Honestly, I don't watch the unassisted speedruns too often (downloading some-several-hundred-megabytes-but-still-crappy-encoded video for an hour of actual and-still-not-always-impressive gameplay is still a bit of pain in the ass for me), but recently I've stumbled upon that earth-shattering Half-Life 2 speedrun which totally owned everything I've ever thought about this game. It looked as good as if it was tool-assisted, and the amount of skill and precision for every single action simply astounded me (and that's what I really love to see in speedruns).
So, if there are some experienced people out there, what would you recommend me to watch next? %)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
'Quake done Quick with a vengeance' is completely mandatory for any speedrun fan. It blows your mind the first time you watch it.
The speedrun of Half-Life is cool too.
Doom and Doom2 have cool speedruns, even though there are so many versions with differing quality that it might be a bit hard to find the great ones.
the mario 64 run is very impressive. to know that is has been done without any tool, whereas it looks like it was, is simply awesome.
zelda minish cap looks very good too.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Seconded. The last 10 stars of the run were tool-assist worthy, if not better ;)
My favorites, in no particular order, include
1)Majora's Mask 100% (I downloaded it because I wanted to see the route, and I was left dumbfounded). It helped that there was a torrent up, and it was segmented.
2) Super Mario World; How can I not like a run of the game that got me into gaming, plus it's Mario
3) Mario 64 70 star run (nuff said)
4) Donkey Kong Country 2. This is the second speedrun I downloaded. Despite that one undeserved death, it is still perfect in my mind.
5) Zelda sub 5, which will soon be sub 4, or sub 3
6) Zelda, Link to the Past. Impressive run of one of the best games of all time
7) Mario Bros 2, because everyone likes Wart, and I like the almost flawless run
8) Snapdragon's DKC1 run :).
I probably missed other deserving runs.
Edit, this came to my attention:
Deviance?
Still at National Chess competitions?
Too bad I don't really like Mario and Zelda games much. :D
But thanks anyway, I'll definitely check them sooner or later.
BTW, what about other PC engine games aside from Doom/Quake? Halo, maybe?..
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
BTW, what about other PC engine games aside from Doom/Quake? Halo, maybe?..
There are level speedruns for Halo and Halo 2 on Xbox:
http://highspeedhalo.net/
The Halo 1 legendary level runs are some of the best speedruns on the site. They are recommended for first-time viewers.
Favorite level speedrun is Truth and Reconciliation legendary in 16:51.
Barring Halo, I really don't have any other favorites. Then again, I don't watch a lot of speedruns.
My favorite speedruns are the Goldeneye 007 individual levels, the various Quake done Quick projects, the individual tracks from any of the Mario Kart games, the individual levels from Diddy Kong Racing, and the Starcraft/Brood War campaign missions. It wasn't that hard for me to choose my 'favorites' because these are the only ones I've even seen :P
Unassisted? Good question, but I've long been a fan of demos of certain DOOM levels (Plutonia MAP32, Hell Revealed MAP24, Scythe MAP26 and so on), so I'd say Huy Pham's sc26-251 is a hot contender. ^^
I just love that kind of action.
Im not very happy about saying this, but my favorite speedrun is trevors MM1 in 24:00.
I only like speedruns of games that i try to beat fast myself. and of course, MM1 was and still is my main game to speedrun.
My two other favorites are:
Battletoads in Battlemaniacs in 21:29 by Myself
and
Nes Battletoads by foda. (unofficial)
"Im not very happy about saying this, but my favorite speedrun is trevors MM1 in 24:00."
I was very impressed with his run. I think trevor takes speedrunning to the next level like me. He tries to perfect things before submitting them. I do not play megaman too much, but watching it I can see almost no mistakes, besides getting hit a couple times... all in all it's incredible I mean its 24:00 long with barely any mistakes. same goes for his tied smb1 record with me and his RE4 run. very good gamer.
Anyone like the lost levels speedruns? they were entertaining, but in my opinion poorly played. I'm working on this right now. I think my mario run should beat the current luigi time by a minute hopefully. I haven't working on a luigi run yet... but i'm sure it'll probably be at least 30 seconds better than my mario run.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
I meant that I try to perfect speedruns almost as best as they can be before submitting runs.
TAS runs in general do actually take runs to the NEXT level. Wish i could make one, but maybe not... I prefer to play the game. although it is great entertainment as a finished product.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
sorry, i guess i phrased that kind of wrong. yes, a lot of speedrunners are like that. Probably most speedrunners, but i do not realize how much time they have spent on a run. some people spend a lot of time on a run, but it still turns out only decent probably because they give up eventually.
yeah, some of the speedruns on SDA are just incredible, like the 70 star sm64 run. that takes soo much time. I'm just the kind of guy that even if i do a near perfect speedrun, I still keep practicing until I improve it, making it pretty much 100% unbeatable. I really hate the luck factor in speedrunning, it's a lot of which holds me back from having better runs.
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
I'm just the kind of guy that even if i do a near perfect speedrun, I still keep practicing until I improve it, making it pretty much 100% unbeatable.
That's the only right way, IMO. There's not much sense in making an utterly improvable run, if you know it can be beaten by a person of the same skill. If you make your run almost unimprovable (within the usual leeway, of course), it's more impressive to watch (not being an incremental update/usual mistake correction) and it inspires the other contenders to search for revolutionary shortcuts rather than just try to repeat your run with a bit more precision. I honestly respect such runners very much, the results of their work always bear a mark of their skill (and are always pleasant to watch).
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
