Earlier this month we reported on Awesome Games Done Quick, a marathon in Maryland organised by speedrunning powerhouse Speed Demos Archive.
Over five days playing through a hundred games, SDA smashed their donations target to raise over $52,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. But you’re here to see Sonic, surely?
One top guy taking part was Joe Stanski, one of – or perhaps the – top Sonic 2 player on the net. He had a simple remit – plug the game into a Sega Genesis, and get through the game as fast as possible in one attempt. On the Player 2 side providing somewhat questionable (but capsule-hitting good) assistance was MercuryZelda, who “won” a donation battle against everyone else at the marathon.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”265″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBZMEJtRrRk#t=4m35s[/youtube]
Gameplay starts at 4:35.
Here’s the level results:
- Emerald Hill: 0:22, 0:39
- Chemical Plant: 0:24, 0:53 +0:10
- Aquatic Ruin: 0:23, 0:59
- Casino Night: 0:31, 1:12
- Hill Top: 0:44, 1:06
- Mystic Cave: 0:38, 0:47
- Oil Ocean: 0:42, 1:04
- Metropolis: 1:13, 0:20, 1:40 +1:23 🙁
- Sky Chase: 2:06
- Wing Fortress: 2:00
- Death Egg: 0:51
SDA are uploading all the game runs from AGDQ right now, at http://speeddemosarchive.com/marathon/schedule/, so check it out. There’s a number of good runs on there: Funkdoc’s demolition of the (S)NES Castlevania series; Kareshi taking on the ultra-hard Ghosts ‘n Goblins series; four people destroying four copies of Ocarina of Time; an Expert and Master mode run of Super Monkey Ball; Mike Uyama and Funkdoc one-credit clearing Streets of Rage 2 Mania with default lives…
Just… pretend Halo doesn’t exist.
Not the fastest but pretty darn fast. Hate it when people like them always say they did terrible or suck at a game just cuz they mess up even when their scew ups are still pro compared to most gamers. >.>
After watching this, I just realized that there wasn’t that much more or less platforming than in the Adventure series, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors. Awesome! Now I can feel a bit better about those games. =D
It’s a strange affliction. As a speedrunner myself – though not of Sonic games – when I stream my practicing on Ustream I find myself saying I’m doing bad or that I suck a lot. I think the bane of a speedrunner is a viewer that isn’t familiar with running that game and thinks that a mediocre attempt is really good; it’s almost like we’re obligated to let people know that what they just saw wasn’t as good – relatively speaking – as they think ;p
Of course, the top runs that you see on Youtube, SDA etc are typically the result of hundreds, sometimes even thousands of retries. It’s easy to forget just how much effort goes into making them. What makes good marathon performances like this so impressive is that you only get one take, which is really quite different to the cherry-picks you see on video sites.
I pretend Halo doesn’t exist every day.
One of the best Sonic players ever dies at 8:05? Oh dear.
Is the game bugged? I noticed some of the boss battle hits produces no flashy flashy effect, like nothing was happening.
That’s a side-effect of encoding the video at 30fps. Lots of old 2D games use a fake translucency/flashing effect by flashing one frame, showing the regular sprite the next. At 60fps it works, but if you record it at 30fps, you lose every second frame – so either you only see the flash, or you don’t see it at all.
i’d like to see that douche speed run Sonic 2 XL…