Thursday, March 30, 2006 by Radix and ballofsnow
Mana overload
Alex 'aresake' Eustis has submitted his first run for Starcraft: Brood War. He ran Zerg 6 "Fury of the Swarm" in 0:09:08, a whole 0:06:03 faster than the previous record from 6 months ago. The total Brood War time goes down from 3:41:53 to 3:35:50.
Saturday, March 25, 2006 by Radix
Attack of the deadly seaweed
There are three improvements on F-Zero X by Miguel Lefebvre. Mute City 2 is now 0:00:56.920, 0.611s faster; White Land 2 is 0:00:37.592, 0.184s faster and Big Hand is 0:01:47.864, 0.758 seconds faster.
Thursday, March 23, 2006 by Radix
Do you love your Katamaris?
There's one more new run on Mega Man: The Power Fighters, part of the Anniversary collection. Chris 'Satoryu' Kirk did the 'Recover the New Parts' scenario time as Bass in a time of 0:03:13.18. That's over 6 seconds faster than the previous fastest time on this scenario with a different character.
Next week I'll be starting a new job. Although it barely pays more per hour than the current job I have, it's a lot more time involved and more chance for higher pay and advancement without much delay, if they actually like me. Apparently I'm extremely high risk! Whether or not it will work I can't say yet, but I do know that I'll be online a lot less and have much less time for the site. I'll still work on it but I'll have even less tolerance for people who do things like contact me with "I did a speed run on X!" and then nothing else. Here's a hint: if I don't respond, it's because the only appropriate response would be "and...?" which I refuse to do. Tell me more information!!
Monday, March 20, 2006 by Radix
Go to the next room!
Friday, March 16, 2006 by Radix
Hell unleashed, yet again
Devin 'Mimir' Herron improved his run of Fallout for PC, almost exactly one year after his previous run. The new time of 0:09:19 is 0:01:58 faster than his previous run. There's nothing quite like seeing such a large RPG so quickly trounced. If only the ending made sense to someone who hasn't played the game! There's also a blooper file even less likely to be understood.
Tuesday, March 13, 2006 by Radix
Happy PI day
Americans might never have heard of Alien Soldier for Genesis, it was only released in Japan and Europe. Apparently copies of the cartridge are quite pricey, but that didn't stop Tyler 'MrMonkeyMan' Needham from doing some speed runs of this Contra-like game. Tyler did runs of both of the game's skill settings: "Super Easy" and "Super Hard". Why they didn't just call them Normal and Hard I'd like to know, but whatever. Tyler's Easy run is 0:11:37 and Hard is 0:12:40.
Thursday, March 9, 2006 by Radix
Sobbing all the way
Jose 'PiccoloCube' Karica improved two of his times for the F-Zero X 64DD expansion: Port Town 3 in 0:01:33.321, 1.349 seconds faster and Fire Field 2 in 0:01:23.154, 0.831 seconds faster.
Monday, March 6, 2006 by Radix
The return of dreamhost
Kevin 'clone rizzo' Horst submitted his first run, an improvement of the previous run of Baldur's Gate for PC. Julien Langer had done the run in a time of 0:36:47 and Kevin improved it down to 0:30:24 with two extra segments. Although I've been playing this game lately and have put probably 16 hours in, I'd just be spoiling a lot if I watched the run, so I still can't comment beyond that.
I have finally updated the Super Smash Bros. Melee Break the Targets section a bit. My table was rather horribly out of date for a few months now and, while it's still not quite done, I have updated with many newer times from Tom 'marth1' Radovich. Bowser, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Captain Falcon, Falco, Ness, Ice Climbers, Kirby, Samus, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo and Mr. Game & Watch have faster videos than before. I have included links to zip files of all characters for slightly easier downloading. I'm only doing that here because Btt videos are so short.
Sunday, March 5, 2006 by Radix
Offending the Apaches
Kevin 'Mitsukai' Shropshire did a run of the four-month old game Gun. This game is for all four current platforms (GCN, PS2, Xbox, PC) but also for the Xbox 360. Kevin plays the GameCube version but I always list such games as being for all systems they're on. However I'm not going to add Xbox 360 to the game list until someone does a game unique to that system. Kevin's time for his six segment run is 2:14:20.
Friday, March 3, 2006 by Radix
Foot chucking galore
There's a run of Pokémon Gold by James 'Brown Bomber' Bunkley. The run is in 13 segments and is a time of 4:15. It seems this game is the source of some confusion for someone working for Nintendo. Their own website lists it with the plain Game Boy games.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006 by Radix
αβγδε
Ted 'Ding Chavez' Broyles is a newcomer to speed runs. He's been working for some time on Metroid Prime and targetted the Single-segment 100% record. While he was trying, the time kept getting improved by Besmir Sheqi, but finally managed to get a 1:38, two minutes faster than Besmir. This time is just one minute shy of my old segmented run from November 2003 that led the way for this site's current growth.
Thursday, February 23, 2006 by Radix
Your money or your life?
Tuesday, February 21, 2006 by Radix
As opposite as the Shadows and the Vorlons
On the other end of the spectrum we have a run of a game by Disney: Disney's Aladdin for Super Nintendo. Philippe 'Suzaku' Henry did a run of this fun-loving game in 0:18:23. Can you take that much cutesy color in one sitting?
Monday, February 20, 2006 by Radix
President's day update!
In addition to his three individual level runs in the previous update, Philippe 'Suzaku' Henry also did a Single-segment run of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. His time of 0:24:23 is about three and a half minutes longer than the sum of all the individual level runs, but it's quite difficult to approach such optimizations in a single go at the game.
Sunday, February 19, 2006 by Radix
Teaser update
There are two improvements on the F-Zero X page, and they're actually on the original tracks for once, not the 64DD expansion. Dave Phaneuf did Port Town 2 in 0:01:20.076, 0.345 seconds faster than his previous, and Sector Beta in 0:01:09.537, 0.589 seconds faster than the previous time from 2001 by Jimmy K. Thai. This brings the total down to 0:26:25.632.
Bigger things coming in a day or two...
Tuesday, February 14, 2006 by Radix
Wartortle used Bubblebeam
Unfortunately everyone was using the dreamhosters links too much, or the site is just too popular or something. We pretty much used up our monthly allotment of bandwidth in just eight days, so no more until March 7th or so. There's a torrent link though... please seed!
Saturday, February 11, 2006 by Radix
Up Your Arsenal
Stefan van Dijke is still playing Metroid Prime for GameCube, but today it's not a whole game run, just the frigate escape. Nate once calculated the loading difference for the doors of the escape to be 4.65 seconds between the two versions, but that doesn't accommodate the time from scan dashes possible in the original NTSC version. Stefan has a time of 0:04:23.70 left when he finishes, 6.35 seconds less than the NTSC run.
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 by Radix
I just keep getting older
Alex 'AquaTiger' Nichols did a run of Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for PS2. I'm not sure what else to say about this except that it's 12 segments and gets a time of 1:43:37. The game has a timer which would make the run lower, but it's only visible on saving and loading so it gets ignored.
It's time for another 'shaky cam' Genesis run from Adrian 'InsipidMuckyWater' Feiertag. This time it's on Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention. Follow the chihuahua and cat on a 9 minute 2 second run through this game.
Tuesday, February 7, 2006 by Radix
Raiding those tombs
This update should have contained more but things keep breaking or going slow or I didn't feel like posting them yet.
Saturday, February 4, 2006 by Radix
Sextuple whammy
Peter 'Kibumbi' Knutsson did a run of Quake 4 on Private, the lowest skill, in 26 segments. The timing of a game like this which has such high cpu/gfx requirements that recording it really taxes your system should always be considered a "good faith" estimate more than any console game run. The time comes out to 2:09:54.
James 'Psychochild' Conway improved his run of Devil May Cry 3 for PS2. His previous run was a segmented 2:29:53 and the new one beats it by over 15 minutes and is Single-segment on top of that, getting 2:14:34. I heard that he also did a much improved segmented run but it seems he hasn't mailed it yet.
Astra 'StrangenessDSS' Piper did a Single-segment run of Yoshi's Story for N64. There was already a run but it was on the eu/PAL version, something I forgot to denote when it was posted. Astra's time is 0:16:48
Astra also did a run of The Lost Levels from Mario All-Stars for Super Nintendo. She plays as Luigi and gets a time of 0:17:25, 40 seconds faster than the Mario run by Tom Votava. Unfortunately the run contains a few deaths, proving just how fast Luigi can be I guess.
Another All-Stars run is on the souped-up Super Mario Bros. 3. David 'marshmallow' Gibbons set out to do a Single-segment 100% run, completing all stages, killing all the hammer brothers, etc. After a few weeks of continuous "one more time" attempts, he finally settled on a time of 1:24:07. A very impressive run indeed, but what happened during all those other attempts? Check the Bloopers + Credits file to see a few examples.
The final run from Tom 'rdrunner' Votava's big batch of tapes is finally getting posted. He did a run of Mission: Impossible for NES that proved to be impossible for people to beat. Apparently if you thought Battletoads was a hard game you were wrong: this one is much worse. It almost drove my co-worker insane (hi JP). It was finally a crazy Japanese guy who was able to finish the game to verify Tom's 0:30:59 run.
Friday, February 3, 2006 by Radix
Double-shot of Circle of the Moon
A lot more runs are already ready or will be ready tomorrow for posting this weekend, so expect a huge update... the timing of which will depend on when I get drunk for my birthday.
Saturday, January 28, 2006 by Radix
Dinosaurs, stealth and goblins, oh my!
Matt 'Solid Snake' Powell sent in a run for Metal Gear Solid for PlayStation on Extreme difficulty. We already had a run on this difficulty, but it was done on the European version which runs slow like many old games. Matt's run is 16 segments and gets a time of 1:54:02 compared to the 2:14:27 of the eu run. I'm not actually sure which one is a better run!
Julien Langer sent in an improvement to his run of Baldur's Gate for PC. The new time is 0:36:47 in four segments compared to 0:40:06 in 5 segments for the previous run. It looks like I'll finally get to play this game after all these years as I've borrowed it from a friend. The site is sure to suffer now! :-p
Tuesday, January 24, 2006 by Radix
One year of com-ship
On another note, it's been a year since SDA moved to its own .com domain. Exciting times!
Monday, January 23, 2006 by Radix
A pink-haired hammer-wielding hedgehog
Sunday, January 22, 2006 by Radix
Minor stuff
Jose 'PiccoloCube' Karica improved two tracks from F-Zero X 64DD. Big Blue 3 is now 0:01:46.637, 0.588 seconds faster and Devil's Forest 5 is 0:01:35.790, 1.664 seconds faster.
Even small updates like this are a lot of work. Meanwhile the runs keep pouring in, on games I've never even heard of before. Processing them is only going to get slower.
Thursday, January 19, 2006 by Radix
Fire Red runs (no, not pokémon)
Henk 'henkie196' Pietersen did a run of Red Faction for PC. The run was done in 30 segments but appended into one file, so everyone who can't figure out how to download lots of files at once with FTP can be happy. The time is 1:01:55.
Just a reminder that even if you've submitted a run to me before, please read the submit page before trying to submit something again. Some things have changed in the last year because submissions have increased. I still get people who say "i want to submit a run" and then nothing else on AIM. It's not my job to drag information out of you that you don't feel the need to tell me.
Saturday, January 14, 2006 by Radix
MMM good
Robert J. 'MyCatSucks' McLeod submitted his first run, and it's on the original Metroid for NES. He does the intended route, beating both Ridley and Kraid, and finishes in a time of 0:28:02. That's one minute and 8 seconds faster than the previous anonymous female runner. As with any Metroid run, it gets a little sloppy in Tourian, but it's practically impossible not to.
Friday, January 13, 2006 by Radix
Patricide and other fun stuff
First comes Castlevana II: Simon's Quest for NES. Daniel 'Kareshi' Brown did it for his first submission, and got a time of 0:48:45, one minute 13 seconds faster than the previous run from Tom Votava. There's a really embarrassing set of deaths at one point here that costs about 15 seconds.
Elsewhere on the Castlevania front, there's a significant improvement for Symphony of the Night for PlayStation. Adam 'Lucid Faia' Sweeney achieved a time of 0:43:51, a 12 minute improvement over Adam Grise, using several sequence breaks. The route in the first castle is quite crazy. I don't want to spoil too much but if you've played this game, you'll like it. Unfortunately the sound gets a little noisy/staticy about half way through the run. It was possibly caused by bad or loose cables on Adam's end, or minor damage on the tape itself.
Stefan van Dijke continues to take over the PAL / Euro section of Metroid Prime, although this time he's adding a new category. Everyone knows the low% run of Prime collects only 22% and the hardest item to skip is the boost ball. Did you know just how hard it is to do geothermal core though? It's so hard that when Stefan did a Single-segment 22% run, he took over 10 minutes of attempts to get into geo's bomb slot. If you just remove that, his 2:00 time looks quite good compared to the current record 1:48 for segmented! The problem with this run is that Stefan captured while playing and sometimes the picture freezes for up to three seconds. The sound continues without a problem so you can still tell what's going on, and it often happens during cutscenes or dull moments. I probably would've rejected it but Nate is giving it some slack given how hard of a run it is to do.
The final run in the update looks horrible. If it weren't done on Final Fantasy IV for Super Nintendo, where all of the important things take place in battles, and therefore look ok because there's little movement, I'd have definitely not accepted it based on the quality. When moving around on the overworld, it just looks horrible. I've now put up a notice on the submit page that self-encoded runs I don't find acceptable will be rejected. This is why I expect people to send me samples of runs before they encode them, but almost nobody listens. Well, if you fail to listen now, don't go crying when I reject your run. Anyway, the new ff2 run is by Kevin 'Enhasa' Juang in 3:56 and is an improvement over the previous run from Peter Tiernan. The amount of segments increases from 10 to 38, with Peter's long early segments being replaced by many short segments (not that there's anything wrong with that). Actually, if you already watched Peter's run, I'd only recommend getting a few segments from Kevin's. The major difference is that Kevin doesn't level up Cecil after he becomes a Paladin, so he's still level 1 for Baigan. Get part 16 to see that fight. I guess I've bashed on this run enough, it is 19 minutes better after all.
Thursday, January 12, 2006 by nate
RUCK ZUCK!
in other news, they weren't big fans of us seeding hella torrents over at dreamhost - you may have noticed that all our new torrents suddenly vanished yesterday. well, we're busily working on another way to utilize the new host that fits inside their terms of service, and we promise that the torrents and/or direct links to high speed downloads will return in the near future. until then ...
you're not working hard enough!! follow arthur's example and get those sonic runs in!!!
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 by Radix
It's Metroid Prime again
This update was to contain another run but the runner forgot to send me the completion date with his comments. Lots of people do that... it's annoying. Please don't annoy me.
Monday, January 9, 2006 by Radix
The taste-free greasy alternative
Remember, SDA accepts no responsibility for soiled underwear as a result of viewing this speed run.
Saturday, January 7, 2006 by Radix
Swing that axe
This project took a LONG time to finish: seven and a half years. Sure, it wasn't worked on every day, and for a while it seemed like it would never be finished. But here at last you can watch all 601 monsters face the wrath of quake guy's axe in 1:12:14, unless some die due to monster in-fighting, which is probably possible... I haven't watched it yet. Since most people reading this probably don't still have Quake installed (or maybe you never did!?), you'll want to download one of the two DivX avi versions.
For a little bit of non-Quake: Chris 'Satoryu' Kirk has done two more small runs on Mega Man: The Power Fighters in MMAC. He improved his 'Search for Wily' scenario Bass time by 29.60 seconds to get 0:04:30.95. Next he did the first run of the 'Rescue Roll' scenario as Bass, in a time of 0:03:45.90. This is slightly faster than the Protoman time on this scenario but significantly slower than the Megaman time.
Sunday, January 1, 2006 by nate
HAU RUCK!
even though i firmly believe in voluntarily sharing all relevant information with the community so that the community will produce ultimately superior runs, i have been keeping my sonic 2 runs a secret from everyone for the past six weeks. frustrated by the lethargic appearance of sonic runs here on the site, i tried several times over the past two years to put my underhyped and underappreciated sonic skills to work, but other things always got in the way ... until now.
i chose sonic 2 because it is the most widely-produced and widely-played sonic game, and i wanted to make the biggest splash in the community i could with the limited amount of time i have to put in. since i started my runs, other people have picked up some of the slack, and i like what i see ... but we can do more.
when you watch my runs, i want you to think about what you have to contribute to this site, and then i want you to follow through and make it happen. i want you to rip my times apart with the power of your focused rage. i want you to fill my mailbox with tapes of sonic runs, and i want you to fill the game list with all the sonic games you can. i want you to show the world what we are capable of. i want you to make this the year of sonic.
i want you.