NEWS | Week beginning November 9th | Extra Life, Fallout 4 Launches & XBOX Backwards Compatability

Goooooooood Evening everyone! How are you? Well that's great! Enough small talk, let's get into the news!

Extra Life

We begin with some good news! My faith in humnaity has been slightly restored after video gaming event 'Extra Life' finished up for another year earlier in the week.

For whose of you who are unfamiliar with Extra Life and what they do, Extra Life is an organisation that "unites thousands of players around the world in a 24 hour gaming marathon to support Children's Miracle Network Hospitals."

Gamers all around the world can either join a team or become a single fundraiser and help raise funds for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. All you have to do is play games for 24 hours! Sounds like a win/win to me! 

Much like previous years, this years call to arms was very successful, with a total of $6,775,102 raised for childrens hospitals all across the US and Canada. Top teams include Rooster Teeth and Mindcrack  and the top individuals include Rooster Teeth's Jack Pattillo and Noah Cohen. Good job guys!

If you're a gamer, much like me, in the UK, who's wondering why nothing like this is happening for

Did you watch any of the
Extra Life streams?

charities in the UK, well, now there is! Kind of.

Macmillan Cancer Support has announced that they will be working with Twitch to broadcast a 24 hour gaming marathon, where viewers can either watch the main stream, featuring 17 streamers including Spamfish, LeahLovesChief, and LTZonda. 

Macmillan fundraising boss Ben Welch said: 

"The idea for Game Changers for Macmillan came about when one fundraiser last year, raised over £40,000 for Macmillan in under a week doing a similar thing."

"Whether with friends or going solo, people can set up their own Twitch channel and ask viewers, followers, friends and family for their support. We want our gaming marathon to be a fun and easy way for people to help raise vital funds to support Macmillan's aim of ensuring that no one faces cancer alone."

By the time you're reading this, the stream would have ended, however, I am sure the stream was a huge success and I'm sure if you go on Macmillan's Twitch you'll be able to watch the full stream there!

Fallout 4 Launches

Next up, Fallout 4 has finally launched! After months and months of waiting and wondering, we finally have it. I must say, it's brilliant!

The graphics look amazing, a real step up from Fallout 3 and Skyrim. The new Workshop system where you can tear buildings apart and create your own base of operations is also a great new addition. You enter a special mode where everyhting around you can either be moved, stored, or scrapped for parts, then you can create other resources from the leftover scraps. Admittedly, it can be difficult to move and place objects. Beds and such are easy, it's just the walls that are a problem! It's so difficult to get that perfect angle where everything lines up! There always seems to be a slight gap! That's probably just me though...

War. War never changes...

However, as with every game, it does have its problems. For example, the loading times from place to place seem to take ages. You could be waiting a good 10-20 seconds before the game finally loads up the next location. Also, I find the game to be very stuttery. Whether I am walking through the wastes, minding my own business, or battling Raiders with nothing more than a tire iron, I always seem to experience some sort of stuttering. It can be pretty distracting at times unfortunately...

You may also see the odd Fallout-esque glitches. NPC's clipping through walls, companions disappearing from reality, that kind of thing. But hey, it wouldn't be a Bethesda game if it didn't have these quirky faults!

Onto the stats. Although Bethesda has not officially announced the numbers, Bethesda shipped around 12 million copies of Fallout 4 to players all around the world, which equates to around $750 million (£490 million)in revenue.

Fallout 4 also broke some Steam records, most notably the highest amount of concurrent players record, with around 470,000 concurrent players last week. Also, around 1.2 million people owners on Steam on day one.

To compare, Skyrim shipped 7 million copies when it launched in 2011, as well as having 280,000 concurrent users on Steam.

It's safe to say that Fallout 4 is doing well then...

Happy hunting!

XBOX Backwards Compatibility

Finally, this week, Microsoft announced that the first 104 games that came out on the 360 will be playable on the Xbox One.

Any games you'd like to
see added to the list?

On November 12th, Microsoft released the new update, which not only included a fancy new dashboard, but also released the backwards compatibility feature, meaning you will now be ale to play the first 104 games that ever came out on the 360. 

Games like Mass Effect, Halo Reach, Bioshock Infinite all make the list, as well as classics such as Gears of War and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas. 

I do not own an Xbox One, but I think it's cool that so many great games and classics have made the list, the temptation to get an Xbox One now is definitely there! I will leave the full list of games available on backwards compatibility below!

A Kingdom for Keflings	Lode Runner™
A World of Keflings	LUMINES LIVE!
Alien Hominid HD	Mass Effect™
Assassin’s Creed II	Metal Slug 3
Asteroids & Deluxe	Metal Slug XX
Banjo Kazooie®: Nuts & Bolts	Might & Magic Clash of Heroes™
Banjo-Kazooie®	Mirror’s Edge™
Banjo-Tooie®	Missile Command
BattleBlock Theater	Monday Night Combat
Bejeweled 2	Monkey Island: Special Edition
Bellator: MMA Onslaught	Monkey Island 2: Special Edition
Beyond Good & Evil HD	Ms. Splosion Man™
Blood of the Werewolf	Mutant Blobs Attack!!!
BloodRayne: Betrayal	N+
Borderlands	NBA JAM: On Fire Edition
Call of Juarez® Gunslinger	NiGHTS into dreams…
Castle Crashers	Operation Flashpoint™: Dragon Rising
CastleStorm	Pac-Man: Championship Edition™
Centipede & Millipede	Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX+
Condemned: Criminal Origins	Perfect Dark
Crazy Taxi™	Perfect Dark Zero
Deadliest Warrior: Legends	Phantom Breaker:Battle Grounds
Defense Grid: The Awakening	Pinball FX™
DiRT 3	Plants vs. Zombies
DiRT Showdown	Prince of Persia
Discs of Tron	Putty Squad
Doom	Rayman 3 HD
Doom II	R-Type Dimensions™
Dungeon Siege III	Sacred Citadel
Earthworm Jim HD	Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.
Fable II	Sega Vintage Collection: Golden Axe
Fallout 3	Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World
Feeding Frenzy	Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage
Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown	Shadow Complex
Gears of War	Sonic CD
Gears of War 2	Sonic The Hedgehog
Gears of War 3	Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Gears of War: Judgment	Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Golden Axe™	Super Meat Boy
Halo: Spartan Assault	Supreme Commander 2
Hardwood Backgammon®	Tom Clancy’s RainbowSix Vegas
Hardwood Hearts®	Tom Clancy’s RainbowSix Vegas 2
Hardwood Spades®	South Park: The Stick of Truth™
Heavy Weapon	Torchlight
Hexic HD	Toy Soldiers
Ikaruga	Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Jetpac Refuelled	Tron: Evolution
Joy Ride Turbo	Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
Just Cause 2	Viva Piñata
Kameo™: Elements of Power	Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game	Wolfenstein 3D
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga	Zuma

So that's it for this week! How do you feel about this weeks video game news? Did you tune into any of the Extra Life streams? Did you get Fallout 4 on Tuesday? Are you looking forward to playing any of 360 classics on your Xbox One? Let me know in the comments down below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Connor :)