Speedrunning

[vv85]

Been getting into speedrunning lately. Its fun watching Deus Ex 1 and Halflife 1 being beaten in 45 minutes, or Castlevania beaten in 20 minutes.

I'm trying Deus Ex 3 speedrun now, its harder than it seems.

Anyone got any great speedruns to share, or are trying ones themselves?

 

[DoPo]

Anyone got any great speedruns to share, or are trying ones themselves?

No, not really, although I'm planning to do one...erm, some time. Also, erm "speedrun". I'm not sure exactly what it's going to be but I'm pretty sure I'll eventually do something with Bloodlines - I already do "reduced time" runs...that are essentially trying to complete everything with as few area transitions as possible (loading times get longer as you progress) so it's either going to be the ultimate of that, or I may go further and make it into a full speedrun with either trying to complete everything, or an actual speedrun through the MQ.

 

[Tallim]

I love speed running but I literally don't have the time ( :/ ) to learn games properly now to do them. Last time I tried a run I did Fallout New Vegas in 4 hours as a test game.

Go to http://speeddemosarchive.com/ and trawl the games for some truly astounding displays.

 

[Weaver]

I only like them when they're unedited and NOT tool assisted.

 

[MysticSlayer]

The problem with a lot of speed runs is that they are tool assisted, so it becomes a matter of finding which people are actually playing legitimately and which ones are receiving aid.

Also, for a lot of games, the speed run consists only of exploiting glitches, such as clipping through walls, and developer oversights, such as how jumping through the world in Fallout 3 will help you move faster than running. That's not to say glitches and exploits are all bad, but when that's all the speed run really consists of, I just get bored watching it. Personally, I prefer it when the players spend more time using the frame-by-frame timing that almost seem to have been conscious design decisions by the developers, only using glitches and exploits for just a little extra help.

 

[vv85]

I should probably

http://speeddemosarchive.com/

Yeh thats a great site... the best speed runs I've found have been via that site. Aria of Sorrow, Halflife 1, Deus Ex 1, Sonic Adventure 1... so many...


TO ALL PEOPLE READING:
The site does excellent speedruns, and the community is dedicated and excellent. Also fyi, they're running a charity event in acouple of days:

http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/upcoming]Upcoming Charity Event

PLEASE donate (I will, at least twice - to the site and to the cause)

 

[Andy Shandy]

I enjoy watching Werster speedrun Pokemon, but that's it in all honesty. There's just something about watching a game I tend to put hundreds of hours into being completed in anywhere between 2-4 hours, depending on the game.

 

[shrekfan246]

I would say it depends on how tightly you define something as being a "speedrun"... for instance, I doubt I could clear the entirety of it without dying at all and I'm sure I don't know the most optimal routes through all of the levels, but I imagine by this point I could beat Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis in about an hour or an hour and a half if I weren't going for the Chaos Emeralds.

But other than that, I can't say I really speedrun anything or watch other people do it. I tend to play games at a pretty breakneck pace as it is, there don't seem to really be many suited for actual speedrunning being made anymore.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I only like them when they're unedited and NOT tool assisted.

This. Very much this. I understand "teamwork" but it doesn't count in my view as a true speedrun, rather as a demo on how to do one properly.
I remember the first time I came in contact with the concept of a speedrun was a mod for Quake that showed you the demo of the "fastest" run then let you test your mettle on nightmare. Damn that was hard as hell and I only got as far as the end of the first episode on Par.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I held the USA record for my speed run of Tales of Vesperia

I doubt it counts but every time there's an achievement for beating a game fast I get it so

Mirror's Edge
Portal
ICO HD
Blade Kitten
games like that.

I did it for Ratchet and Clank Going Commando

I did an "All Missions Speedrun" of Mass Effect in 4 hours
I did Bayonetta reasonably quickly but when I look at some of the Speed runs on line they put me to fucking shame.

I tried to prove that Halo 4 could be beaten in 5 hours and I did it in 3:39:26

Me and 3 friends did an Expert Realism marathon through Left 4 Dead 2 (Where we just ran and hardly shot anything at all until extraction) we made pretty good time there.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I'm not a big fan of Speed runs, but I am proud of successfully doing the Majora's Mask three day challenge. It's hard but possible, I did it without cheating or any tool assistance. The hardest part was getting to Epona on the first day, but after that if you know the game well enough, it's pretty doable.

 

[captainballsack]

I finished Fable 1 in 4 hours and 10 minutes the other day. I wasn't trying to "speedrun" it as much as I was seeing how far I could get in a short amount of time (there is a difference!). It was the first time I had played it in years.

I managed to get up to the Arena in less than an hour. The Arena quest pretty much took longer to do than I had hoped, and everything after that wasn't as quick as I wasn't as familiar with it. I think, now that I know everything again, if I sat down one day and tried to actually speedrun it, I think I could almost half my time. Probably not actually, but it would be considerably quicker; maybe 3 hours?

 

[Callie]

Only speedruns I have really went through are sonic and golden axe. While I enjoy watching others do speedruns I find that doing them myself isn't great as I like to delve into the story and not rush things, that's what good games are all about eh.

 

[endtherapture]

There's a speedrun of Morrowind on Youtube and it's like 4 minutes long.

 

[DoPo]

There's a speedrun of Morrowind on Youtube and it's like 4 minutes long.

Yes, this one.
Though technically slightly longer (if you count the character creation) but the gameplay is still short.

I must say, that's a new record I haven't seen - the last shortest speedrun I saw was I think about 6-7 minutes and the guy was abusing alchemy for it (which ate about a minute, perhaps), this one is abusing different stuff. Morrowind it's "Abuse of the System: the Game".

 

[Comocat]

Several years ago I had a month long hobby were I tried to see how fast I could beat Mario Bros (NES). My best times were under 10 minutes with no deaths.

 

[Lilani]

My only problem with speedruns is sometimes people do them "with assists," which from the way I understand is with the computer supplementing certain aspects of their gameplay, like jumping accuracy or things like that. To me that's cheating. What's so impressive about a speedrun is that the player is so familiar with the level that they know EXACTLY when end how to jump or do whatever. I once had somebody swear up and down to me that speedrunning with assists isn't cheating, but there's no way it isn't. If things are being done to make the run easier or to make your victory more certain, then it's cheating. No ifs, ands, or buts. Exploiting tricks or errors in the game is fine, but adding things that weren't originally a part of the game to make your life easier is cheating. Completing an impressive speedrun with assists is like completing an impressive marathon with a motor scooter.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't like them. They're missing the point.

 

[roushutsu]

I haven't tried doing a speed run myself, but I've seen a couple online, mostly platform or classic NES/SNES games. I think they're OK, not as entertaining as watching a full-blown Let's Play, but that's just me.