unfortunately at the time there was no-one else around for me to demonstrate my multi-player FPS skills with!

Too sum up it was a great experience and I'm glad I dedicated a day for it. I would have liked to have seen more games from the early to mid 80's, this was the game golden era for me! Also some games I would have liked to have seen there are the original Wolfenstein (I can remember the time and place I first ever saw it) and Duke3d. For me, these games represent milestones in gaming history.

Game On!

Hello World

Ok, so I finally decided to start a Blog. I've been thinking about it (and talking about) for a long time. I have always liked the idea of keeping a diary, but am not currently keeping one, so I guess this is much the same thing.
Another reason for starting a blog is the fact that I have been consuming content over the internet for many years now, and I see this as a chance to add a little in return.

I'll probably blog (if I ever do another post), mainly about video games, but will leave it open to other things as well.
So now that I have made the transition from just content consumer to also content creator, I'm keen to give it a go and see where it ends up!