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SegaSonic Radio and Summer of Sonic’s JayZeach will be joining gaming crew Respawn Point tomorrow for their Sonic Marathon 3 & Knuckles show.
Starting Friday at 3PM GMT and ending on the 4th of January (just in time for this year’s Awesome Games Done Quick…), RP will be streaming a load of Sonic games to help raise money for children’s charity Child’s Play.
Thursday 7th April – Monday 11th April at speeddemosarchive.com
I’m sure some of you remember when my good friends at Speed Demos Archive raised over $52k for charity at their live speedrunning marathon back in January. Not least, a beast known only as Stanski tore up Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis in one take.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”265″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZMEJtRrRk#t=4m35s[/youtube]
Normally, SDA isn’t one to do marathons all the time – they usually only have one a year and put everything into it – but last month some place called Japan had its east coast wiped out by a wave reaching 23 metres high, leaving over 10,000 people dead and another half a million without a home.
So, towards the end of March, and with marathoning for Japan seemingly de rigueur right now, SDA decided to join the bandwagon and plan a top marathon in two weeks. Unlike their usual efforts, this one will be done online from the gamers’ homes, and yours truly will also be joining the party.
This time Japan Relief Done Quick will be raising funds for Doctors Without Borders, the American branch of the international medical aid group Médecins Sans Frontières. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient, MSF has operations in over 60 countries, and is in Japan right now providing medical treatment to those affected by the earthquake and tsunami.
Now, January’s marathon was a bit disappointing from a Sonic point of view, but that’s not the case this time. Early Friday morning in the UK, there’s a solid four-hour slot where five Sonic games will be played through:
This marathon starts at 9PM in the UK on Thursday, and is set to run into Monday. You can see the full schedule at the JRDQ site, though if you’re planning on watching a certain game, bear in mind times can change pretty easily.
Be there, if only to laugh at me when I die in-game during my slot…
The link to TSS may be somewhat tenuous, but, like Brad and Sonic Retro, Speed Demos Archive are my bros.
Last year SDA held their first marathon, Classic Games Done Quick, a 55-hour session that blasted through 65 golden oldies, including the original Sonic, Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles as Tails, and raised $11k for poverty charity CARE. This year they meet in Maryland for Awesome Games Done Quick, a 107-hour bumper session aiming to get through 100 games in that time, this time for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nWUpNdCYDY[/youtube]
Normally I’m not big on marathons, because, well, I kinda like to see games played well. What sets SDA apart from other groups that organise marathons though, is that, without exception, all the players are experts in speedrunning the games they play. This motley crew includes Super Mario Bros. world record holder Andrew Garkidis who will be playing said game blindfolded, a man called Joe Stanski who you can see plastered all over Sonic records portal The Sonic Center’s Sonic 2 time records, and The Speed Gamers‘ Kari Johnson, better known as the girl that speedruns Final Fantasy games without saving. This is a group you don’t want to #### with.
Unfortunately, Sonic isn’t going to be well-represented this time. In fact, it’ll only be Stanski on Sonic 2. But you guys want to see this game destroyed live on camera in less than half an hour anyway, surely? Joining Sonic from the Sega camp are classics like Moonwalker, Earthworm Jim, Rocket Knight Adventures and Streets of Rage 2, as well as not-so-classic but still awesome games like Super Monkey Ball and Bayonetta.
In addition to all this cool gaming, donations of $5 and up will get you into a raffle for small prizes related to that game, and the top donations will decide important, or not so important, aspects of the run like character and weapon choices, character names in RPGs etc. Finally, some games will be races between 2-4 top players, and there’ll be live piano accompaniment for a couple games as well.
Bound to be a fair bit of fun, so if you’re in, check out the schedule, and turn up at the SDA site starting on Thursday at 9PM GMT for a top marathon ending on Tuesday at 8AM.
Gaming marathons are all the rage these days – it’s a noble cause, after all, and quite simple to set up. Get a webcam, a donate button, play games, earn money, send money to charity. To my knowledge there hasn’t been a Sonic the Hedgehog marathon set up (we’ve had Mario and the like so far, by different gaming groups), but a small gang called Ocean City Trinity are giving the blue blur a run for his money for the EduCare Foundation. The games will be the main console titles and range from Sonic the Hedgehog to the newly released (in America) Sonic Unleashed, and if you want to watch the fun unfold, it all kicks off on Saturday 22nd November. Head to their website for more details. Good luck guys!
