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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."
Insanity.
It takes a special sort of person I guesss to devote that much energy and time to perfecting a game. Even the games I love to death I could never play to that level without walking away from it with a foul taste in my mouth.
Still, pretty amazing, i don't think I could get through the first world in that length of time
I wish I had the type of job where I could just try to beat records on old games, as it is, I haven't played a game in ages. Some people just have all the luck. Where's mine? :-)
"Bowser" lobs up a whole slew of axes, each of which is deadly to Mario if she should make contact with any of them.(emphasis mine)
;)
That adds new perspective to Mario's reasons for rescuing the princess, doesn't it?
Seems like another record is broken with this site being /.'d within seconds.
But hold on...they're reviewing the tapes...
Well, reading the headline was fun.
Ok- so he obviously 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?
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Would it be possible to either speed up the video, or record it just slightly faster to shave off a few seconds? Not enough to be noticable, but enough to give you an edge?
Then again, do I really care?
So why am I asking?
Is there a world record for beating Zork in record time?
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.
Shameless off-topic plug (though it's not for me in person, so I hope I get away with it): If you enjoy this, you might enjoy Super Metroid speedruns as well. Records: 38 minutes for pure speed, 58 minutes for speed with 100% items. Both by the same player, available here.
:38 :58
Mirrors:
Require ZSNES and a Super Metroid ROM.
I actually got that idea a few month ago and tried it out.
Results for SMB3:
Double speed: (120fps, ntsc)
World 1,2,3,-,7,8.. completion =) (World 7 is NOT fun..)
Tripple speed:
World 1,-,8.. completion =) (those blocks in bowsers castle that falls down when you stand on them for a while is damn hard to pass)
10x: 600fps
World 1,-,8..complete failure.. (i'm happy with finding the flutes)
Notes:
No emulator features like save and load were used.
Controller with turbo were used for flying at 3x speed and above.. (almost impossible without)
If you try this, DO NOT PLAY THE GAME AT NORMAL SPEED AFTERWARDS, (Windows feeling..)
-K (idiot)
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.
"Twin Galaxies referee Robert Mruczek watched the entire game on videotape before declaring the feat a new world record."
Oh my god, a huge video game nerd actually sat through five minutes of video tape before declaring a world record?!? Call the police!
100% in 1:00 in mp4 format, recored on the real game.
Speed Demos Archive - Lots of speed runs!
sigh....
It was marked "redundant" because the fat ugly greasy gamer virgin is a stereotype that has been cited countless times in virtually all forms of media. Calling him a "loser" then is redundant. Someday there may be a "-1 stupid" or "-1 not funny" modifier but until then we will have to make do with what we have.
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Seeing that video reminds me of another game that looks truely awesome in the hands of a master: Ikaruga
At first glance the game looks like a blur of bullets and enemies, but it is possible to complete every stage of the game without breaking the chain combo (you get a chain bonus if you kill 3 ships of the same color in a row, the whole bonus is lost if you hit a single ship out of sequence) and still killing every single target. I never got that good, but I could rack up a pretty good combo on the first couple stages.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
This jostled my memory of an event taken place about 20 years ago, Wal-Mart had a contest where whoever got the most points in Super Mario Bros in their age bracket won a free game of their choice. I was all excited being a nintendo-nerd kid, I would sit and practice at home to get a stratedgy developed so I could win me that game!
After my training regiment, it was time to enter the contest. Well there was only one other person in my age bracket (13+ and older), a woman in her 20's, so I was stoked. "I'm gonna win this" came time to play and I missed a calculated jump and fell into a hole, screwed my chances right there.
It was then I had to say goodbye to my dreams of owning "Skate or Die"... eventually I bought it, but it was the whole glory of it all.
I hope the record breaker basks in all his glory, someone hook that man up with a copy of Ultra's Skate or Die, he earned it!
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
They don't require an illegal ROM - a legal ROM will do just fine.
If this record stands, maybe it will be called the Kessler Run. Anyone have a link to the video?
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)
Twin Galaxies does NOT host submitted videos for the public. Why? Because most of these videos are NOT a mere five minutes. They tend to be several hours' worth, because most records, even speed runs, can't be completed any faster. If someone tries to "marathon" a classic game that he's previously mastered, it can stretch on past a day's length. (And in those cases live refereeing rather than video is probably the only viable option) That, of course, would cost them a lot in bandwidth and storage to host, even if it were only the "world records," since TG has hundreds of those.
So for those reasons, they won't host any videos at all. You'll have to take their word for it that it was true.
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.