The dust has settled as the NES Marathon for Child’s Play has come to an end Saturday at Noon. I needed a day to recover and now I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the event and give a huge thanks to everyone who came out, contributed and helped make for one of the most unforgettable nights of my life.

First, seriously, thanks to everyone for their amazing support. We didn’t quite have a goal for the amount of money we wanted to raise for Child’s Play, but needless to say that the estimated 1,300 dollars we made (with payments still pending from some) was way more than I had ever imagined. I couldn’t believe the loyalty that some of the people had who came out to watch the event. When we were setting up for the event on Thursday night and ran into a few people in the UStream.tv chat room we were floored. When I saw multiple people in the room an hour before the event started I was pretty sure we were going to have a great 24 hours. I can’t thank everyone enough, to the people who came out, the people who donated whether it was money for Child’s Play, drinks, food or video games for the event, the websites who linked us, I could go on and on.

The goal of the event was to see how many NES games we could take down within 24 hours. The ending number was 12 games, plus one game done on a second NES, and quite a few games that were close to being finished. Twelve games doesn’t seem like many, but when you consider we played through some of the NES’ toughest titles like Contra, Kid Icarus, and Metroid, it’s quite an accomplishment.

The afternoon started out with a swift run through Contra. There was a comment made over at GoNintendo that we would be playing Contra for 24 hours considering how hard it is. I personally felt compelled to squash that comment by taking that game down first. There was no need for the 30 life code as I plowed through the game in under 20 minutes, only losing 3 men and having 8 extra lives by the time I finished. After that I decided to take down something a little meatier and decided on Kid Icarus. Two hours later (which I’m willing to say most of that time was spent wandering the third dungeon) Medusa was defeated and Angel Land was saved.

You would after taking down two tough games like that, the third game, Duck Tales, would be a walk in the park. Not so much. I pretty much had to relearn Duck Tales all over again, and about an hour and a half later I helped make Scrooge the richest duck in Duckberg. I tried to do a run through Super Mario Brothers, but the game reset on me early on, so I tucked it away for later. It was then I decided to start on Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!, easily our biggest challenge of the entire day. I did fairly well until making it to the Sandman, and I decided to give up and wait until Joe came by since he is our Punch Out!! go to guy. Since I was getting frustrated I decided to dive into Super Mario Brothers 2, and 45 minutes later all was well in Subcon leaving King Wart burping up vegetable juice for weeks.

I didn’t have Mega Man 2 on hand, but it was delivered to my house (thanks guys) right as I was finishing SMB2. I surprisingly forgot most of the robot masters weak points, but I had no trouble plowing through all 8 bosses. In fact, I didn’t even die until I misplaced a jump while the dragon on Stage 1 of Wiley’s castle chased me. I did fairly well until the 4th stage of Wiley’s Castle, which will always be one of the hardest parts of the entire game. Still, only an hour after SMB2 I had finished Mega Man 2. Progress was being made.

Jim came by when Mega Man 2 was wrapped up and we decided to double team Castlevania. We had a somewhat easy time until we reached Stage 5, the Grim Reaper level. Jim and I swapped back and forth a dozen times, but I finally made it to the GR with no health but plenty of holy water. He didn’t stand a chance. The final stage was damn brutal too, and after several tries, Jim prevailed by taking down Drac with a single hit left in his life bar. It was the first epic win of the night.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I attempted to run through Super Mario Brothers 3, but like SMB before it, the game quit out on me. Joe was by and we tried Punch Out!! again, this time making it to Mike Tyson, but still ending up unsuccessful. Afterward, I made a challenge that I could rip through Super Mario Brothers in 8 minutes. Bets for Child’s Play were placed, and I ran through the game like a man with nothing to lose. I gotta say, I think this was the highlight of the night for me. I made only two grave mistakes, one lame death at the start of World 8-2, and then going down the wrong pipe while trying to duck a Cheap-Cheap in 8-4 bringing me back to the start of the castle. Still, I made it through the game in 8 minutes and 40 seconds. It was quite a victory, and the yells from the people in the room and comments of joy from the people watching through Ustream were all felt. It was awesome. My only regret was not recording it. Damn.

After that I needed a break and the guys decided to play through Super C. They were doing some fine co-op, but there were a few loses to be had. Since I did really well in Contra early, I thought I wouldn’t have too much of a hard time running through Super C, and I was right for the most part. I was tripping up on the final few stages, but did well regardless. It was another one to add to the score board.

Around this time we turned on The Legend of Zelda for a while. We made it to the fourth dungeon in little time, but realized this game needed plenty of time to get through. We decided to save it and get back to it later in the night so we could try and make it through a few more games that we thought would be quicker.

A few of the guys (pretty sure Steve, Dan and Joe) took on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game after Super C wrapped up. Joe made it all the way to the final stage but unfortunately lost on the final stage. I almost count it as a victory, it was so damn close, and it was a great effort by the guys. Jim and I toyed around with playing either Ninja Gaiden or Ninja Gaiden II. Considering how brutal NG gets at toward the end of the game, we settled on NG2. It took around 2 hours, but Jim managed to get the final hit on the last demon with only one health brick to spare. We wrapped up NG2 at around 3 in the morning, and some of us were dropping like flies. Meanwhile, the guys were playing other NES games on a second TV, and during that time Lou finished Dodge Ball.

Frank and I jumped on Jackal next, a battle that surely made our blood boil. Frank pretty much led the way with Jackal, his score totally obliterating mine and only dying a handful of times. He was at the final boss with only one man left, and after a very patient and intense battle he led the jeep driving soldiers to victory. If there was one thing we did that night, it was absolutely epic, down to the wire, final boss battles. The way it should be.

We decided to go back to The Legend of Zelda which was a huge group effort. It took us roughly 4 hours to beat the game, most of that time was us trying to remember exactly how to get through Ganon’s dungeon. What really tripped us up is that we forgot to grab the skeleton key from the 8th dungeon, so we had to run back and nab that before we could progress any further into the game. It took us long enough, but we eventually prevailed and saved Hyrule.

I decided to take a quick nap and in that time Frank and Jim almost finished Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers. I’m not quite sure how far they made it, but I know they made it pretty far. One thing is for sure, that game is a whole other beast when played with two people. Joe showed back up bright and early in the morning in another attempt to finish off Mike Tyson. He managed to get the man down twice, but couldn’t get that final knock down in. It’s a shame, we were so damn close. What kills us is that we just beat the game on the Wii over a year ago. Damn.

With only three hours remaining I decided to take on Metroid. I had, what I thought, was a great plan to run through Zebes. It was mostly a good idea and I nabbed all the important items immediately before even trying my hand at Riddley or Kraid. When I finally decided to fight Kraid he kicked my ass, so I ran back to Norfair to grab some more missiles and decided to take on Riddley first. He too put up a good fight, but I prevailed on my second try. For whatever reason I thought having the wave beam would work better on Kraid, but it didn’t really pan out well. I defeated him with not much health left, but it was a victory regardless. Before headed over to Tourian to fight Mother Brain I picked up an extra energy tank and the ice beam. I made short work of the Metroids but getting through Mother Brain’s chamber was pretty damn hard. It was a damn epic battle, and I won with only a single hit to spare. My heart was racing, because if I didn’t win there it would be nearly impossible to finish the game before 12 noon.

After Metroid we had a half hour to spare and the guys tried to fight Mike Tyson yet again, each of us failing miserably. At 10 of 12, I decided to throw in Battletoads for a Turbo Tunnel run. That game is a monster and a half, but it looks like I still got it when it comes to the Turbo Tunnel. It was totally worth doing, because the run had people throw in a few extra donations at the 11th hour.

Some of you guys were way more than generous with your donations, and will make a lot of kids happy in the end. I’m going to put up a list of everyone who contributed to the event, but since some stuff is still pending I’m going to put it off for a day or two. I don’t want to miss anyone.

It was a great night, we did a great thing, and we played some damn great games. Gaming marathons like this are becoming quite the rage on the internet, so if we ever do something like this again, we’re going to make sure it’s much different than before. I already have a few ideas swirling around in my head for what we can do next time. When that will be, who knows, but it would be really nice to have something in time for the Holidays. We’ll see.

Thanks for everything!