I’ve been a print/online journalist all my life: I’ve never really dabbled into on-screen time apart from the odd online video and that sort of thing. So when I headed up to Auckland (New Zealand) last week to take part in a charity challenge arranged by PlayStation and Vodafone, I was a little concerned to hear that it would be filmed by youth-orientated channel TVNZU. I  dont’ really feel that comfortable in front of a camera: I’d rather just write and let my words do the talking.

In the end, it didn’t turn out too bad (my team didn’t win, unfortunately – congrats Alan and Che Fu, but we didn’t get last, either). We were in four teams of two: four celebs – NZ Warriors Manu Vatuvai and Ben Matulino, NZ Breaker’s star Tom Abercrombie and musician Che Fu – teamed up with three video game writers – myself, PC World’s Siobhan Keogh and NZ Gamer’s Alan Ball – and Social Media NZ’s founder John Lai). Much to my delight, I was teamed up with Abercrombie, one of my basket-ball mad son’s idols. Seeing it was school holidays he and my wife came up for the two days I was in Auckland so got some photos with Abercrombie and got his autograph).

The winner of the challenge would get a $1000 cheque for the charity of their choice and the challenge involved using PlayStation’s Vita handheld and Vodafone’s 3G coverage to complete a variety of challenges (find Sackboy who was at a watering hole in Auckland’s trendy Viaduct Basin, get a high score on Reality Fighters, Skype someone from PlayStation to find your next location, that sort of thing). It was a lot of fun and competitive, which was good.

The final challenge was to beat a presenter from U-Live’s score on Wipeout 2048 – and I’m sad to say I lost control on the final corner of the track we were racing on and crashed, losing me precious seconds. My score was nowhere close enough anyway. I should have practiced more. Anyway, check out the video and have a good laugh. I’m the one in the blue and white checked shirt. (I’ve been told by a couple of people that the video isn’t working properly. I got it working but it was pretty slow loading up. Let me know how you get on)

Steam Sale: a licence to take my money money

The Steam sale has been going for a couple of days and so far I’ve been very restrained and only bought one game: Portal 2 for $4.99 (despite the fact that I already have it on Xbox 360). It’s not much but the Steam sale is like virtual crack: once you buy one game, another is sure to follow, then another, then another …

I’m convinced there will  be other games that I’ll purchase over the coming days but I’m trying to be very restrained and curb the use of my credit card this month. I’m only going to buy games that are under $10. That’s my plan and my way of making sure that I don’t spend crazy amounts of games that I probably don’t need.

That said, I’m checking the sale every day, seeing what gems are there they I just have to have and then won’t play for months and months.

I’m now contemplating getting Indie Game: The Movie. It’s pretty good, I hear.

How is the Steam sale for you?