At 7:55am on Saturday the 7th of August I sat down with the intention of playing video games for 24 hours solid. It turns out, that was going to be much harder than I’d expected. Or than it sounds.

I think this is one of the problems with asking people to sponsor you to play games. You can reel them in with all of the information about what a good cause the money is going to, but when it comes to the crunch and they ask “so what is it you’re doing?” your answer is still guaranteed to make them exclaim “well that’s not very hard.”

Yeah, have you ever tried sitting in the same spot concentrating on something for 24 hours?

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start off with a couple of pictures, shall we? First off, the battleground where this epic struggle would be taking place – my living room.

As you can probably guess, I would be sitting on the right of the picture, mostly spending my time looking at the TV on the left. Next up, the game pile.

I have been cultivating my pile of shame for some time now, steadily growing it. It had a rampant spurt last year, while I was living in America and couldn’t play anything, but I can’t lie – I’ve not been making the best inroads in to it since coming back.

This isn’t even the whole pile, by the way. There are other games, like Alpha Protocol and a handful of PS3 titles, that aren’t shown here. But these were the candidates for some serious play time.

I also had something of a plan. I’d heard that the latest Prince of Persia game (Forgotten Sands) was only around eight hours long. I figured that I could get through that in 1/3rd of my playing time, then make good progress on something else, before tiredness would kick in and I would have to fall back to simpler games. It was not a plan I had a lot of success with, to be honest.

Oh, PoP needs a patch. Not quite the grand start I imagined. But still, at least patching is quick on Xbox #sksp
7:56 AM Aug 7th via TweetDeck

After a slightly bumpy start, I got underway with PoP. And it turns out that it’s a really decent game. Not amazing, and it won’t set the world on fire, but far more evocative of Sands of Time than any of the games since, and with some good ideas of its own.

The most pivotal of those ideas is the new ability to freeze water in time, so that it can be used as poles, beams, or walls. This power is on the left trigger, and will grow to become key – many of the end-game puzzles involve quickly switching water between flowing and solid so that you can progress.

Why are all the switches in this castle above head height? How is that practical on a day to day basis? Can everyone in Persia wall run?
Sat Aug 07 2010 08:31:21 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

At first progress in PoP seemed to be going well – I was charging through locations, and the plot was moving at a good pace. All seemed well. But somewhere around the four hour mark it slowed down and I was getting bogged down in repeated puzzle and trap sections (seriously, there are far too many traps in that palace, it just isn’t safe).

This palace stables … so many spinning blade traps. I think it would be bad to keep horses here.
Sat Aug 07 2010 10:04:23 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

Still, I was doing well at gathering achievements! I’d already decided I was going to make a note of how many I’d gained over the 24 hours period, and this game was doing the business.

@WeeGoblin I am on 17 achievements in 3.5 hours. PoP is giving them away like sweet gaming candy #sksp
Sat Aug 07 2010 11:24:15 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck in reply to WeeGoblin

Four and a quarter hours in, and it was time for a lunch of champions – fish finger sandwiches. Just look at the steam rising off these bad boys. And yes, that is an Xbox chat pad. I can’t remember why I bought it, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Still, it’s much quicker for messaging people than using the software keyboard.

Whoever told me Prince of Persia was an 8 hour long game was a liar. I have been playing it for 8 hours now. #sksp
Sat Aug 07 2010 15:53:44 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

10 hours in now. Still PoPping away. The game shows no signs of ending. #sksp
Sat Aug 07 2010 18:08:49 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

It became very clear that I was never going to finish the game in eight hours. Although the final sections have a fair pace to them, there is far too much bloat around the middle, where the story doesn’t advance any further. Right towards the end the game also gets stuck in a rut of making you perform the same tricky series of manoeuvres a few times in a row, and loses some of the fun.

Still, everything has to come to an end some time, right? And slightly after the half-way mark, so did the Prince.

12.5 hours in – Prince of Persia: Done. What’s next? #sksp
Sat Aug 07 2010 20:25:28 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

I think, looking back, it was a great idea to hammer away at one game and complete it. I got a rush from finishing it, when I otherwise could have been flagging. Following the story of one game also helped me focus, and stopped me from losing interest.

Oh, and it made me laugh when I found out that one of the designers is Michael McIntyre. Wait, sorry, Michael McIntyre.

Having had my fill of 3rd person action adventuring for a while, I moved on to Split/Second. This was also because my friend, who was one of the vehicle artists on it, was online and was going to play against me. Having someone to chat to would help – I was flagging.

Split/Second is pretty. Except for the car models, which are shit.
Sat Aug 07 2010 21:14:48 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

My wife also came home and made me a lovely Thai green curry for dinner, which was awesome. Don’t underestimate the benefits of some nice food in raising your flagging spirits, 24 hour gamers!

Around this time darkness set in. Possibly in a metaphorical sense, as well as a literal one.

I can’t tell if I’m so bad at Split/Second because I’m bad at it, or because I’ve been playing games for 14 hours solid. #sksp
Sat Aug 07 2010 21:58:12 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

I suspect that, if I were to put Split/Second back in the tray right now, I would still be crap at it. Driving games are not my forte, and especially not ludicrously fast-paced acradey ones. I’m just rubbish at avoiding smashing in to things.

After a couple of hours of that I decided to try my hand at Singularity. Although PoP’s length had sort of scuppered my plans, I still had an idea that I could play a good chunk of this.

No subtitle option, Singularity? I thought it was 2010? How am I meant to play this through the night?
Sat Aug 07 2010 23:35:15 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. First, because of the crazy decision to not have a subtitle option. I often have to play with the sound turned low, and I like to be able to read things in case the audio mixing is a bit ropey.

Secondly, because I was a lot more tired than I had realised. Within half an hour, some unusual time-bending things had happened (in the game), and I had been presented with audio and written diaries. There was no way I was going to be able to follow all of this.

My wife had gone to bed (she hates the noises that zombies make in games, especially when they die), but the cat was still here as moral support. Well, I say “support”, she was mostly in this position…

Not feeling Singularity – think I might miss a lot of plot by being tired. Need something dumber. And I have just the game…
Sat Aug 07 2010 23:50:19 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

You may have spotted it in the picture earlier, but this was really my secret weapon of grade A mindless game playing: SpongeBob SquarePants, Truth or Square.

It turned out to be a very good choice. Before I knew it a couple of hours had flown by, and I had perked up a bit. There is something about the crazy world of SpongeBob that will just cheer me up, even if the music and sound effects were repeated to a point that it would have driven any adult watching insane (thankfully I was already well beyond that point).

MuscleBob BuffPants
Sun Aug 08 2010 00:26:10 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

Although my relatively poor showing at Split/Second hadn’t helped out much, The ‘Bob also helped push me past the 1000 points of gamerscore mark, at 16 and a half hours in. I could have managed it on Prince of Persia alone, except that the game has two achievements for completing boss fights without taking any damage, which is basically just not going to happen on your first playthrough.

I love cartoony games where you smash stuff and get millions of pickup tokens.
Sun Aug 08 2010 01:18:26 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

It’s true, you know. Give me brightly coloured polygons, and destructible boxes that drop dozens of gaudy tokens, and I am a happy gamer. This also explains my long-running love affair with the Ratchet & Clank series.

SpongeBob couldn’t last forever though – I was worried my IQ was dropping sharply, for one thing. But I didn’t feel ready to face another “proper” game. So in came my second backup – Lego Harry Potter. This was to be another mistake.

You know you are really tired beyond rational thought when a Lego game loses you about half an hour in. I couldn’t keep track of which characters knew which spells, which things I had interacted with, and where I was meant to be going. I remember thinking that it was one of the best, most fully realised, Lego games I have played (and I’ve played them all), but I just couldn’t keep up.

With four hours remaining, I needed a re-think.

After a brief stint on Lego Harry Potter, it’s time to mop up the remaining Saboteur achievements. #sksp
Sun Aug 08 2010 03:59:10 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

I have been playing Saboteur for ages. Actually ages. Somewhere between 40 and 50 hours, according to my in-game stats. I started out enjoying it, but it had become a chore. But I had got so far, and the final 100 gamerscore I had remaining to claim, though theoretically easy to get, would require some grinding. Nice, easy, grinding of a game that I was already very familiar with.

Just the ticket.

After kissing 50 women (yes, repeated casual sexual assault is an achievement in this game), I was done.

2 hours left. Saboteur – done. Never have to play that wonky game again. #sksp
Sun Aug 08 2010 06:00:08 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

And hey, what’s that outside?

For the last couple of hours, I wanted to give something else a go. I’d picked up a brand new copy of Bionic Commando for a measly three pounds, and though I’d heard it was a bit ropey, I had always thought it must still have some decent fun in there somewhere. I mean, you’re a guy with a bionic arm, swinging around a city and shooting people. How bad could it be? Things got off to a good start.

Bionic Commando has a really cool menu.
Sun Aug 08 2010 06:10:08 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

I’ll have to upload a video of this at some point. It’s like Doctor Octopus is helping you through the menus. Very slick. It all goes downhill from there though, with swinging controls that I couldn’t get my head around, horrible depth of field, and some very shonky design that punishes you too much for dying.

I have since had it pointed out to me that I should give the game another chance when I haven’t been awake for 24 hours. This is a good point.

What would I play to round out the day?

One hour to go. Time to bust some shit in Crackdown 2. #sksp
Sun Aug 08 2010 07:00:02 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

Almost the perfect game for this kind of thing. I jumped and shot my way around Pacific City, finding hidden and agility orbs, and killing the freaks that my wife hates the sound of so much.

AND DONE. 24 hours is up. Good luck to those still playing – I’m off to bed! #sksp
Sun Aug 08 2010 08:04:00 (GMT Daylight Time) via TweetDeck

So there you have it, my account of 24 hours of playing games. Some bits went well, some bits were a struggle, but in the end it was worth it. Not sure I would do it again next year, though. I guess it depends on how big the Pile of Shame has become.

Currently I have raised just over £700 for the Sick Kids Friend Foundation – the Save Point event in total has raised a phenomenal £6,474.63. Thank you very much to everyone who has sponsored us. There were times when I was flagging that I thought it would be easy to not bother. But knowing that so many people had paid for me to go through all of this pushed me on.

That doesn’t have to be the end of it though. If you’ve read this and enjoyed it, but haven’t donated yet, please pop over to this page and bung an extra fiver our way.

Sorry, did I make that clear enough? Sponsor me!