Slashdot Mirror
Super Mario Bros Record Broken
An anonymous reader writes "A nimble-fingered gamer has shaved three seconds off the long-standing world record for completing Super Mario Bros. for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Classic arcade site Twin Galaxies reports that Scott Kessler of North Carolina executed a "near-perfect finish" when he took the record down to five minutes and 17 seconds. Twin Galaxies referee Robert Mruczek watched the entire game on videotape before declaring the feat a new world record."
bviously used the warpzone to 4 in 1-2, and the warp zone to 8 in 4-2. And he must have had the pipe sequence for 8-4 memorized. But how the heck did he beat 8-1 through 8-3 in under 5 minutes?
The time limit on those is pretty tight to begin with, so I can't imagine it's too hard.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
A great site. And you can download in game recordings so you can actually see the game run through in real time.
http://www.planetquake.com/qdq/
The person had played the game in emulation on his PC at an incredibly slow speed so that he could hit all the jumps perfectly, kill the enemies in a line, make all the warps, etc. Then, he sped the video up to normal speed to make all the timing match.
It's really cool but when you watch it it is obvious that no human (honestly) could be that accurate and perfect the entire game.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
The guy's insane. You guys might want to check this link out if you haven't already.
There was an amazing video that FiringSquad posted a link to a few months ago (just before Christmas?) in either the news or the siteseeing section. It was a video of some guy beating Mario 3 in perfect time (the fastest possible time, basically, I think it was about a half an hour?). It was very cool, but it was revealed a week or two later that the video was made by a guy with an emulator (already known) who would back up the game state a few frames whenever he made a mistake. It must of taken the guy FOREVER to do it. Still it was amazing to watch. He used shortcuts of course (like warp whistles) but it was still quite a sight. Find the link if you're interested.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Don't think so.
You can check out Metroid 2002 though, they have a lot of Metroid videos in QuickTime format. Unfortunately not these particular records, but lots of other candy.
100% in 1:00 in mp4 format, recored on the real game.
Speed Demos Archive - Lots of speed runs!
Try Red Scarlet's 100% run at http://planetquake.com/sda/other/supermetroid.html
Not the record, but it's pretty nice.
"I wonder what it's like living in a constant haze of stupidity" - Hiei, Yu Yu Hakusho
Nope it wouldn't becuase the game displays the time it took you to complete it in the ending credits.
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:41 pm Post subject: Super Mario Brothers (NES) - NEW WORLD RECORD !!
BREAKING NEWS - NEW MINIMALIST COMPLETION WORLD RECORD FOR "SUPER MARIO BROTHERS" (NES)
As reported February 22nd, 2004
Hello fellow gamers:
I am pleased to announce that after many attempts, gamer Scott Kessler, who hails from North Carolina in the USA, has established a new fastest minimalist completion world record on the legendary NES classic title "Super Mario Brothers" with a completion time of five minutes and seventeen seconds (5:17). This is three (3) seconds faster than the previous world record and is near perfect in execution. I say "near perfect" as Scott may still find a way to shave off one or more seconds someday, but after watching this particular run, that will be a tough challenge indeed.
Scott has been hammering away at this title for weeks, now, and has come close, actually tying the previous world record of 5:20 a few days back, but further fine-tuning of his skills and techniques has shaved off a very significant three whole seconds from his personal best, more than enough to claim top-spot for this hotly contested record.
Without using any of the known glitches for this title, Scott guided "Mario", the world's most famous plumber, through the time-honoured path towards a fastest completion record, first warping to stage (4-1) and then to (8-1). Score is irrelevant in such an attempt, but what is the absolute key are these two considerations...(A) no game-deaths are advisable, as they are permissible but slow you down, and (B) ensuring that when the stage-end flag is touched that the timer is neither on "1, 3 or 6" as that results in unwanted time wasted due to the award of extra points and the resulting fanfare explosions.
Scott, as with many top players, has mastered each of the eight ( stages that need to be negotiated in order to achieve the final goal...defeating "Bowser", Mario's second most famous adversary (the first being none other than "Donkey Kong"). The rules governing the world record for fastest minimalist completion are simple...the "clock" starts the instant you press the start button, and ends the instant that either the final bridge key by "Bowser" is touched, or when the final blow to "Bowser" is delivered via fireball. Game deaths are permitted but top players will most likely not die in pursuit of this record.
Being that the path to completion is so well known, I will include for purposes of this recap the benchmark times that Scott has achieved in pursuit of his new world record. Time is measured in whole seconds rounded to the nearest whole second.
THE PATH TO VICTORY
0:21 - touches flagpole in stage (1-1)
1:03 - enters warp pipe to stage (4-1)
1:31 - touches flagpole in stage (4-1)
2:17 - enters warp pipe to stage (8-1)
3:02 - touches flagpole in stage (8-1)
3:39 - touches flagpole in stage (8-2)
4:16 - touches flagpole in stage (8-3)
4:37 - enters 1st pipe in stage (8-4)
4:46 - enters 2nd pipe in stage (8-4)
4:54 - enters 3rd pipe in stage (8-4)
5:17 - touches bridge key and completes game under Twin Galaxies rules governing this title
The times above of course do not tell the entire story to Scott's success. A lot of trial and tribulation must have been undertaken to master every jump and situation in the path to completion. In truth, when executed properly and via identical means, the game is indeed a pattern in that the enemies will behave the same way based on your proximity, speed and approach, so finding the perfect combination of all three factors, and adjusting so that the flagpoles are not touched when the score ends in a (1, 3 or 6), is what every player hopes for.
The path that Scott took is well known and extremely difficult to execute. Nintendo did an excellent job with respect to the controls for Mario...the character can be made to do whatever the player wishes. Your only drawback at times might be momentum, such as when the hidden vine is opened
Try one of these then: http://emulation.net/snes/
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Not too sure, the only good games I have seen of it are those that I and my friends can pull off; And of course after you beat any given stage, it unlocks some movies of various styles of "perfect" runs from "cautious" to "insane" (I forget what they actually call them) It is even possible to complete the entire game without firing a single shot.
When that game is played well, it is a work of art, I can't reccomend it enough to those that like 2d Shooters.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Just off the top of my head but don't you use the second whistle INSIDE the screen where you select which level to warp to, then you go to world 8?
He beat it 11 minutes... (rumors are that he used an emulator and saved game state every now and then, but it's still amazing)
I think this is it, it was on the second page of the forum:
http://www.planning24h.jp/gf/movie/smb1.wmv
Johnkoerner.com
You're thinking of Super Mario 3. The original had no warp whistles. Just secret pipes.