Most impressive speedruns?

So everyone has seen Doom speedruns (if not, shame on you!) and a lot of you have likely seen Quake speedruns. I've watched a few others of games I grew up with, but now I'm bored. Have you guys seen any really insane speedruns? The kind that make you go, "Holy shit, this guy has probably done nothing else other than play this game for the last six months." I really like when a game is flexible enough to let the player really show off. So let's see 'em!

I've always been a fan of Symphony of the Night:

Fun seeing a game most people probably consider fairly long being completed in under 20 minutes through the use of skilled movement and complete abuse of the game's engine quirks.

I remember seeing something on tv where they had a guest who was the world record speedrunner for sonic 1. He was so fast the screen couldn't scroll fast enough to keep up with him.

40oz said:

I remember seeing something on tv where they had a guest who was the world record speedrunner for sonic 1. He was so fast the screen couldn't scroll fast enough to keep up with him.

That's pretty common. Supposedly the game was designed to be that way to make Sonic look even faster! Yet Mario still runs faster :-(

I was going to post Half-Life in half an hour, but this shaves off more than a third of that run's time:

Jedi Knight speedrun shows how to make the last few boss encounters very anticlimactic.

Commander keen introduced me to speedruns
I like commander keen 5 the most.

OMG look at all those exploited bugs in this one:

(This run already got its own thread on Doomworld, by the way.)

I've tried on and off for a very long time now to beat the world record speedrun in SMB1, but I think it's pretty much been done as fast as humanly possible. Check out this link and go to the Mario section, the fastest a computer can beat it is only one second faster than the current world record.

I've finished the game in just over 5 minutes, and that was by accident - I never knew you could go down the pipe in 4-2 and appear in the "Cloudy" warp zone if you go down it with absolute precision, I did it by mistake, but it caused me to get damn close to that world record time.

If I ever want to impress gaming buddies, I boot up SMB1. (Then I inevitably die by having Mario's pinky toe touch a koopa on world 8..)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdHjLjGqhBg

Gez said:

Jedi Knight speedrun shows how to make the last few boss encounters very anticlimactic.

I watched a speedrun of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which wasn't all that impressive, except that he was able to kill the final boss by directing him under a boulder that was supposed to crumble and seal the way back out the final arena, killing him instantly without having to fire a single bullet.

EDIT: here's a good one

The Half-Life run was pretty good.

Wow, Duke Nukem 3D is glitched the fuck out!

I watch so many runs on a daily basis that it all seems to bleed together enough that I'm having trouble remembering my favourites. I know one of the more recent ones I was impressed by was this:

New AGDQ in less then three weeks. Kind of excited.

You probably need to have played the game to appreciate what's going on.

How can people seriously not mention Super Mario 64: All 120 stars in 1:20?

This is literally more watchable than your typical 8/10 movie on IMDB.

That shit be tool assisted, bro.

geo said:

That's pretty common. Supposedly the game was designed to be that way to make Sonic look even faster! Yet Mario still runs faster :-(

It's subverted by Sonic CD which actually made the camera pull ahead when running, not fall behind. Because, you know, playability matters. It's worth noting that the Gamegear titles do the same, even when you're standing still.

Technician said:

That shit be tool assisted, bro.

Nothing wrong with TAS as far as I care. Though unlikely that a human being could ever pull off what tools can do, it's fair IMO as long as it's theoretically possible to send such input through a controller and the game itself is unmodified.

Of course, it should probably be divided into different tiers of what the controller is capable of, physically and digitally. For example, it's digitally possible to press up+down and left+right simultaneously on many game controllers, but physically impossible on an unmodified, undamaged official controller, and thus such exploits may not be "fair" because the game was designed with the assumption that such a button combo is impossible. Usually, d-pads are meant to rotate on a metal ball joint, but cheap 3rd party controllers forego this crucial item and feel like shit as a result.

What about doomworld.com/vb/post/640216]The Plutonia Experiment, all 30 levels (no secret levels), Nightmare Speed (demo also available at DSDA)? You can't beat that.

Grazza said:

lemmings

Man, I forgot how slow they are at building stairs.

Technician said:

That shit be tool assisted, bro.

Doesn't make it the tiniest bit unimpressive. But it's a different kind of talent. Legit speedrunners have incredible dexterity and skill, whereas TASers are some variety of innovative supergenius. It's like comparing great instrument players and singers to great composers and songwriters.

And speaking of TAS...

How many people have seen the ultra-secret pipe to the princess' room in SMB3's pipe world? I believe it was discovered just this year (too lazy to look that up).

In a weird kind of way, this secret actually makes some topographical sense. Pipe world is an overworld, and the dark world (being the one after) where the princess is held is presumably directly beneath it. So yeah, why not? Even dungeons need ventilation, right?

AndrewB said:

And speaking of TAS...

How many people have seen the ultra-secret pipe to the princess' room in SMB3's pipe world? I believe it was discovered just this year (too lazy to look that up).

VIDEO

In this case, the run is not much impressive at all, it's just the silliness of the bug and the fact that someone discovered it. But it is kind of interesting, surely.

Half-Life Mod : Case Closed,speedrun made by quadrazid and few guys played through v1.1.0.4 Before Rocket,Grenade,MP5 Jumping was removed ,he also used the mines trick to easily reach far places without need to climb obstacles (Ladders ...etc ) it's a cool speedrun though ...

Platinum Shell said:

I was going to post Half-Life in half an hour, but this shaves off more than a third of that run's time:

VIDEO

Attention,these are multiple runs recorded by different guys and combined in one video just as many other runs from "quadrazid"

The constant jumping in Half-Life runs is hilarious, even more so than in other games, when I imagine how much the game tried to appear as realistic. :)

scifista42 said:

The constant jumping in Half-Life runs is hilarious, even more so than in other games, when I imagine how much the game tried to appear as realistic. :)

As i said,the newest version removed all of these "Cheats" expecting the Gauss jumping ,as it doesn't affect the gameplay