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Gah. Reddit's markdown is making me soft.

Speed Demos Archive
TAS Videos

Myst? You mean that game that takes about 1.5 minutes to beat? Are you fast enough to get to the end before it crashes?

I wager no human has ever gotten the 'optimal' play through of any of the listed games.

Depends upon what your definition of optimal is. Speed runs are something that people have been doing for a while. I haven't ever watched much of any of the videos, but one site with a lot of videos is http://speeddemosarchive.com./

Well, there is a difference. Here's a ZSNES emulation of the LTTP intro, which you can compare with the Speed Demos Archive run. SDA don't actually accept emulator runs, so the video there is from an actual SNES.

Now, the TAS videos run doesn't display the same problem, but that was probably run from Snes9x, not ZSNES(technically from a custom Snes9x build supporting re-recording). So the issue is not the processing power required but simply the fact that the Snes9x and ZSNES developers focused on different features.

Overall, it can be seen from all three videos that in general, a good emulator can emulate the underlying hardware with extremely high fidelity for the vast majority of games and gameplay.

Fidelity isn't a burning issue in modern 8 or 16 bit emulation. Emulators are now literally concerned with advanced features like recording, "rewinding", and video and audio filters that actually improve the games graphics and sound beyond what the hardware was capable of. The only outstanding feature I personally feel is missing from most emulators is cross platform support.

What is it with people having some sort of fetish for putting EVERYTHING into the frigging browser?

This problem starts, believe it or not, with certain Web designers. Some people out there will not be able to sleep at night if you and me actually control the way their pages are displayed or their Web-sites used. The Flash obsession, for example, starts with the desire to prevent you from saving videos, and it continues with an absolute necessity of making you watch ads. Me and you understand that it would be elementary to have a browser plugin that detects Web-links to video files/streams and starts an external player. The truth is, clicking on a link to a video is so easy, no one needs a plugin for that. A program like VLC is far superior to any browser gizmo with respect to controlling the video playback. On a phone form-factor, playing back inside the browser window is simply INSANE. Indeed, linking is the simplest solution, and the one with the least overhead, and also the one that was working as far back as there were video players and Web browsers, and, of course, the one still implemented on every frigging Web-site not done by dicks.

I am afraid that HTML5 is not going to change the landscape. People who have a monopoly on serving bits (or just desire it) will persist in using proprietary software and secret protocols. HTML5 will be worse than useless to them for the reason stated above. IMHO, Mozilla and W3C are mostly wasting everyone's time with the video tag. Other tags, such as the ones for Web-forms, seem far more useful. And all of this superfluous BS distracts people from converting over to XHTML, which would actually improve Web documents' quality and compatibility.

For some excellent examples of metagaming, check out the Speed Demos Archive, where videos can be found of speedruns for many games, under various self-imposed conditions: 100%, minimal%, etc. These are not tool-assisted, these are pure player skill!

For metroid fans, I also highly recommend the Metroid 2002 site, which has video and text explanations of an incredible array of sequence-breaking tricks for nearly all of the metroid games. Picking up items out of order, exploiting engine quirks to jump farther or higher than is supposed to be possible, and using tricks to get past areas that are supposed to require an item, without having it yet. Speed runs of metroid games are amazing to watch, because they rely heavily on these tricks. Unless you've played the game a lot, you might not even recognize that the speed-run player is doing something that is supposed to be impossible!

he finished Star Wars Force Unleashed in only 7 hours.

That's nothing! You can play Zelda: Twilight Princess in five, Diablo II in two, and Quake 1 in fifteen minutes. There's a Starcraft map you can finish in less than half a minute.

See also http://speeddemosarchive.com/ :)

yes, these are truly awesome things, i remember when bunnyhopping in counter-strike actually worked, oh man that was great for the ramp in dust...

and of course the original Tribes, which changed the bunnyhop into skiing, and also combined it with rocket(disc) jumping, or maybe a heavy nuke jump... :-D that was some crazy awesomeness.

along with that i really love the quake done quick videos.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/qdq/movies/

my favorite is still "the rabbit run" going thru easy mode in just under 11 minutes, freakin amazing.

Then you'll love how this guy ruined KOTOR in a speedrun that is just over two hours :P
Here:
  http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,8472.0.html.

Smarter? Are you kidding? Portal was far easier than any old puzzle or adventure game.

One hour.

Given that it was a trainer disguised as a whole game with a complete storyline, that's not altogeter surprising -- though you would have missed most of the story presentation at that speed, so it's no wonder you hated it. (Anyway, given that the current speed run record is ca. 25 minutes, I strongly suspect your "one hour" is, shall we be polite, an exaggeration.)

However, did you notice that there are community-created maps -- Or were you too busy slagging it off? Maybe you've tried the 3-D conversion of "Portal: the Flash Version"? (I bet that'll take you only one hour as well.)

The Quake Done Quick team has done several speedruns that are machinima.

speaking of economic circumstances leading to innovation, i help administrate a website with an enormous video library (we have ~1,200 gigs of content at the moment). at 23, i'm still in college (finishing up my masters in may, looking at getting my ph.d. next). the ~$10.8k (us) a year i earn now is the most i have ever made in my life.

so i have a choice: i can either sell out (talking give up ownership here, not just show google ads), or i can do everything "on the cheap". i taught myself how to use (and to modify) open source tools instead of buying (yes, i'm an honest kind of guy) expensive, inflexible software packages that force upgrades every few years or even more expensive pieces of hardware that are so tightly integrated they can't be repaired and have to be replaced outright. instead of paying someone else to do a lackluster job implementing the tools, i write them myself - with the help of my friends.

and i see no reason to ever change. if there isn't yet an f/oss implementation of some bit of hardware or software i can't afford (e.g. a deinterlacer), then that just means one needs to be written. i take full advantage of the ridiculous speeds and relatively low prices of modern processors and do essentially for free what costs so-called professionals many thousands of dollars.

fixing hardware is dead. long live open source software.

It wasn't impossible. I beat it as a kid at least twice if I remember right. A speedrunner has completed the game in 18 minutes and 20 seconds.

Well you can always finish the game in 8 minutes and save at the end :)

This guy is set.

HalfLife in 45 minutes

See: Road Runner's Death Valley Rally.

www.speeddemosarchive.com recently posted a run of Deus Ex: Invisible War. It makes the game look semi-entertaining to watch as it short-circuts portions of the map, dodges through large number of enemies, and throws objects at AI players that simply stand around doing nothing.

Tasvideos.org recently posted a batch of videos.

Granted, these are single player games, but that doesn't prevent anybody from not enjoying them.

Speed Demos Archive has just posted a new run of Mario 64 that collects all of the game's stars in about 2 hours and 10 minutes. How long did it take you when you first played the game 10 years ago?

Now if you want to bring books into it, here's a great example. The Little Prince is presented as a children's book (I first read it as a kid, and it's used when first learning foreign languages, like in my friend's French class in high school) and is about what a kid/child-like character thinks of the world. It even has pictures in it. However, even though it can be read and enjoyed by someone at a relatively young age, it has some pretty important insights in it that serve as good reminders to anyone who reads or rereads it as they get older and can appreciate it more...assuming they don't mind reading a book with large print and occasional illustrations. They're the people who it really holds the most meaning for.

In the same way, a lot of Nintendo's games are accessible to a large range of people, and different people get different things out of them. Several different people can play the same game, and one can take a few months playing a little bit here and there to just take their time and go through the game. Another will get really excited about it, spend two months reading every little detail about it before it comes out, and not put it down for a week after they get it. Maybe a kid gets it as a present and can't quite make it to the end. Someone else plays through over and over to record an absurdly low time to put up on the Speed Demos Archive.

They're not the only ones who make stuff like that, and not everything they make is like that. More than other large game companies, though, they seem to, to some extent, and they've outright stated that that's one of their goals with the DS and Wii as systems.

As far as individual games and individual players go, if a particular game doesn't fit a particular person's taste, obviously that's fine. There are a lot of people who don't give them a chance in the first place, though. It's good to see that some people do even when they don't entirely agree with choices made about the games and still enjoy them somewhat.

More people should give more things out there a chance, not just Nintendo's games. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there in the world. In the worst case, you don't like it, can spend a few minutes thinking about why you don't, and know a little better what you do like. Maybe you'll even find something you really like that you wouldn't have otherwise. It's worked for me. ('you's being 'you' in general, not the poster I'm replying to)

Here's a speedrun of Contra. 10 minutes, 55 seconds. No cheat code.
http://speeddemosarchive.com/Contra.html

Its amazing that nintendo was cool enough to release a commericial as a film and kids would flock to see it?

The 100% prime record is 1:28 by Paul 'Bartendorsparky' Evans.

I'd hardly call that extraordinary. Look at these, you can do that with almost any game and only the longest ones take 2 hours.

You might like some of the other speed demos:
http://speeddemosarchive.com/gamelist/FullList.htm l

I like to watch them if I get bored with playing a game.

The doom3 demo is on par with the movie.

You won't like this speedrun of Contra III, then. Entire game finished in 17 minutes on Hard more without a single death.

I'm guessing the video will probably made it to Speed Demos Archive sooner or later.

winning the game is possible in 30 minutes

Make that 17 minutes and 20 seconds.

Actually it takes about 2 hours 14 minutes to beat, without cheats.

I take it you've never seen the Speed Demos Archive. An good number of people doing a lot of things you'll never be able to do at home without an awful lot of painful practice.

If you like the game, it can be really interesting (and helpful to your gameplay) to see the kinds of tricks they pull off in order to blast through these games.

Bethesda Nightmare Scenario #2:

T + 9:29:30: "Done!"

Morrowind 5 segment Speedrun in 00:07:30, and that for a game which you can play for days and weeks without ever touching a story quest.

And then you have those who "finish" it in less than 10 minutes... http://speeddemosarchive.com/Morrowind.html

torrent here. (90 MB DiVX)

The Morrowind Speed Demo.

I know there are people better than me (my time is at least 10 minutes from optimal), but I'm still here http://speeddemosarchive.com/MetroidPrime.html#har d.

As far as overall replay value goes, I can't think of any game better than Megaman X (SNES). That's the game that finally convinced me to go out and buy a gamepad for ZSNES purposes. That game has so many little hidden secrets and hard-to-get items (the heart tank in Spark Mandrill's stage is difficult to obtain, as is the blaster upgrade in Flame Mammoth's, and the Hadoken powerup once you have everything else). I actually found a site featuring videos of a guy tearing through that game as fast as humanly possible - finishing the game with all items and all powerups in under 45 minutes. Like most Megaman games, it was an instant classic.

G4 still has no idea what a video game channel should include. They've tried showing Counter-Strike (and others) with BattleBots-esque commentary. Cinematech recently took videos from http://www.speeddemosarchive.com/ and played them in edited form without contacting the creators or the site, and then denied any copyright violation when people complained. The content of the channel is determined entirely by third-parties or whatever is easy to put together (or steal).

You might say I don't like G4.

Someone was beating it just recently, in under 6 minutes: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Jaws.html

Any companies out there willing to sponser the first live speed running tornament? Considering the dedication some people put into making their runs top-notch, I think they'd definitely qualify as "pro" gamers.

Here's another one.

They are still running.

Here's an excellent site where you'll find a lot of speed runs: Speed Demos Archive

A lot of them are pretty impressive (ex: SMB 1 and 3, Diablo, etc)

First Encounter

Second Encounter

First Encounter

Second Encounter

You mean the present? Quake speed running is alive and well @ http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/ !

For time attack and speedrun movies bisqwit's site is even better than http://speeddemosarchive.com/ in my opinion and is regularly updated. It focuses on console emulation, however, and doesn't include speedruns for computer games.

Some are more entertaining that others, but there is a best videos page for those who are first time visitors and just want the most interesting/entertaining videos to date.

Almost all of these speedruns use glitches in the games to achieve faster speeds. Speed isn't everything though, they also try not to be too boring. One of my favorites is Hitler no Fukkatsu (Bionic Commando) done in 14:06!

http://speeddemosarchive.com/Mario64.html

http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Bending the rules is pretty much the entire premise behind speed runs. They are very entertaining as well. The origional inspiration for the site was Quake done Quick, a full play-through of the origional Quake in 19:49, which culminated in a 12:23 run through Quake on Nightmare skill. (not that they aren't trying to improve on that time).

At the speed demos archive, you can watch Super Mario Brothers 3 completed in 11:11,Super Metroid in 36 minutes flat and The Legend of Zelda in 35:50. On the PC Game front there is Half-Life in 45:45, Fallout2 in 17:51 and Jedi Knight in 34:03. I find these very entertaining, and sometimes informative. Check out the Game List and see if any of your old favorites are there!

http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Bending the rules is pretty much the entire premise behind speed runs. They are very entertaining as well. The origional inspiration for the site was Quake done Quick, a full play-through of the origional Quake in 19:49, which culminated in a 12:23 run through Quake on Nightmare skill. (not that they aren't trying to improve on that time).

At the speed demos archive, you can watch Super Mario Brothers 3 completed in 11:11,Super Metroid in 36 minutes flat and The Legend of Zelda in 35:50. On the PC Game front there is Half-Life in 45:45, Fallout2 in 17:51 and Jedi Knight in 34:03. I find these very entertaining, and sometimes informative. Check out the Game List and see if any of your old favorites are there!

http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Bending the rules is pretty much the entire premise behind speed runs. They are very entertaining as well. The origional inspiration for the site was Quake done Quick, a full play-through of the origional Quake in 19:49, which culminated in a 12:23 run through Quake on Nightmare skill. (not that they aren't trying to improve on that time).

At the speed demos archive, you can watch Super Mario Brothers 3 completed in 11:11,Super Metroid in 36 minutes flat and The Legend of Zelda in 35:50. On the PC Game front there is Half-Life in 45:45, Fallout2 in 17:51 and Jedi Knight in 34:03. I find these very entertaining, and sometimes informative. Check out the Game List and see if any of your old favorites are there!

http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Bending the rules is pretty much the entire premise behind speed runs. They are very entertaining as well. The origional inspiration for the site was Quake done Quick, a full play-through of the origional Quake in 19:49, which culminated in a 12:23 run through Quake on Nightmare skill. (not that they aren't trying to improve on that time).

At the speed demos archive, you can watch Super Mario Brothers 3 completed in 11:11,Super Metroid in 36 minutes flat and The Legend of Zelda in 35:50. On the PC Game front there is Half-Life in 45:45, Fallout2 in 17:51 and Jedi Knight in 34:03. I find these very entertaining, and sometimes informative. Check out the Game List and see if any of your old favorites are there!