The second annual Nick’s Marathon has come and gone, and I think it’s safe to call the event a complete success! Good times were had, and we’ve raised nearly $2,700 so far! We’ll keep accepting donations for another month or so, with the goal of getting to (or even better, surpassing) the $3,000 mark we hit last year.

We played a lot of fun games, but the highlight has to be New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The game was a perfect fit for us – it is multi-player co-op, easy to pick-up, but challenging enough to take a while to get through. And it was brand new, so we were all playing it for the first time, and that fact probably helped us gain some viewers (and donations!) Courtney, James, and I eventually managed to beat the game (just click to 1.33.24 on the video below if you want to see our final boss run, or you can go to 1.37.45 just to see the ending.) It’s a bit of a bummer that you can’t play the game with people online, but sitting down with the game and a bunch of friends all in one room was really a ton of fun, and it was clearly how NSMBW was meant to be played. Eating other players with Yoshi, smashing the names in the end credits, and the noise that Yellow Toad makes when he gets new lives through a continue were personal highlights. (My only complaint is the game’s little mini-pause when someone on your team dies – that’s sort of an unpleasant distraction.)

But thanks to everyone who came by to play with us, and to everyone who brought us junk food, and to Courtney for bringing homemade mac and cheese (and Sherlock!), and to Steve for waiting on line at Nintendo World to get and bring New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the game’s accompanying T-shirt (I’m wearing it in the above picture and video – it’s quite the addition to my collection!), to everyone who took over when James and I were exhausted, and to James for setting everything up and letting a bunch of nerds trash his apartment for a weekend, and of course, to everyone who donated – THANK YOU for making all of our efforts worthwhile!