Desert Bus for Hope 8

If you're not familiar with Desert Bus for Hope, I should probably explain what Desert Bus even is before going any farther.  Looking back, I've talked a bit about Desert Bus for Hope since we started back in 2012, but not a whole lot about the game.  

Desert Bus was a mini-game created as a satire of video game violence accused of being perceived as too realistic for audiences, especially younger audience who apparently cannot tell the difference between 1995 CD games and real life.  Thus comedian magicians Penn and Teller created the concept for Desert Bus which would travel the six hours between Tuscon, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada in real time.  However, the overall game, Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was never released because the publisher went out of business before the game could be published.

There is a Desert Bus port available on the Google Play Store and the Apple Store with all proceeds form the sale of the game going to Desert Bus for Hope and in turn, the Child's Play charity.  Which brings us back to Desert Bus for Hope 8, which starts today, November 14th at 10am Pacific and will run for (at least) 86+ hours.  It all depends on how much money is brought in during the "drive."

Confession Time:  I've personally never donated to Desert Bus for Hope.  The years that I have been able to donate money, I have done it directly through the Child's Play website where I can either specify a specific hospital that I want to donate to, browse an Amazon gift registry to donate a specific item for a hospital, or just give the charity money.  Don't worry though, I'm not going to try and guilt trip anyone into donating money to any cause, I'm just letting people know about an option if they already were looking to donate.

I'll be tuning in a few times a day during the (at least) three and-a-half days the bus will be driving back and forth from Tuscon to Las Vegas, if anything just to watch the exhaustion in the eyes of the people from LoadingReadyRun.  Oh those Canadians.  They're beautiful people.

How does this game NOT look fun!?

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

They Make Me Feel So Good

P.S.  And Folks, this starts in 8 minutes!

All The Things Here Have Been Happening

So the Playstation 4 dropped um, some few days back.  I don't really know because I wasn't one of the umteen thousands that did pre-order one.  I also didn't pre-order an Xbox One either.  I don't think I've ever pre-ordered a system, ever.  I'm the guy who waits until a system is (typically) under $100 before I will buy it, although that didn't hold true when I bought the DS and 3DS; although I did have $125 worth of gift cards and such when I bought the 3DS.  Maybe I prefer to wait and see what kind of library a system is going to have before buying the operating system.  That being said, I will have nothing to add to news about the Playstation IV.

Desert Bus for Hope is on again and the people at LoadingReadyRun will be playing towards their goal of 139 consecutive hours.  Presently they're at 71 hours, so they still have two days 16 hours-ish left.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it a bunch of Canadians playing a game where you drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas Nevada (409 miles) at a max (only) speed of 45mph.  It's basically a hit-a-thon of sorts with all the proceeds going to Child's Play, a charity that is better described on their own site.

Earlier today I just finished watching everything that was on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition blu-ray.  Conklederp and I have been going through the two new Appendices discs (titled Appendices VII & VIII to coincide with the Appendix discs from the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings movies) and I finished the commentary this afternoon before heading off for work; you know, when I should have been writing this.  I come from the camp that liked what Peter Jackson and company did in The Hobbit.  I went in not expecting a play-by-play of the book as it is "based" off of J.R.R. Tolkien's work.  I personally don't mind that the movies are expanding on the events in The Hobbit that were referred to elsewhere (The Lord of the Rings and included appendices).  I also understand that while some things work in a book, such as Gandalf disappearing when the Dwarves are captured by the Goblins, when the audience would find it hard to believe, knowing what we already know about Gandalf and instead have him stalling the Elves in Rivendel and catching up with them later.  I could write a lot more about this film version of The Hobbit, but that became a post all of it's own and I rambled while trying to state that I enjoyed the movie, which I have already said.  Lastly though, I will say that in the 13 minutes of additional content added to the movie, are two songs, one by the Dwarves while in Rivendel and the other by the Great Goblin.  Basically, pretty much every question I had regarding decisions that deviated from The Hobbit book were answered in either the commentary (sadly of which there was only one, that being with Peter Jackson and Phillipa Boyens although they do do a great job, I would have liked there to have been more commentaries) or the nine hours of behind the scenes documentaries.  Basically, I'm very happy with the extended cut and the special features.

In other gaming related news, I'm heading back to Infinite Space after a bit of a frustrated hiatus at not being able to defeat a particular series of enemies culminating in a boss fight.  I'm going to need a bigger ship. . . and bigger guns. . . and bigger shields.  I also figured out a way around dwindling stats in Morrowind and the tactic there is called BUY ALL THE POTIONS!!!  I've also put Dead Island on hold for a bit, but that's really just Morrowind's fault and I will get back to Torchlight II, you know, when I'm no longer trying to save the world. . . again.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Nothing More To See

Another-Another Humble Bundle of Awesomness

Yo, how's it going?  I'm just stopping in really quick to mention that my sister Mz is in town, and so I'm going to be a bit distracted and won't likely have any posts ready any time soon.  She rode her bike sixty miles yesterday, which is pretty badass.

I also want to mention that the Humble Bundle 8 has some games that I like and have reviewed here.  So, you should go there and give them some money for games.  You should probably have already done this, and signed up for their mailing list, and thus - already know about the Humble Bundle 8.  But I didn't really have a post ready, and so I thought I could talk about that.  Humble Bundle 8 includes games: Dear Esther, Thomas Was Alone and Proteus.  All excellent games.

In addition, there are other games, which I don't know anything about.  They might be good, they might be excellent.  Gee, maybe I should buy the Humble Bundle 8.  I guess I could buy it for a penny or something.  Normally, I make it a point to always exceed the average and get the full bundle.  The average is usually like 8 bucks.  No big deal.  You can afford it.

Alright Dear Reader, if you go and get this bundle today, you will have made this purchase with just under 14 days remaining.  Unless you are from the future, which you more than likely are.  Days, Weeks... Years?  If you're from about six months in the future I'd like it if you could answer a series of questions for me. 

First:  Did the Giants make it to the playoffs?  Second:  Did they win?  Third:  Do you still enjoy your Humble Bundle Purchase?  Fourth:  Do you think it was worth the money you paid for it?  Fifth:  Is 'The Wolverine' any good?  I really hope it is, but this will be the fifth time Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine, and I can't help but wonder how long this can go on.  

Alright, I'm out of questions for those of you from the near-future.  I'll have to come up with some new questions for long-future readers.  And some way to read the responses without having to wait around until the day you finally post them.  Until then, remember back in May, 2013?  Gee, seems like just yesterday,

-D

It's Child's Play Charity Season!!

Like so many things, I found out about the Child's Play charity sometime in the winter of 2007 after I became aware of Penny Arcade.  Yes, I came to Penny Arcade pretty late, although I recall being directed to their a few years prior although I had forgotten about it until Chreekat left for Seattle to be an [Enforcer] for PAX07.

So Child's Play.  It's not that Child's Play, but it does involve children.  Child's Play is a charity started and run by the people at Penny Arcade.  Their description of their own organization is a lot better than one that I could come up with so we'll just go with theirs, "Child's Play seeks to improve the lives of children in hospitals around the world through the kindness and generosity of the video game industry and the power of play."   I've brought them up before in previous posts regarding the Humble Indie Bundles

Every "holiday season" (November 1st - December 31st?) they have their annual fundraiser and through the amazing generosity of people, manage to raise upwards of 2 million plus dollars in actual money and games/gaming products.  There are literally dozens of ways to donate.  

• There's the straight through Pay Pal method where your donation goes to the organization to be distributed later.
• There's the purchase a specific gift for a specific hospital from Amazon.com.  You're able to view that hospital's wish list and purchase directly from that.
• There's the Mario Marathon, where these people play 10 games in the Super Mario Bros. franchise.  They play non stop, 24 hours a day until they've finished the preset challenges such as "Super Mario Bros. 2 100% run through" and "Super Mario Galaxy 2: Beat with 75 Stars."
• There's Desert Bus for Hope.  Desert Bus is best described here.  What they do and how they help Child's Play is best described here.

Back in 2008, there was an event in San Francisco called Funde Razor that was a Rock Band oriented event with raffle where the proceeds went to Child's Play.  There are a lot of events like this that go on every holiday season that support Child's Play.

Anyway, it's only 5 days in, and they already have $300,000 up on their counter.  It's amazing to watch the amount grow as the year slowly/quickly ends and it's all to bring some happiness into some kids' lives, who could really use it.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

As Could We All.

Humble Indie Bundle part VI (III in the US?)

First off, appologies for not posting anything on Monday the 17th.  Conklederp, Dr. Potts and some other friends were away during the weekend, I needed time to recover and I didn't have anything set up to post on Monday after we got back.  I will be covering that all in my next post on Monday.  

But this post is about:

That's right, there's another Humble Indie Bundle out there.  This one was released about two and-a-half days ago and the sale ends in 11 days, or on October 2nd, 2012 at 4pm PST.  When I first looked at the page (post receiving the email that announced it's birth), there were over 120,000 purchases.  Currently there are 193,590 purchases of six games and five soundtracks.  The set up for this bundle is pretty much identical to the previous bundle and my post today will be very similar except that the games that I still don't know much of anything about, will be different than the previous games that I didn't really know anything about.  So there's that.  Except that I have heard of Torchlight, but I don't know anything about the game except that it exists.  Does this lack of information make me a bad gamer?  Nope!  It just makes me an uninformed one, but I'll be less of one by the end of this post.

So onto the games!

You know what, I just recommend going to the Bundle website and checking out the compilation trailer that they've set up for people like me to watch who don't know anything about any of the games.  And really, that's one of the things that I love about the HIB's (is that a thing?), that I've never heard of many of the games, and probably wouldn't've (that is a thing, J.K. Rowling does it) heard of these games if they weren't part of the HIB (it's now a thing).

But, before I leave, I feel like I need to have the obligatory "make you feel guilty for only wanting to pay $1 for five games and five soundtracks."

Rochard w/ Soundtrack:    $14.99

Shatter w/ Soundtrack:      $11.49

S.P.A.Z.:                                $09.99

Torchlight:                           $14.99

Vessel:                                   $14.99

Dustforce w/ Soundtrack:  $12.99

And you can't even buy the S.P.A.Z. or Torchlight soundtracks on their own, so let's call those ones "rare" and maybe put them at $8-10 a piece (which is a steal for video game soundtracks, which I've spent upwards of $30 in the past for a 3 CD set).

Total Cost:  ~$95.44

Anyway, the point being, don't be a douche (used or otherwise) and pay more than $1 for these games, if you're into that sort of thing anyway.  And if you want Dustforce with it's soundtrack, you'll have to fork out a whopping $5.80.  And keep in mind that you can decide how much of your purchase price goes to the people at Humblebundle, the game developers and the Child's Play Charity.  That's all on you.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Bells Are Getting Louder

P.S.  And if past experiences hold true for this HIB as well, there might be an extra game tagged on sometime after the first week.  And even if you already bought the Bundle, you'll still get the extra download code.  So the only other reason to wait is because payday is on Monday and you want to feel less guilty about buying five more video games.