Horror Month Roundup

 

Well, horror month is "over" and for the first time in years I failed to finish all 31 games on the list.  Technically, at time of writing I still have one day left but the next game in the list is Murdered: Soul Suspect and there's no way in fuck hell I'm finishing that in one day.

So why did it fail? The first and probably most obvious reason is the fact that I'm a dad now.  Being a dad reduces my stream hours a fair bit even at the weekends so while in previous years I would maybe go from like, 6am to midnight, this year I'd have to do 9am to 6pm and then 6pm to 11pm.  That's a whole bunch of hours, even an entire games worth of hours in some cases to get shit done.  Now while it would be easy to scapegoat my 1 year old if I'm being honest I don't think I could have pulled it off this year anyway because I'm an idiot.  In previous years I have put short indie horror games in the list to account for the fact that Monday-Friday I have to do my 9-6 job but this year I put far too many big boys on there.  Resident Evil 3, Fatal Frame, Bioshock, Fear 2, Manhunt, Disaster Report, what the fuck was I thinking.  Then I also got sort of blindsided by games that I thought would be a bit shorter that ended up taking way more time like Tormented Souls, FOBIA and Hollowbody.  My impression going in was that they were short and they were short in the sort of "6-10" hour definition and not the "1-2 indie experience" that I was thinking.  My fault for not doing the research in enough detail.

But enough about my failure.  More importantly, how were the fucking games?   Well good, mostly.  Stuff like Fatal Frame and Bioshock were in there because I already knew they were good and I wanted an excuse to replay them.  I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed Resident Evil 3 actually.  Usually when I have played that game in the past its because I've been marathoning 1-3 back to back and by the time I hit 3 I'm burnt out.  Playing it fresh gave me a new perspective on it and while it's still sort of frustrating and feels like an expansion rather than a proper sequel, I liked it a lot more than I usually do.

Then there were the first plays like Disaster Report which I really enjoyed although I have played later games in the series and enjoyed those so I sort of knew I'd like that one.  Crow Country was also a great old school survival horror throwback with a cool visual style.  Tormented Souls I liked less but still thought was pretty solid.  I really enjoyed the fact that someone was doing the modern day "rendered" backgrounds thing because I love pre-rendered backgrounds of old and I wish more people would make really crisp, detailed shit on modern tech.  That technique is seen as "dated" though and isn't used so much so big props to Tormented for doing a take on it.  Of course, I cannot mention the great games from the horror games I finished without mentioning Faith.  Absolute belter of a game despite the fact that it looks like an Atari2600 game.  Interesting plot, actual effective horror, some decent replayability that I'm excited to go back to offline, absolutely a contender for best game of the marathon. 

Finally there were the stinkers.  Moons of Madness was a pathetic and boring foray into Lovecraft.  Hollowbody was a complete snoozefest which is crazy considering how much it was copying the homework of much better games.  Finally there was FOBIA which I won't go into detail on here because that might be one of the contenders for worst games I have ever played in my life and therefore I need to save all my bile for the blog post its going to get soon.

Just because horror month is over, doesn't meat that I'm just giving up on that playlist though.  It's being incorporated into the regular schedule and played to completion.  My weekends will also continue to be long horror streams until it's done so tune in over at Twitch or Youtube to check it out.  The one good thing about failing the marathon is that the last game on the list is Deadly Premonition 2 and while before I was planning to b-line it to the end to make pace, now that I've failed I can kick back and engage with more of it's content, which I think is a much better way to do my first playthrough.  

Good times were had, more to come

www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

31 Game Horror Challenge 2024

 It's that time of the year once again to do the 31 game horror challenge!  This year we're doing it in November because my October was busy as all hell but if it was really up to me, it would be spooky month every month but whatever.  Here's the list in the order that I'll be playing them

1. Silent Hill 2 

2. Paranoihell 

3. Resident Evil 3 (PS1) 

4. The Smell of Death -A Tsugunohi Tale- 

5. Bioshock

6. Lucifer Within Us 

7. Fatal Frame

8. Crow Country 

9. F.E.A.R 2 

10. Splatter Master 

11. Moons of Madness

12. Gun Survivor 2: Biohazard Code Veronica 

13. Lost in Vivo

14. Bloodshots

15. DreadOut

16. Fobia: St Dinfna Hotel 

17. Disaster Report 

18. Tormented Souls

19. Manhunt 

20. Faith

21. Hollow Body

22. 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors

23. Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick

24. Murdered Soul Suspect 

25. ...iru?! 

26. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit 

27. Gregory Horror Show 

28. Shadowgrounds

29. Dementium 2 

30. Michigan: Report From Hell 

31. Deadly Premonition 2 

I've not failed a horror challenge since the very first one I did where I underestimated the length of Days Gone but this year I have a baby to contend with.  Will I get through all of these? or will life be the real survival horror?  Only one way to find out!  www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

31 Game Horror Challenge 2022

 A couple of years ago I attempted a 31 game horror challenge for October and failed due to the fact I mistakenly picked some very long games.  I will be trying again this year and hopefully I have picked some more reasonable games.  Here's this list of games and the order they will be played in 

1. Silent Hill 2

2. INMOST 

3. House of the Dead Remake

4. Bloodwash 

5. Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles

6. F.E.A.R

7. Splatterhouse 2 

8. Deathsmiles Mega Black Label 

9. Among the Sleep 

10. Lucius

11. Resident Evil 3 Remake

12. Maid of Sker

13. No Delivery 

14. Dead Space 2 

15. Dementium: The Ward

16. Yuppie Psycho

17. CASE: Animatronics

18. The Witches House

19. Project H

20. Onimusha Warlords 

21. Geist

22. Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

23. Mr Bones

24. Nosferatu

25. Rule of Rose

26. Penubra Overture

27. Countdown Vampires 

28. Deep Fear

29. Dino Crisis 2 

30. Dread X Collection 2 

31. Alien Isolation

For every game on this list I do not finish I will be donating 10 GPB and adding prizes to the prize list.  

Lets get spooky!

A Slight Change of Pace

This is just a short update post regarding a little switch up to the stream for the next few weeks.

As you may be aware, between donation requests, challenge runs and the retro wheel there is a lot going on with the stream right now.  In order to make a decent amount of progress all at once with these segments, the stream schedule will be changed so that I'll be dedicating an entire week to a specific segment.  So for a while, the schedule will look like this

April 28 to 30- Dragon Quest 5
May 5-7 Cuphead challenges
May 14-16- NES 100 game challenge

I am also hoping that the marathon this month can fall on the 18th.  I'm sort of hoping that maybe this whole Corona Virus situation will just magically be resolved by then and we can proceed with the second half of Megaman 2P1C but I have another idea ready for the more likely outcome of everything still being closed and locked down.  I will announce that a little closer to the time after seeing what happens.

Don't forget to follow at www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

Regarding Megaman 2p1c

This weekend I was scheduled to do a 2 players 1 controller marathon of Megaman 5, 6 and X at Critical Hit Nagoya with the owner of the establishment however as I'm sure you're all aware, the world is getting fucked over by COVID right now and of course the best course of action for most people is to just stay home.

As a result of this, I'm sorry to announce that the Megaman marathon this weekend is cancelled for April.  That does not mean its cancelled completely, once this whole virus thing is over and we can safely gather once more a new date will be set and the stream WILL happen.  A 200 GBP incentive was met for this thing, there's no way its getting cancelled forever.

Instead of the 2p1c marathon, on April 11th and 12th I'll be doing two 8 hour streams consisting of a two hour session of each of the stream segments.  So the schedule will look something like:

100 NES Game challenge

Cuphead Challenge Project

DQ5 Playthrough 

Chillstream -> More than likely to be FF7 Remake

Also I'll be doing a long-ish stream of the FF7 remake on Friday, 10th April because I'm excited as all hell for that game.

So while it's a shame that we have to cancel Megaman for now, it's probably best for all of us to stay inside and stay safe.  It will happen, and for now we can enjoy the new releases and some classics over the weekend! 

February/March Stream Marathons

Over 12 hours of Sekiro was successfully completed and while I didn't come anywhere close to finishing the game, we all hand a grand old time watching me beat bosses in the exact opposite way that the game wanted me to do it.

Now, thanks to some extremely generous donations made at the weekend I can now announce the marathons for the next two months!  

February will be the NES Wheel 12 hour mini marathon.  Basically the same as my usually scheduled NES wheel but for 12 hours over a weekend instead of a 2 hour slot on a weekday.  Exact dates are still to be decided and I'll announce on Twitter (@Taurinensis) once I've made the plan.

March 1st however, will be a little bit more interesting.  The marathon will be another 2 players 1 controller with Pithoui only this time, instead of Megaman 4 and 2 very easy games, we will be doing all the classic Megaman games back to back to back.  Megaman 1 through 6, 2 players, one controller.  As a stretch goal, if we get another 100 pounds for the charity we will add Megaman X on the end of the marathon!  So tune in for some absolute madness in March

Don't forget you can see these marathons AND regularly scheduled streams at 

www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

PS1 Marathon Roundup

So we did it! The PS1 marathon concluded and we did 24 hours of assorted PS1 games!  Big thanks to everyone who came in the stream and showed their support and an even bigger thanks to anyone who donated before and during the marathon!  

I will now do a whole bunch of short, 1 sentence reviews for all the games I remember playing

-Silent Hill: Probably the best horror game on the system

-Tenchu 1: Broken but awesome

-Tenchu 2: Janky but awesome

-Klonoa: Really fun but the last world can eat a dick.

-Future Cop LAPD: Great game but navigating levels is a real pain in the hole

-Pandemonium: Terrible platformer but it was incredibly satisfying to reach the end

-Parappa the Rapper: Punch, Kick, it's all in the mind, the timing windows make no goddamn sense.

-Ninja: Shadow of Darkness: Couldn't make it work during the marathon but it's really good I swear

-Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub Zero: Remember enjoying it when I was younger but good LORD that game sucks ass

-Dance Dance Revolution: Dub-I-dub is best DDR track don't @ me

-Pepsiman: Way more fun to play than I thought it would be but the last stage can kiss my ass

-G-Darius: One of the best shmups on system but goddamn is it hard

-Spyro the Dragon: Why do people like this game? It kinda sucks 

-LSD: err, what?

If I forgot any I'm sorry but I think I got them all.

There's so many good games on PS1 I didn't actually get to play all the games I wanted to play so I'm putting this incentive up AGAIN! Just donate another 100 pounds to the alzheimers society and we'll do all the other great games we didn't get around to in this marathon 

Changing The Marathon System

I know I've announced it on Twitter and Facebook but I'm fairly certain I haven't made an official post about it on here.  On October 5th and 6th there will be a "24 hour" marathon of assorted PS1 games.  So look forward to that

But the main point of this post isn't to just to announce an upcoming stream event but to tell you all about how I'm modifying the system for these long 24 hour marathons.  I have a problem with these things where not only does it completely screw with my sleep schedule and day for a few days after they are finished but I find it incredibly hard to be stay entertaining for that entire period.

The Megaman marathon was the worst example of this.  Not only did I get tired and almost completely stopped commentating my progress through the games but I died about 100 times on a boss that should have, at most, maybe taken about 5 goes.

To avoid this the PS1 marathon and every marathon after this will be broken up into 2 big chunks over the weekend.  There will be 24 hours played within the weekend period but just not all at once.  This means that I can focus better and give a bit of a better performance.  Not only that but it means that with a bit of luck, we might actually get MORE than 24 hours out of each marathon.  For example if I do 12 hours on Saturday, but then chat is popping off and the game is really fun at the 12 hour mark on the Sunday then I'll just keep going, which means your charity donations are going to go just that little bit further.

Keep an eye on this space, I'll be posting some additional details about the PS1 marathon next week some time!

PS1 Marathon Incoming

Just before I went on holiday another donation incentive got met and I forgot to announce it on the main blog page so I'm doing it now!

As previously mentioned, there's an Undertale marathon planned for the 15th of September so once we finish that there will be a 24 hour marathon of PS1 games which I'm, at the current time of writing, planning for some time in October.

It's a pretty straightforward marathon, I'm going to dig out my fairly sizeable collection of PS1 games and play through it for 24 hours without stopping.  I'm probably going to stick to shorter games since if I played something long like an RPG then the entire marathon would be just me playing that and it wouldn't be much fun at all.

Keep an eye on the blog for more concrete dates later.  I'm hoping to have at couple of guest appearances to play through some select titles and of course, I'll be taking requests in return for charity donations!

Undertale Marathon Incoming

This will be a nice short post today because I'm basically just announcing another event!

On September 15th me and my good friend Pithoui will be streaming an Undertale marathon.  This however will not be a 24 hour marathon like usual, instead we will be playing the games 3 endings (Neutral, Genocide, Pacifist) back to back and we won't be stopping until they are done.

That's all there is to it, so save the date and come join us for a bad time!

Megaman Marathon Roundup

So I took my time to recover and now I'm back in business with our usual stuff.  I've noticed actually that thanks to things being a little hectic recently there's huge gaps between me posting any kind of content so hopefully, in the second half of the year, I'll be a bit more consistent.  

Anyway, the 24 hour Megaman Mega-Marathon was completed.  I haven't added up all the donations properly (I just have them listed individually, don't worry) and I suck at math but I'm pretty sure around 400 GPB, including the initial donation incentive, was raised over the course of the marathon.  As always, BIG thanks to anyone who donated to the cause, it's always nice to see the support for me and the charity that these marathons tend to generate.  

The games that were finished during the marathon were classic 1-4 and Megaman X 1-4.  I had memories of the X games being a lot easier but they absolutely kicked my ass sideways and took me way longer to finish that I imagined.  X4 especially has a particularly horrible final boss fight but I'm going to make my excuses and say that it was fatigue from playing for so long and not just that I'm shit (spoilers: I'm shit).

I do have a little confession though for anyone who missed the marathon live which is I didn't actually finish and entire 24 hours.  It was only off by about an hour and a half but I still feel pretty bad.  By the end of the marathon I had a killer headache and I felt really quite ill, I think brought on by a combination of an extremely busy work event that involved 3 days of straight drinking and Nagoya now having the muggiest, most horrible humid weather ever.  

This however is not an excuse, so to make up for the lost time I will be adding a "Megaman day" to the stream rotation.  This will involve playing every single Megaman game that exists that I didn't play during the marathon, so this will be a feature that will stick around for a while.  Some people donated for me to play Megaman Battle Network over my choice of Megaman Command Mission for the RPG in the marathons final few hours so that will be the first game to get streamed and then we'll go from there.

There's another event in the works so stay tuned for more extended gaming goodness in the near future! 

Megman Mega-Marathon Incoming

This will be a short announcement post just to let you guys know about another donation incentive that got met!

The Megaman marathon was finally met last Friday and I know I'm a little late to update it but I'm still working out possible dates to have the marathon on.  Basically I'm going to play through as many Megaman games as I can for 24 hours.  I imagine I'd start with MM Classic and then move into the X Games and probably end with something like Command Mission as I start to get sleepy near the end but we'll see how it goes.  

Watch this space for dates and further information!  

Crash Bandicoot HD Marathon Update

So as you may or may not know, the incentive for the Crash Bandicoot HD marathon was met a little while ago and now I have some information regarding the event for you.

So I'm planning to run the event on the 24th February and I will play Crash Bandicoot HD on PS4 until I have either finished all 3 games or played for 24 hours.  Now I feel that Crash 1 is a little bit of a challenge but Crash 2 and 3, if memory serves, are pretty easy to at least finish.  So in order to spice things up a bit, I'm adding a stretch incentive to make things a little bit more interesting.

Between now and the end of Crash 3 if an additional £100 are donated to the charity I will play the 3 games to 100% (no DLC) or until I hit the 24 hour mark.  As a backup, if that goal gets met and for some reason I at least don't finish the 3 games in 24 hours, I'll take a rest and then dedicate the 25th to playing even more Crash HD to get as close to 100% as I possibly can.

As always, big thanks to everyone who has donated for this and everything else so far!  Keep the kindness coming and keep supporting IG! It means a lot!

Happy New Year! An Update

Well at time of writing it's New Years Eve but I'm going to be out partying when it actually ticks over so I'm making the post now.

First I want to extend all the usual thanks for the continued support and even bigger thanks to everyone who donated over the course of 2017.  Of course, going into 2018 I hope we can raise even more money for the charity and improve the site considerably.

As for blog news going into the year we have the 2players 1controller mini marathon coming up on the 7th of January and hopefully I'll be able to find time in February for the Crash series marathon.  I'm actually hoping to do a marathon at least once a month from January, if not 24 hour some kind of 12 hour general gaming stream where maybe people can donate for what's played.

Also the Advance Wars playthrough will be continued at some point but the guy I'm recording it with got married and moved house so he's been busy as fuck.  Anyway we're hoping to jump back into the battlefield sometime early January.  I of course have a number of playthroughs planned for my solo efforts AND there will be a streamed playthrough of Haunting Grounds (Demento) which was donated for by a friend of mine during my birthday.

So watch this space and keep supporting the site and the Alzheimer's Society!

A Change of Plan (Resident Evil Marathon)

Last Saturday I did my Resident Evil "marathon" and quite frankly the whole thing was a disgusting failure.  I tried my best but I didn't even get to the end of Resident Evil 2 before sadly logging off and going to drown my sorrows in alcoholic beverages at a bar near my house.

There's no real excuse for it other than the fact that I have become complete shit at these games.  I grossly over estimated my own skill and memory while grossly under estimating the overall difficulty of these titles.  From a donation stand point I'd say the thing was a success though, there were a number of donators who gave generously despite my failures and a decent amount of money was raised at the end of the day.  I still have cash donations to calculate and transfer so I'll save the end amount for a tweet.

However, I'm down but certainly not out.  As a way to make it up for all the people who donated for this thing to happen, the "marathon" will continue but instead of being done all at once it will be spread over multiple normal streams.  The twitch channel will now be showing nothing but Resident Evil games all the way up to RE0.  That means you'll get to see Resi 6 and 0 for free.  I might try and juggle it with some Final Fantasy 9 as well but the core focus will be on Resident Evil games for the foreseeable future.

Once again thanks for the donation and hopefully the next marathon won't fail as hard.

2P1C Mini Marathon

It's been a busy week, I've not streamed much and I've also not posted much BUT that doesn't mean things haven't been happening.

A little while ago a donation incentive for a little mini marathon was met which will involve me and a buddy playing through 3 games on stream back to back.  While that alone doesn't sound to exciting, the gimmick here is that we'll be using 1 controller between the two of us so that's going to up the difficulty pretty significantly. 

The 3 games we plan to play are Metal Slug 3, Streets of Rage 2 and Megaman 4.  Metal Slug will be piss easy because death doesn't really mean much on that game but Megaman 4 is going to be a real killer and I'm expecting many a game over.  If you want to see a 4th game you can start donating NOW for Super Mario World 11 Exits which is a route we have both started speed running so it'll be interesting to see what kind of time we can get when we are sharing a controller.

While an exact date hasn't been set right now, this will take place in November and more than likely happen on a Monday.  Watch this space for more details!

Resident Evil Marathon! Dates and Details

A while ago the donation incentive for the Resident Evil marathon got met and now that we're finally into October it seems appropriate to finally get around to doing this thing!

Right now the date for the marathon will be the 22nd October and there is no real set time for when it will end.  The idea is that I will be playing Resident Evil's 1-4 back to back on Stream.  This event however is the fist event I'm doing with a sort of stretch incentive.  If another £100 is raised before the end of Resident Evil 4 then I'll add Resident Evil 5 to that list.  If another £200 is raised after that, I'll suffer through the shitfest that is RE6 and then if another £300 is raised after that then we can get Resident Evil 0.  So if you want to see one extra good Resi you're going to have to donate for two shit ones first!

I'll also see into adding prizes for donators just so you guys have a little extra incentive to add those extra games to the list!  Keep the 22nd in your calendar because it should be a laugh riot!

Euro Truck Marathon Roundup and Resident Evil Marathon!

Well it happened and this time it was much more successful!  I actually made it through the entire 24 hour period, with a spot of drunk driving and there was even some other fun stuff like a blindfolded drive which I plan to upload as soon as I have the energy to scour my way through the footage for the section on twitch.

Anyway this is just a quick post to tell you that roughly £282 was raised for the Alzheimer's Society.  About £50 of that money was donated in cash in Japanese Yen so I'm just waiting for my credit card month to tick over before putting that into the charity but that should get done in about a week or so if all things go to plan.

I'd just like to give huge thank yous to all of those to dropped into the stream and watched and to the people who donated during the marathon!  You guys are awesome!

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

A few days ago the incentive for the Resident Evil marathon was met!  This means I'll be playing Resident Evils 1,2,3 and 4 back to back on Stream.  I'm also planning on adding a sort of stretch donation incentive to add 5, 6 and 0 to the mix so if those get met I'll be playing those too!

I've not got a date ready for that yet so watch this space but as of right now I'm hoping I can shoot for October and make it some kind of Halloween event.  Keep an eye on the blog for more info and the incentives page to see those stretch goals!

24 Hours of Euro Truck Simulator: The Truckening

OH BOY! Remember that laugh a minute 24 hour marathon of Euro Truck Simulator I did?!  You don't?!  Not surprising since it's the only marathon I've done where I've not lasted the full 24 hours.  Unfortunately I got drunk and ended up rage quitting when I managed to barrel roll my truck off a hill 19 hours into the marathon.  Of course, I paid a penalty to the charity but the fact I never completed that marathon has always bugged me.

Then a friend of mine came along and donated £50 to the charity as a way of forcing me into doing it again, so here's the post announcing when that shit is going to go down!  My schedule is actually pretty busy so unfortunately it will be next month and as of right now the date will be July 23rd.

As before, there will be incentives for me to drink heavily (starting a bit later this time) and prizes to be won so watch this space and get ready to go truckin'

Marathon Mayhem!

So as you may have noticed, the donation page is getting near its goal so in an attempt to get people to throw a few more pounds to the charity, I've added a few new marathon donation incentives. 

First, a complete list of donation incentives can be found here http://www.identitygaming.blogspot.jp/p/blog-page_4.html

The new donation incentives can be found at the bottom.  A whole bunch of retro gaming themed 24 hour marathons where I grab a system and playing nothing but that for a whole day.  The games haven't been decided so I'll be asking everyone for suggestions if and when they get met, donators will get more of a say in what games are picked so donate for those if you want to see some old school goodness.

Aside from the new incentives, don't forget all the old ones too!  Incentives for small series marathons of things like Resident Evil and Donkey Kong Country or longer series marathons of things like Megaman.  Also some crazy stuff like Guy game marathons and 2 Players 1 Controller with my buddy as well as other miscellaneous things!

If you wish to donate for any of these incentives hit that donate button on the right hand side of the page, donate a value and then leave the incentive you want your donation to go towards in the comment.  You do NOT need to donate the entire value of the incentive alone, so let's say an incentive is £50 you can have 5 people donate £10 for it to happen so even if you can only donate a little to the Alzheimer's Society then you can still get something for your money.

Finally, just to clarify, I don't see a penny of any money donated.  BTMyDonate is a UK service for charities and people doing fund raising to act as a tracker so people can make comments to their friends or people they know trying to do a project for a good cause.  I have never and will never ask for people to donate directly to my bank account, if you have enough money to do that then I'd rather it go to a good cause.

Thanks for the continued support!  Let's raise some dosh for Alzheimer's!!