As some people may recall, awhile ago a team set out to play through all of the 3D Zelda games on one crazy gaming marathon. Apparently, their efforts were foiled by Majora's Mask, although I never watched the marathon myself.

Some of you may also recall a separate team of marathoners, inspired by the Zelda marathon team, playing through every Super Mario game (1 through Galaxy) in the span of a weekend (57+ hours). The Mario Marathon team raised almost $12,000 in charity for Child's Play.

Well this coming weekend, beginning Thursday, July 31st, both teams will be splitting the workload for another Zelda marathon, only this time, playing through the main console 2D games as well as all the 3D ones.

The Mario Marathon team, comprised of Brian Brinegar, John Groth, and Dan May, will take on the first 3 games starting at 8:00 PM (ET) Thursday. They'll be playing The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II, and A Link to the Past. After that, the Four48 team, led by Cameron Banga, will tackle the rest of the games 22 hours later, starting 6:00 PM (ET). The games include Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, all in one sitting.

The whole event will last 70 hours, and the whole length of that weekend. The event can be watched via either the MarioMarathon website, or over at CameronBangaa.com, where there will also be a live blog of the event. The groups are again accepting donations for Childs Play, so check out either site for a button to donate. You can donate at any time starting now; before, during, or after the marathon, up until August 4th. If everyone that watches the stream were to pitch in just 1 dollar, it would go a long way towards helping out. But even if you can't donate, you can help by merely watching, and/or spreading the word to get more people involved.

I saw the whole Mario Marathon from start to finish, with probably 6 hours of sleep between the three days, and believe me, it was a lot of fun. Of course, I was on vacation, and had the time to kill. So I'm assuming that, like me, not too many people have 70 hours of time to devote to something like this. But just stop in every now and then! It's great to watch gamers do what they do best. We had a death count going for all the Mario games and everything. And keep in mind, these aren't game "experts," as in, speed runners just looking to get the fastest time through the game. It's a much more casual event.

So drop by, have some fun, and help sick children in hospitals all over America and other parts of the world.

That sounds like a crazy endeavor. I love it

As someone who watched the Mario Marathon, these guys are great, and really put on a show.  I actually was watching when they got the last star in Mario Galaxy--what can I say, I'm a night owl--and it was a really cool thing to witness.  Thanks for reminding me of the event.  I'll have to keep an eye on this now and then, and I'll be sure to keep this thread bumped throughout the marathon. 8 )

thats awesome that they can do these and raise money for charity.  big ups to those guys.

Thats great something for gamers and something for a charitable cause can beat that.

Yep it is nice to something like that for charity.