Videogame Speed Running Speeds Up A Notch
Radix37 writes "The PlanetQuake-hosted Speed Demos Archive, dedicated to 'trying to complete a videogame in the fastest time possible', has been updated with an improved speedrun of Half-Life in 0:45:45, over 5 minutes faster than the previous run - some more crazy level-skipping shortcuts were added to cut the time by so much, and there's very detailed commentary from the creator. The Metroid Prime record was recently dropped to 1 hour 4 minutes from 1:17 by a lot of new tricks and exploits, too. Also of note, recent improvements on Super Metroid, on Metroid Zero Mission, and, interestingly, on Super Mario 64 (including a glitch collecting 'only 16 stars' instead of 70) have been impressive."
I don't want to be a jerk, but this kind of seems sad to me. I can't imagine playing a game so much that I could beat it so quickly.
On the other hand, if I had a spacecraft capable of traveling near the speed of light, I could easily beat all of these times.
The site listing the differences is down, anyone have the list handy?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If you enjoy speed runs you should check out the game N. It's free, and it was practically made for awesome speed demos. Your replay is recorded for every best run through every level, and the top 20 runs of every level (and episode, which is a collection of 5 levels) are saved online and downloadable in game. Trust me, its worth checking out.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
John Carmack had a quote I liked when talking about how they slowed down the pace of DOOM3 because, "It would be a shame to just have you running past all of this hard work at a hundred miles per hour..."
I always wondered how fast Metroid prime could be finished in. I wish I had broadband so I could download the files before I'm eighty.
As usual the biggest failing of these First person adventures is that they end. Though in the case of Metroid, there was a lot of extra stuff to do.
May the Maths Be with you!
> I recommend you use one shot from the glock, just because it's funnier
Heh, nothing to do with speedrunning, but I remember once trying to kill Nihilanth by ladning in his brain and using the crowbar, just because I could. Worked, too.
I always found it more interesting to watch the people trying to complete Metroid Prime with the lowest possible percentage by skipping certain key items (not just the upgrades). Granted, they do speed runs on that too, but it's more interesting than just rushing through the game (although some of the former techniques have been applied to the latter).
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
another site for speed demos. The difference (big difference) is that they seed videos from games running on emulators (most, if not all, of the Speed Demos Archive videos are recorded directly from the TV).
Except from the site: These are movies of various console games being played extraordinarily using an emulator as a tool to get over humanly limits such as "skill" and "reaction".
But it's interesting anyway.
I guess this just makes no since to me, but I would much rather play slow and make sure I get to kill every monster, see every corner on every level (expecially well designed games) even tryn to make sure i take as least amount of damage as possible. Or even Finding that one special hidden place, that takes 2 weeks looking around heh.... U get the idea.
:)
I mean some of my most favorite games are the ones with what seems like unlimited content (like Privateer and such).
Id much rather seem movies of some one clearn all the levels perfect then this
I can't really garner much respect for those sorts of people. It just doesn't seem that interesting to me. In the same way, someone who finds a place where they can't be hit by anything and then proceeds to kill a million enemies, I don't consider them a skilled player either, really.
People who complete the game as intended, but do it in the quickest time, I might find that a little more impressive, but I guess it's hard to judge what's an "exploit" and what isn't.
Random and weird software I've written.
I love videogames and all, but I fail to see the point of speed runs (but do see the point of actual running).
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
A contest for speedrunning Halo for Xbox has just concluded, with a total time of 2:15:15. It's probably possible to do better, this was the first real attempt at it.
Quake done Quick are, IMO, still the best speed runs ive watched, especially Quake done Quick with a Vengence (full run through all 4 episodes on nightmare in 12:23)
http://www.planetquake.com/qdq/
> I fail to see the point of speed runs
:)
You get higher FPS
I have to say alot of these "speed runs" are complete and utter crap.
Someone did a MTPO speed run and watching it had to have cheated to complete it because the fights in the of King Hippo and Mr. Sandman are rediciously faked.
Unless they are 100% legit play thoughts no photo tricks then it's not a true speed play. Glitches are ok but I mean editing teh video to seem faster just shows they can't really play.
Take a gander at Defrag mod... it may change your opinion of what speed runs really are about. You'll find plenty of excellent examples of people stretching the Quake 3 engine to its limits not to mention beautiful control and timing.
I'd like to see the HL speedruns, but the FullPlanet mirrors are /.'ed - what, no BitTorrents?
And how come you don't see anybody do like the old Quake Done Quicker, and put a bit of humor into the demo? I just about died the first time I saw it, when the happy face sprang out at the guy, and then he turns around and berates you for laughing! As well as the running commentary during the run - why don't we see that done a bit more?
www.eFax.com are spammers
They're posting the videos of each level on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays over the next few weeks--the contest just finished. The first level has already been posted and is an impressive piece of work.
The BitTorrent for the Pillar of Autumn video is here.
-Geoff
You call this a troll? My gramma trolls better than this! You could at least make it seem halfway on topic, or not quite so obvious.
The coolest thing about this, to me, is Metroid Zero Mission runs, because of the really inventive design of the game.
Metroid: Zero Mission is a remake of the original Metroid in many ways. Most of the important items are found in the same, or similar, places as they were before. The overall map of Zebes is similar (though there is a huge new area). They added some of the items from Super Metroid, and also a couple of extra items. So far, nothing unexpected.
But the coolest thing about game, even cooler than the extra section of the game after destroying Mother Brain (which is, indeed, really cool), is that the whole game is designed, not to forbid sequence breaking like most games, but specifically to allow them.
If you're not on the lookout for them, you probably won't even notice the special blocks that allow you to, say, get the Screw Attack with just missiles, or get Super Missiles early, or get the Varia long before you're supposed to.
The first time through, it looks exactly like Metroid games (and practically all "big world" video game adventures since then, including Zelda) have always looked: find an item, use it to overcome an obstacle, get the item on the other side of the obstacle, use it to get past the next obstacle, repeat until you win.
But once you get Power Bombs near the end of the game, you can use them to reveal secret block types, information that can be used the next time through to uncover all the ingenious ways the designers put in to do things way out of sequence, or win the game with 15% of items or less. (The game has special ending pictures for winning with 15% or less items, and another for winning in less than two hours.) But, importantly, those "super secret" passages aren't *added* to the game on replays; they're there the first time through as well, but just very hard to find without prior knowledge.
I really think this is a major advance in adventure game design, possibly the first since Metroid.
Hell, even with some of the newer games i can't be bothered to finish it, and would rather just watch it to the end. I wonder when they'll implement such a feature (and don't say the movie has been invented ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating