Well I did it, I stayed up for over 24 hours straight to do nothing by gaming things this past weekend in the name of raising money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, or more specifically, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. I flew to Iowa, packed up my Xbox 360 and all of my Dragon Age games, and prepared myself for some gaming greatness with my EvilCast crew (and two writers here at SGR!).

Of course, as these things go, nothing really went as I had planned.

For starters, remember that 3DS poll I posted? It was unanimously suggested that I play Ocarina of Time 3D while getting my Zelda tattoo, but that never happened because I left my 3DS at home. I realized it when I got to the airport, pulled out my 3DS bag and noticed the 3DS wasn’t in the said bag. Ocarina of Time 3D wasn’t even in the bag because it was in my 3DS! I literally hung my head between my knees in defeat. I couldn’t believe I had left that behind. Most likely, I saw the 3DS bag in my purse, and just assumed my 3DS was within. Just goes to show that rushing around at the last minute never produces a positive result.

That also meant I had no gaming distractions while on the plane, which I suppose was good on the way there as I had a review to write for work. But man, I was unbelievably bummed, especially when the second thing fell apart for me.

As I said earlier, I brought all of my Dragon Age games, which included Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins Awakening, and Dragon Age 2. I knew I wasn’t going to complete all of them, but I at least wanted to start DA2. Yeah I didn’t get close.

The tattoo adventure, while awesome, took a good chunk of time out of playing since Chris’s tattoos were rather large. That was about 4-5 hours of DAO time I couldn’t have, which was actually quite precious, even if I didn’t realize it until it was too late. I reached the final boss at about 2 a.m., and after trying at least 8 times, I had to turn the game off. I was so upset, I was close to crying in front of everyone. Blake told me to stop, that obviously I’m too tired and I’m not performing as I normally would. I was pissed at him for saying so, but he was right. The lack of sleep was affecting my thoughts and obviously my emotions as well. So I thought about playing Awakening instead, but when I saw you could import your final save from DAO, I closed that down in a hurry.

It’s now nearly 4 a.m., and I have NO other games to play. I left my 3DS at home. I had counted on being able to finish DAO and move on to the next games. I played some Diablo 3 with Chris, but the problem was, I know that game so well, it wasn’t keeping me awake. I constantly blinked for long periods of time. We even tried to create hardcore characters to fight off the fatigue, but that didn’t work either. We joined Ross and Blake for some Towerfall Ascension, which was far more fun than I thought it would be.

It’s now 6 a.m. and every second I’m awake is killing me. During the last 30 minutes, we finally got Blake to play some League of Legends, and even though I was standing up to watch him to keep awake, I was nodding off. While standing up. I’m quite possibly too old for this shit. As soon as 8 a.m. hit, I bolted upstairs for bed. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I felt bad about that, but I was not thinking clearly. After my four-hour nap, I apologized profusely to my host, but he was fairly cool with it.

Will I do it again next year? I really want to, but man, staying up that whole time when you can’t have caffeine is hard when you’re this close to 40. I still don’t feel like I’ve fully recovered, but I suppose having kids doesn’t help the recovery process much either. But for now, I have to focus on the reviews staring at me…and finishing DAO, dammit. I think going back and buying a crap-ton of potions will help; it was probably stupid to face the final boss with only 15 potions on hand.

Last year for Extra Life, I posted a survey asking everyone what I should play for the 24-hour marathon as I had three or four games I wanted to play but wasn’t sure which I should give the priority. That’s not happening this year as my stack of shame has spiraled out of control, and I have a few games I absolutely must finish before November. That first one is Dragon Age: Origins, the game I was supposed to wrap up this summer.

I actually put down both Diablo 3 games and what I’m supposed to be reviewing in order to play some Dragon Age: Origins last night. I was expecting to need a lot of time to get reacquainted with the game’s mechanics, but everything just fell in place very very quickly. My last save was not in the middle of a quest, but before I started any quests in a new area, so I couldn’t have planned it any better if I tried. Within minutes, I wanted to smack myself for letting it go on so long before playing the game again. My last save was in 2011, which is far too long. I have no idea why I kept putting it off either. The game is that fantastic, and it still holds up just fine, even with all the greatness of the new generation of consoles.

A friend loaned me her copy of Far Cry 3, and my original plan was to bring that to Extra Life, but with Dragon Age: Inquisition on the cusp of release, I feel like I need to prioritize DAO and DA2 (I don’t care how bad everyone says DA2 is).

I will also bring my 3DS because Chris and I are getting Zelda tattoos together, and I’ll have to have something on hand while we’re driving to the shop, getting inked, and watching the other person getting inked. It’s going to be a fabulous, fabulous time. Question is, what shall I bring for my 3DS? Should I finish Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance or should I give Ocarina of Time 3D another chance? I’m already going to wear a Link hoodie while getting the tattoo, and I have the Zelda 3DSXL; I might as well go the distance into being that guy?

Perhaps, perhaps that is what I should make for an Extra Life poll…