The Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab is holding a Complete Game-Completion Marathon to help raise money for earthquake relief in Haiti.
What, you may be wondering, is a Complete Game-Completion Marathon? Taking its cue from the Desert Bus for Hope, teams of gamers in the Marathon will spend this coming weekend on the serious business of playing games to raise money for a worthwhile cause. And not just playing games, but beating them; from NES classics to new hits like Mass Effect 2, the name of the game is to start it and beat it, all in one go.
The Stickhandlers, for instance, will play a full 82-game season, plus playoffs, in EA Sports’ NHL 10, requiring an estimated 25 hours, while The Panzerfaustian Bargain will spend eight hours on a four-player game of Left 4 Dead. One of the more creative entries comes from Consoles Are So Last Millennium, a one-woman show who expects to spend more than 13 hours playing through every single game installed on her iPhone and has promised that she hasn’t erased a single one since making the commitment.
Some teams have raised the bar further by setting certain goals they must strive to accomplish. Being Bad For Good, which will play both Mass Effect 1 and 2 from start to finish, requires specific Achievements to be made and, for the second game, must be played as a renegade female, while one of the Stickhandlers players plans to spend the entire 25 hours speaking Canadian.
Money raised by the effort will go to Partners in Health, a Boston-based agency which “works to bring modern medical care to poor communities in 12 countries around the world.” Partners in Health has been in Haiti for more than 20 years and is now struggling to provide much-needed medical care in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit the country in January.
The event will take place in the Gambit lab from February 26-28 and, for those who don’t happen to be within comfortable traveling distance of MIT, will also be broadcast online. To learn more or pony up some money for a good cause, check out the Complete Game-Completion Marathon website at cgcmarathon.org.
via: GamePolitics
Published: Feb 22, 2010 06:39 pm