Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
What game characteristic makes it a best choice for making a good timeattack movie?
speed?
difficulty?
complexity?
popularity?
"ramdomness"?
variety?
use of glitches/secrets?
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
ok the question was not very good then, i meant "what makes a game more entertaining to watch?" hehe i'm gonna edit it. there
because if you base entertaining on "taste" it's a bit shallow isn't it? there can be something more solid there to define what games can be more entertaining to make a timeattack
but speed, difficulty, popularity etc. are factors that make a game entertaining. I know it doesn't sound objective, but there isn't just one factor that makes a game more entertaining than another. For example, Megaman isn't too random, or complex, but it is still entertaining to watch. It all depends on the game; your question seeks to generalize a subjective concept, so it is hard to answer.
Surprising creative solutions
Awesome skill and precision
Game famousness
These are some factors.
Speed is good, because it feeds the skill and precision and it should prevent the game becoming boring.
I particularly like movies that make me think "no way, no one could play like that" and "wow, how did he invent that".
Game famousness helps people understanding the game better (and thus appreciating the play better), and famous games are also often better than unknown games. They might have good control (allows more impressive maneuvers) and complex overall design (prevents the game becoming boring and repeative after the first level).
speed (gradius)
glitch exploitation (mega man 2)
bypassing seemingly necessary events/bosses (metroid, half life)
and good old fashioned ass kicking (RCR, battletoads)
I remember watching the smbj3 movie, and thinking "thats crazy!! How can anyone do this??"
Put me in that boat too... the super-humanness of some of the videos, SMB3, and my choice (LoZ) is awesome. I would never have thought <33 mins. runtime for that game was possible. Along those lines, there's a big difference from what people expect of these games depending on their genre. Imagine a RPG vs. a puzzle game like Arkanoid. I know that's not the best analogy, but I'd rather use that one than Tetris. People expect Arkanoid to be faster than thought humanly possible for a "speed run" or "timeattack". Therefore, I agree that all the points mentioned are part-in-parcel of the emergent property that is enjoyment. :)
I'd like to see more where all the secrets and glitches are exploited as well as all the items collected... Anyone want to do a 100% metroid run?
;)
Bri
I don't really understand 100% runs. Especially with Metroid. I don't care to see someone waste time getting items they will never use.
Though I would like to see a Metroid run that also kills Ridley.
I'm more impressed when the game is played flawlessly than when it's an actual speed run. What I mean is, it's more impressive to me if they don't get hit at all instead of getting hit because it'll save a second or two.
I'm also not too big on people exploiting glitches. It doesn't really matter, but I like to watch old NES games played to perfection, beginning to end, without someone doing something that makes me say "that was cheap."
You know what I mean? There's a difference between using a turbo control and save states than there is to following through the ground....
I'm more impressed when the game is played flawlessly than when it's an actual speed run. What I mean is, it's more impressive to me if they don't get hit at all instead of getting hit because it'll save a second or two.
I agree, but it don't make the games/runs with useful hits bad.
Some games also don't have useful hits, where they just make the player fall or slow.
Freaksh0w wrote:
I'm also not too big on people exploiting glitches. It doesn't really matter, but I like to watch old NES games played to perfection, beginning to end, without someone doing something that makes me say "that was cheap."
to me, glitchs is what is fun to watch. If you want to see the "normal" route I'd see a speedrun or play the game myself.
A time-attack without any glitchs or other fun stuff is simply not much fun for me.
I don't know. The glitches are kind of a mixed bag for me. At least for some speed runs. I guess I'm subjective depending on the situation. Just like how I feel about getting hit.
For example: In the Castlevania speed run, it was entertaining to me when he jumped and got hit by the flying Medusa head, which pushed him up onto the top ledge, saving him time from having to walk all the way to the right and then all the way back. So, I liked that.
However, things like the glitch in Megaman 2 where he gets stuck at the top of the screen and scrolls all the way through the stage, to me, is cheap.
I guess it just depends on the situation. As a general rule, I like watching the runs where it looks like a damn robot is playing the game because it's so flawless. When a run makes people say "this is fake, he must be cheating" those are usually the ones that I save and watch all the time.
I think the Megaman 2, Megaman 3 & Castlevania runs are my favorite thus far. All of them exploit things, but it doesn't take away from the overall movie.
However, things like the glitch in Megaman 2 where he gets stuck at the top of the screen and scrolls all the way through the stage, to me, is cheap.
Despite what it may seem, that kind of glitches are extremely difficult to perform. They requires high accuracy both positionwise and timewise. You can't miss by 1 pixel or even 1 frame in timing, because making a TINY mistake like that makes the whole trick ineffective, causing you to get either permanently stuck in the wall/ceiling or just go through it like nothing special was even supposed to happen.
Have you ever even tried the 5*pause+quick scrolling trick in the Bubbleman level of Rockman2? I have, and I have still not succeeded despite I understand technically how it's done.
I don't really care about the difficulty of things when I'm watching the movie though. It'd be different if I was trying to recreate the movies, but when watching them, that takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. I can't see how they handle areas compared to how I remember playing them. At least I can't when certain areas get skipped.
A lot of these movies, to me, bring back nostalgia. That's part of the reason why things like that are disappointing to me. It's almost like they aren't playing the game, but just looking for exploits so that they can run through the game in a way that it wasn't designed to be played.
That's your opinion, and mine is different. To me, it's just as entertaining, if not moreso, to watch people run through areas of games while making it look like it's not difficult at all. Take the Batman run for example. That game, to me, was extremely hard. Just watching him run and jump over enemies like they aren't even there is really entertaining to me. It's almost like the enemies that are non bosses don't matter at all and they are just there as an inconvience to slow him down. What about the areas where he just makes the jumps with the greastest of ease? Or when he dominated enemies with the boomerang? See, to me that's what's entertaining.
I think what my the problem with me is I'm not watching them as speed runs. I'm watching them as movies of really good players playing games of my childhood really well. I don't care how fast they beat the game, or if the newest run is ten time units faster than the previous version. I just want to watch the people dominate games that I used to think were really, really hard.
Look, I know that my opinion is in the minority. That's fine. I'm just voicing my opinion because it varies from a lot of other peoples opinion, and it could help add conversation. Maybe I'm looking for perfection runs instead of speed runs?
