The Star Fox games have been receiving some attention recently and we are now able to bring you seven separate runs on the different paths that can be taken through the original Super Nintendo game, both with and without warps, and including the "slot machine" ending. I won't clutter up this news post with details other than to tell you that these runs finish with times between 0:13:11 and 0:31:53 are all the work of Nicholas 'Sir VG' Hoppe.

There is already a comprehensive collection of individual-level runs on Nintendo 64 destruction orgy Blast Corps - the existing runs were apparently quite useful in the production of this new single segment 0:57:12 by Stefan Mahrla on the predictably slower European version.

Next up is a run on the sequel to isometric PC classic Little Big Adventure: Little Big Adventure 2: Twinsen's Odyssey has been rushed through in 1:21:29 by Daniel 'CannibalK9' Burns. This contribution was performed across 9 segments and abuses death to save time. Daniel used a patch to enable the game to be run on modern machines, but it is not believed to affect gameplay significantly. Segments 4-6 of this run are very short owing to flagrant luck manipulation !

Finally, Mark 'Allantois' Freyenberger has greased his way through Oddworld game Abe's Oddysee for the PC in 0:56:42 over 10 segments.

Peter 'Kibumbi' Knutsson is treating us with his "last" run of Quake 4. His previous run has had about 16 and a half minutes chopped off to yield a new time of 1:46:06, on Private skill the same as before. Be sure to read his comments for the reason for today's news subject.

I've no idea how many Batman games have been released on assorted systems over the years - I've played three on 8-bit CPUs alone - but the one on which we bring you a run today must surely have been among the earliest. This is a 0:13:05 dash through the NES release by Daniel L. Henry. Daniel is unlucky in a few places and dies once, but for the most part it's good old-fashioned walljumping nonchalance. Mike Uyama adores NES games because they're quick and painless to process ...

Another individual-level spreadsheet joined my rapidly swelling collection today: Stepping up to accompany the incumbent single-segment run on Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal comes a set of individual-level performances on the Qwark Vidcomics section of this title. Sam 'TeNFoLD' Blair has run all five vidcomics; his times sum to 0:10:11. As usual, please consult the table on the game page for the full details.

Patrick W. Weisgerber has gone postal in Paradise. To be more specific, he's stormed through PC release Postal² in 1:06:28 across 8 segments with guns ablaze - I'm afraid it's not SDA policy to track body count, so you'll have to tot that up for yourselves.

Finally, please bear in mind that with the holiday season fast approaching there is likely to be a decrease in the rate at which runs go up over the next few weeks. Thanks.

three weeks short of a year ago, i called on you to run sonic games. i offered up the new sonic 2 individual-level table, every run in it lovingly crafted by yours truly, and i implored you to build on my times. i said i was prepared to wait no longer for sonic runs worthy of the speed demos archive name.

today, my wait is finally over.

0:20:02 seems quite appropriate to me—the time is symmetrical, like seeing oneself in a mirror. it represents a community working together through one person to achieve something truly over-the-top. it represents an unparalleled event available to everyone in the highest possible quality—completely free of charge. and it represents dedication of the kind money could never buy.

the man behind this feat is, of course, joe stanski, 30 september's "rising star" and today's virtually unchallenged sonic 2 dominator. this time he brings us—in addition to his 0:20:02 single-segment—no fewer than seven individual-level improvements, and all but one (mystic cave zone, act 2) are in pristine dvd quality:

• chemical plant zone, act 1 in 0:00:23,
• chemical plant zone, act 2 in 0:00:40 (breathtaking),
• aquatic ruin zone, act 2 in 0:00:39 (don't miss this one!),
• casino night zone, act 1 in 0:00:28,
• mystic cave zone, act 2 in 0:00:45,
• metropolis zone, act 2 in 0:01:03 and
• metropolis zone, act 3 in 0:01:39.

his new times bring the individual-level total down to 0:17:46, an overall improvement of 0:00:41. in addition, he has redone aquatic ruin zone, act 1 (again 0:00:23) in dvd quality, and i have redone my only remaining time in the table, emerald hill zone, act 1 (again 0:00:20) in h.264 mpeg-4 and embedded flash versions for voluntary promotional purposes.

work continues on the less famous sonic games as i write this, and i am sure that this update represents only the beginning of a proud tradition of sonic running here at sda.

will you be the next joe stanski?

Congratulations to Josh 'rashreflection' Ballard on improving his own PlayStation Valkyrie Profile single-segment easy mode B ending run. Josh has busted loose with some new strategies to knock eight minutes off his original 1:03 that was posted a month ago. Those good at arithmetic will already realise that his new time is 0:55. We asked for a "significant improvement", and we got one !

Taking the first faltering step on the long and winding road to the 400th title here listed, game number 301 is Syphon Filter for the PlayStation. This 20-segment 1:14:27 contribution by Aaron Haynes was completed on 06/06/06 ... I'm afraid we can accept no responsibility for demonic possession resulting from downloading this video.

Lastly, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure for the Genesis has been rushed through on hard mode by Tommy Montgomery. He managed to achieve a time of 0:18:12.

There are two new runs on Zelda 2, The Adventure of Link for NES. The runs are by Kristian Emanuelsen on the European version, which runs at the requisite 5/6th the speed of the intended speed of the NTSC version. The surprising thing though is that in the standard category of "with Up+A warping and death abuse", Kristian gets a time of 1:10:26 which is almost two minutes faster than the NTSC run by Scott Kessler. Of course, Scott's run is over two years old, and Kristian does things like skipping the candle and only getting the required four magic spells, so it's no surprise really. Kristian's other run is a "New Game +" which comes out to a time of 0:46:35, and this is slower than a more recent NTSC run by Tommy Montgomery.

Contra pretty much begat the gun 'n' run genre and is quite possibly responsible for more smashed NES controllers than any other game. This low% 0:13:24 by Ray 'Croc Doc' Cullen is two and a half minutes slower than its any% equivalent ... but hey, collecting items is for wimps !

At the crazy rate at which we've been posting runs recently, it was fairly inevitable that the three hundredth game would be listed on SDA sooner or later. This update consists of three new games, so as Radix did for game 200, you can choose which one corresponds to the magic number - personally I'm picking Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, simply because the video started with a title screen; the others didn't. Owing to the substantial potential for glitch exploitation on this game, we will be listing glitched and glitchless runs as two separate categories. Aleš 'Ewil' Horák's 48-segment glitched run on the PC version was painstakingly timed by Mike at 2:48:51.

Candidate number two is a game that was released in Europe but not in the US - this should happen more often ! Terranigma for the Super Nintendo appears to be typical Enix fare and has been sped through by Alex 'Madzombie' McIver in 4:48 over 19 segments.

Andres 'Mad Andy' Montalbetti might be accused of hogging the limelight with his third run in four updates (nothing wrong with that). He brings us a 30-segment run on PC Fur Fighters, the cuter shooter, in 3:01:58.

Joe Stanski kicks us off for December with a four-second improvement to Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Wing Fortress Zone. His new 0:01:54 from October beats Phillipe 'Suzaku' Henry's older 0:01:58. The total individual-level time has fallen from 0:18:31 to 0:18:27. Go Joe !

I'm pleased to see original Game Boy flagship release Super Mario Land finally hit SDA's hard drives, as my former brat self spent many a satisfying hour in the back of the car playing it. This 0:14:25 run by Martin Hauer is solid, although he remarks in his comments that he could have been a bit less cautious; Mike and I agreed that he might have taken damage to save time a bit more often. There's also a nasty mistake in 3-3, but overall it's a pretty good effort, worth a watch, and provides an appealing target for someone to try to beat.

Andres 'Mad Andy' Montalbetti is right back in the headlines - having clambered back out of the rabbit hole he's charged through PC shooter-puzzler hybrid MDK2 on easy mode in 1:24:48 with a segment count of 49.

Several people got in touch to suggest that we made a mistake by replacing Brandon '19Duke84' Armstrong's Silent Hill 2 0:06:32 Maria's quest run with the 0:06:29 we posted on the 21st. Mike has watched both runs and agrees with the assertion that they are pretty much equivalent in play quality, so we can only assume that there's some minor difference between the in-game timers on the PC and console versions of this game. If anyone can provide any further details we'd love to hear them, but for now we've decided to resurrect the older run and just list console and PC runs separately. We offer our apologies for any confusion this might have caused.

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." Andres 'Mad Andy' Montalbetti ignored the King's sage advice by continuing to improve his own runs on PC American McGee's Alice. His old 0:48:19 easy skill run has been replaced by a 0:42:35 in 46 segments, and the old hard skill run in 1:01:10 has been made obsolete by a harder yet much faster nightmare skill contribution in 0:47:52 across 57 segments. There is a slight continuity error in the easy skill run but the verifiers and Mike agreed that it was not sufficiently significant to warrant a rejection. These runs feature cunning trickery aplenty, including some clever damage boosting and liberal bunny hopping, although I'd expect it to be called "hare-hopping" for this title. As this is a PC game, there are also demo files available for both runs at archive. Andres may be grinning like a Cheshire cat but I wasn't when I found out that the videos had been uploaded with PCM audio instead of MP3, necessitating a tedious correction process mitigated only by the ever-wonderful video Swiss army knife that is ffmpeg. Off with his head !

Finally, a new single-segment any% joins the existing 100% on Mega Man X8, played on the PC version this time. Patrik 'Cremator' Salonen has made this game his own in 1:16. At D1 F1 PAL DVD capture and using the mvbob() deinterlacer, Nate feels that the IQ version of this run is among the highest quality videos on the site ! Apparently it took him two days to make each of the HQ and IQ (yeah, Nate made me add that part - at gunpoint).

Once more I fall victim to "polyrun queue creep", the phenomenon by which I list the files comprising a run on dreamhost and discover that I have to do three times the amount of work I was expecting. Brett 'Psonar' Ables brings us not one, not two, but three runs on Star Fox 64. For starters he beat Mike 'TSA' Damiani's old 0:27:29 pure speed run with his own 0:25:45. He has also added two new categories to this game: An Expert mode redline route (i.e. staying on the hard path for the whole game) completion in 0:35:35, and a single-segment, 100% expert mode run in 1:24:52. The "single-segment" tag here is a little strange because collecting all medals using the fastest possible route requires the console to be reset twice, but nevertheless this was a feat achieved in one sitting and this fact has been recognised.

In the five weeks I've been handling virtually everything in Ready to update we have managed to clear a lot of older runs from the queue, but I think today's second sacrifice to the speed run gods breaks some sort of endurance record; the end of last month marked the first anniversary of its completion. Adrian 'InsipidMuckyWater' Feiertag is a runner who has been something of a fixture in the news recently, and he has kicked Beavis and Butthead's asses, propelling the disgusting delinquents through their Genesis spinoff in 0:12:41. Adrian should be a happy lad today, as he's apparently also been looking forward to the Star Fox runs above, so expect him to be pulling his T-shirt over his head and strutting about with his hands aloft. Bungholio.

Aurélien 'slade' Pilet has comprehensively demolished the previous time for PlayStation Metal Gear Solid's Extreme difficulty on the European version of the game. Not only that, but it's been done single-segment, when the old record was a six-segment affair. The final accolade is that the two-hour mark has been broken with a run that was practised for a year before completion. 1:59:46 replaces 2:14:27. Mike would like everyone to know that he loves in-game timers.

The other feature we have for you today is a Maria's quest effort on PC Silent Hill 2 on Hard mode. Adam 'Introverder' Titowicz kept matching the PS2 record of 0:06:32 until hard work paid off and eventually he achieved this 0:06:29.

During the the summer I worked on a speed run which you won't find on SDA because it violates Radix's out-of-bounds rule. However one thing I wanted to do with the run was to record and insert a second audio track containing spoken commentary, because I believed it would increase the depth and watchability of my videos by an order of magnitude. As it turned out, I wasn't the only one pursuing this goal.

Nate introduced me to a guy called Michael 'sternn' McEnroe via IRC who was also trying to sort out a commentary track for his PS2 Devil May Cry attempt; according to Mike (Uyama) this is a superb speed run, one in whose presence I am apparently blessed - 100% on "Dante Must Die!" skill across 15 segments in 1:35:34 speaks for itself. Michael and I both achieved our goal of dual track audio, but there were some caveats; if you want to listen to commentary on this run you'll need to keep reading.

I chatted to 'sternn' for a little while and he shared with me his experiences of trying to multiplex two audio tracks into the MP4 container format. It seemed that Quicktime's apparently non-negotiable default setting was to play both audio tracks at the same time. I was having no better luck with the AVI container that I had been intending to use for my dual-audio videos. Windows Media Player suffered from exactly the same ridiculous both-tracks-at-once problem when confronted with dual audio AVI.

In the end we both plumped for a similar solution, which was to use the Matroska "mkv" video container format - an open source creation which was built from the ground up to accommodate many modern features, one of them being multitrack audio. The problem with Matroska is that it is poorly supported by the major vendors. This prolonged rant leads me to the following conclusions:

• We cannot support Matroska video here on SDA because, quite apart from the fact that we're making between five and seven versions already, the installed base support for playback is not large enough. This run has no less than ten versions: single audio, low/normal quality DivX AVI; single audio, low/normal/high/insane quality H.264 MPEG-4; and dual audio low/normal/high/insane quality H.264 Matroska.
• The dual-audio .mkv versions of Michael's run are not linked from SDA but we have dutifully uploaded them to archive.org. You can get hold of the .mkv files at archive via HTTP here or FTP here. We will not support any problems you have with these videos.
• By far the simplest and most reliable way to play back the Matroska files is to use VLC Player (go audio menu -> audio track -> 2). If you are determined to use Windows Media Player you can try experimenting with the Haali media splitter.

It would be really advantageous if major software vendors and the open source community could stop waving software patents in each other's faces and actually standardise upon and coherently implement some sort of dual-audio container. Then we might not have to upload ten freaking versions of a single run.

Joe Wiewel can't get enough when it comes to big hairy gorillas. He also likes beavers - giant beavers. Throw in some exploding oranges and what do you get? Donkey Kong 64 of course. Joe did his second run through this game, but this time he went for a 100% completion. With its fair share of death abuse, and 14 segments total, the run clocks in at 9:02.

Now wait just a minute you say, that time is waaaaaay higher than the limit listed in the FAQ, how could I possibly post this? Well, we already have a 4:36 run on this game. This 100% is almost exactly twice the length. The limit in question was designed for 'default' runs, but this doesn't mean you can take a game that can be completed in 5-7 hours and do a 100% run that takes 20+ hours! I dont know what the limit might be, but let's just say that this one maybe only got posted cuz I like the game mmmmkay?

As for the performance of the run, it's pretty good in most places despite Joe's inability to try a segment again. There's a lot of spots that make you cringe though. Not restarting earlier on clearly failed attempts at Beaver Bother. Playing the worst game(s) of Donkey Kong arcade you've EVER seen. Having a few cases of forgetting what kong to select next and where to go with them. But adding all those up, I don't think it's much more than 2% of the run's total time, so enjoy it if you can.

First of all, another correction. The time for the Zen: Intergalactic Ninja run in the previous update should have been 0:19:20, not 0:20:35. Many apologies go to 'InsipidMuckyWater' for the goof. This has been fixed in Thursday's news.

Back to business. We bring you three improvements to Max Payne 2 PC individual-level times courtesy of Tomi 'sarou' Salo. 1-6 (Mona's Funhouse) has been improved by 2 seconds from 0:01:38 to 0:01:36, and there have been revisions on 3-3 (Slum Neighbourhood) in both "shortcut" (i.e. using the "super jump" glitch) and non-shortcut categories. For the non-shortcut category, the time has fallen by a massive 31 seconds from 0:00:48 to 0:00:17, and for the shortcut category the saving was 9 seconds, the time decreasing from 0:00:19 to 0:00:10. The overall improvements, then: shortcut category - 0:24:44 becomes 0:24:33, an 11 second decrease; non-shortcut category - 0:28:47 becomes 0:28:14, a 33 second decrease. Please note that at the current time the Europe archive FTP link will not contain the updated files yet, so if you want to use an FTP listing to access the files, please use the US one.

Three more new additions.

We seem to have been posting a lot of RPG runs recently, and today is no exception, as we bring you more Squaresoft shenanigans courtesy of John 'chessjerk' Kearsley IV. John's 21 segment run on Final Fantasy Tactics for the PlayStation was completed a month ago and finishes with a time of 5:19.

Erik 'Goggen' Krug Aase's comments for his run on Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb are gargantuan - they remind me of Radix's room-by-room discourse for his Metroid Prime 100% 1:37, the game which started the "other" section at Speed Demos Archive. Erik's run is equal parts zip and whip as he hurriedly ushers the swashbuckling archaeologist through this PC release in 1:46:43 across 58 segments. Pretty speedy work - Lara Croft would still be stuck in traffic somewhere near Oxford. There are some cutscene videos included with this run that are not part of the run itself - we're not linking to those from SDA, but they are up at archive if you want to watch them.

Finally, there comes another effort from Adrian 'InsipidMuckyWater' Feiertag. Adrian admits to buying NES comic-book tie-in Zen: Intergalactic Ninja solely for the purposes of running it, and according to his comments, the whole thing was done through a DVD recorder exhibiting video lag, which should probably earn him some bonus points. The time ? 0:19:20.

One other thing - a correction. 'groobo' queried a level timing in yesterday's Lego Star Wars update, and as a result we have revised e3c3 from 0:01:28 to 0:01:26 and his total time to 0:55:23. This has also been changed in yesterday's news.

Lego Star Wars is one of those game concepts that sounds like marketing Seppuku but actually proved to be a highly enjoyable and delightfully irreverent romp through Star Wars canon. Maciej 'groobo' Maselewski returns with a set of individual-level performances on the PC version of this game; his level times sum to 0:55:23.

Asa 'spikevegeta' Tims today unveils the final revision of a run that started off with a time of six hours. The run was retooled for two months before we eventually got our sweaty hands on this 5:06 eight-segment-plus-ending completion of PS2 Kingdom Hearts II on Beginner mode. Enjoy !

Katamari Day rolls around again, and I'm pleased to announce there's been some serious angular velocity picked up on both PS2 titles.

First, the hors d'œuvres. Tom 'slowbro' Batchelor has completed a single-segment 0:30:26 on Katamari Damacy, which should provide some company for his existing single-segment on its sequel. He has contributed four improvements to individual levels on this game too, chopping a 0:02:43 chunk from the total IL time:

• Star 4: improved by 28 seconds from 0:02:24 to 0:01:56;
• Star 5: improved by 13 seconds from 0:02:48 to 0:02:35;
• Star 7: improved by 40 seconds from 0:03:28 to 0:02:48;
• Star 8: improved by 82 seconds from 0:06:00 to 0:04:38.

Tom has also produced a run on one of the bonus levels, effectively achieving 100% on Make Taurus by collecting the Holy Cow in 0:03:18. I've listed this in the table, but unless we get runs on all the bonus levels this won't be included in the total time, which for now remains the sum of the "main" star/moon level times only.

Now comes the main course. There have been no less than twenty-three improvements to individual level times on We ♥ Katamari by the crack quartet of Tom; Maria 'The Prince's Bride' Risher; Stephen 'yoshifan' Chan and Matt 'matthew69' DeMoss. In fact, of the 26 levels listed on this game, only three have survived the hurricane of this update. I was considering listing all the improvements here, but it would have swelled this news update beyond critical mass and the entire universe would have imploded as a result, so check out this text file for the scoop. The total individual-level improvement on this game clocks in at 0:07:18. Since nearly all the old levels were beaten, I decided there was a requirement for some ZIP file action, so you can download all the We ♥ Katamari individual levels (whether new in this update or not) as normal quality DivX AVI here.

Erik 'fluffy kitten' Beisick has added another GameCube game to the list, rounding off the Sands of Time trilogy with a 100% hard mode run on Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Of course, some of us still remember the two original 16-bit Prince of Persia games ... how about a run on one of those some day ? You can skip the sword in the original ! Anyway, Erik's 19-segment sprint finished with a time of 2:38:07.

Next up we have Wesley 'Molotov' Corron destroying his old GBA Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones run by over fifty minutes - just the sort of thing we want to see ! He took the Eirika route this time and bent the game's random number generator to his will, getting 1:37:56 across 26 segments. Since this run beat the old one so comprehensively and was produced by the same runner, we have decided to unlist the old Ephraim run; you can of course still get hold of it at archive if you really want to.

A quick note from Mike: he would like verifiers to know that he appreciates all offers but that there will be a delay between a run being posted as requiring verification and the verifier copies of the videos actually becoming available. Don't expect a response until Mike and Nate have the videos ready. Patience !

Two new additions in today's update ... a pair of games that were released nineteen years apart.

Pick of the week for me is this NES Ghosts 'n Goblins effort, a game so fiendishly difficult that mere mortals would struggle simply to complete it. Daniel 'Kareshi' Brown almost buys the farm half a dozen times and is forced to improvise heavily during the course of his 0:22:56. The run also boasts some neat damage boosting and represents an all-round nerves-of-steel performance which Mike, Nate and I thoroughly enjoyed.

Hot on the heels of the first PSP videos, we bring you the first Xbox 360 run to hit SDA's shores - completed back in April, it has finally wheezed its way to the top of the queue. Adrian 'InsipidMuckyWater' Feiertag has burned through Condemned: Criminal Origins in ten segments and achieved 1:56:25 for his troubles - and if you're a fan of verbose comments, Adrian's near-dissertation on this run is sure not to disappoint.

Joe Stanski is back with yet more Sonic the Hedgehog 2 individual-level mayhem, exploiting new glitches which have allowed him to subtract a whopping 70 seconds from the total. Consult the table for the full story, but here are the spoilers:

• Chemical Plant Zone, Act 2: improved by 21 seconds from 0:01:03 to 0:00:42;
• Aquatic Ruin Zone, Act 2: improved by 2 seconds from 0:00:45 to 0:00:43;
• Hill Top Zone, Act 1: improved by 7 seconds from 0:00:50 to 0:00:43;
• Hill Top Zone, Act 2: improved by 5 seconds from 0:01:07 to 0:01:02;
• Mystic Cave Zone, Act 1: improved by 6 seconds from 0:00:40 to 0:00:34;
• Metropolis Zone, Act 3: improved by 29 seconds from 0:02:20 to 0:01:51.

In other news, our first PSP run goes up today, captured using the Innovation PSP TV adaptor. Chris 'Satoryu' Kirk has greased his way through Mega Man Powered Up, the remake / update to the original Mega Man. The result is two single-segment "good ending" runs: a 0:22:20.48 as Mega Man and a 0:24:07.67 as Protoman.

Also new to SDA, cult PlayStation platforming RPG Valkyrie Profile gets the single-segment treatment tonight courtesy of Josh 'rashreflection' Ballard. This default "B" ending run was planned for over a year, with dozens of route changes, and it shows. The game was timed by looking at the in-game timer just before the final boss and then adding on a manually timed start-of-control to loss-of-control final boss fight, Radix-style. Since we cannot guarantee future runners will necessarily pop up the menu screen directly before the final boss, and because we would wish any improvement to this game to be "significant", we have decided to drop the seconds from the in-game timer and just list this excellent run as 1:03.

Nicolas 'Neth' Kopp has published this Easy Mode 1:03:16 run on PC horror shooter Clive Barker's Undying - but we came very close to rejecting it. Why, you ask ? The reason is that the encodes all used crazy bitrates and resolutions. Normal quality was 512x384 at roughly 1024 kilobaud when it should have been 320x240 at 512 kilobaud. Low quality was the correct 320x240 resolution but at a whopping 700 kilobaud instead of 128. We discussed nuking the run for a while but in the end Nate decided to derive a new low quality version at the correct bitrate, and we substituted the provided "low quality" for normal quality, which gave us something at least approaching spec.

One of the reasons we took mercy on this run is because it predates the SDA knowledge base. By far the best way to get your run encoded correctly is to send it to Nate on VHS or DVD (although remember that Nate is still on schedule to stop providing VHS capture services in approximately eight months from now). If you insist on doing your own encodes (usually because you are playing a PC title), be sure to read the KB, and if you are even slightly unsure about what you are doing, to post samples of your encodes plus any questions you might have in the Tech Support forum. With the release of the KB it is becoming increasingly likely that we will reject unsuitably encoded runs out-of-hand.

I'm also going to reiterate that it would make our lives several times easier if runners could include a title screen at the start of their runs so we can framegrab it for the game pages. There have been two cases recently where I have had to acquire a copy of a game purely for the purposes of capturing its title screen. This is not always the runner's fault, of course, but if the game is new to SDA and your run video does not include a title screen, please consider supplying a separate clip of video that does - it really would help.

Thanks for reading, and keep the runs coming !

Bouncers, eh ? Always throwing you out for not wearing the right cufflinks. Arthur 'MatrixTN' Boelter must enjoy forcibly refusing entry, if this triple whammy on predictably-named PS2 title The Bouncer is anything to go by. 'MatrixTN' has played as all three characters on this game, and his times exhibit an uncanny symmetry: single-segment 0:19 as Kou; single-segment 0:19 as Sion; and single-segment 0:19 as Volt.

I'm not quite so old as to have been alive when Hendrix was at the peak of his powers and the Soviet Union firmly held the lead in the space race, but if, like me, you have a certain fondness for 1960s kitsch, you might do well to check out today's feature presentation. Ulf 'HidoiMidoriRyuu' Strömberg has produced this 1:39:30 run on Bond-inspired female-fronted PC spy shooter No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way. Not only is the setting somewhat retro, but also the run itself, being as it was completed back in January of this year.

I thought it would be appropriate to let all you little speed run vampires get your teeth into something with a spectral theme this Halloween. James 'Psychochild' Conway currently holds the single-segment record for PS2 flagship title Devil May Cry 3, but apparently he's not satisfied with that - and we wicked types at SDA adore dissatisfaction, because it usually leads to more speed runs. 'Psychochild' has taken full advantage of the release of the Special Edition of this game - one which introduces a number of new play modes - to conjure up two magical items from his bubbling cauldron.

The first is this 1:40:07 Hard Mode run as the antagonist, Vergil, who was added to the Special Edition as a playable character. The second run is billed by James as a (and you might want to read this twice) 'Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition Segmented Heaven or Hell Any Percent Turbo Mode Gold Orb Fresh Super Dante Speed Run' (sic), although we're going with the slightly punchier incantation 'Turbo, Heaven or Hell Mode as Super Dante'. Those unfamiliar with the meaning of all these arcane magic words would do well to read the comments for this run, but to start you off: Turbo mode is 20 percent faster, and Heaven or Hell difficulty means that one hit kills anything ... including the player. Don't worry - squabbling over the precise categorisation is our job; yours is simply to watch and enjoy this novel, death-abusing, demonic 1:03:03. Are you scared yet ?

I still have the scars on my elbows to prove that I was once a skateboarder. I find it a little weird while watching the intro for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 to see that many of the big names I knew fifteen years ago are still shredding concrete, and stranger still that I've met two of them. It's great to see that while I sit behind this desk like a hopeless nerd posting SDA updates one of the kids from my hometown is doing really well for himself in California - but I digress. Simon 'Sorcerer88' Schmid has produced a single-segment run on the PAL version of this game for the GameCube, unlocking and completing all eight levels. At one stage he admits to using something akin to death warping, but apparently none of the verifiers commented on it and it seems like a very minor infraction, so for the time being we've decided to let it slide. Simon also admits that this run, while a good effort, could be improved, so perhaps we'll need to make a more concrete ruling on death warping in this game at some point in the not too distant future. For now, just enjoy this gnarly 0:08:53 - trust me, it's a lot less painful than the real thing.

satoru 'hotarubi' suzuki of japan has achieved a record you are sure not to believe until you see the video--and even then you may not believe it. you see, hotarubi's level of play is so far beyond anything yet seen on this site that his run got stuck in verification for weeks while the verifiers tried to decide whether or not the video was legitimate.

however, no evidence of foul play was ever found, and so today on behalf of metroid 2002 / speed demos archive i am proud to present super metroid in 0:32 ...

single-segment.

David Kim's first attempt at a run of Lufia & the Fortress of Doom for the SNES clocked in at almost nine hours. David poured blood, sweat and tears into several further test runs before finally publishing this 5:27. Those of you who have played Lufia will need no further incentive to watch, but for those who haven't: How many runs do you see where the main character is intentionally kept dead for the majority of the final boss fight, which ends with the boss killing himself? (The answer is: not many!)

The trend of many-headed runs masquerading as single runs in the queue continues. Fellow SDA crew member Mike Uyama has skillfully torn through new Genesis addition Contra: Hard Corps as Browny ... five times. Because of the multiple routes a player can take through this game (and bear with me here), we have the following: Chase Joe, surrender path in 0:16:43; Chase Joe, fight path in 0:17:31; Lab, surrender path in 0:19:27; Lab, fight path in 0:22:00; and, as if that were not enough, the secret ending path in 0:05:40. Personally I think Mike's earned a nice sit down with a cup of tea.

Luke 'transience' Yagnow of Metroid Zero Mission fame remarked to me a few days ago that he wasn't familiar with many of the newer 3D games being posted at SDA these days. I hope that transience and others that share his taste for 2D action will enjoy Mike's runs and the clutch of 2D runs we posted on the 22nd. Remember, kids, flashy graphics don't make a game !

maciej 'groobo' maselewski brings us a massive improvement over the old diablo time of 0:53:13 by david 'marshmallow' gibbons - an astonishing 0:17:38. how in the hell was this achieved, you ask? according to mike uyama, it was simple - 'groobo' manipulated luck in a hella tas-like fashion and made sure he planned ahead with his mana use. run like hell, 'groobo'! run like hell!

I cannot really begin to describe the pleasure it gives me to be posting this particular update. Here's why: Scott 'sdkess' Kessler has managed to shave a single second off legendary NES platformer Super Mario Bros. His astonishing achievement takes the time down from 0:05:06 to 0:05:05. Torrents of both the normal quality 60 fps h.264 MP4 and the normal quality 20 fps DivX AVI are available, as well as the usual dreamhost / archive combo. What the hell are you waiting for ?!

Nate is also pretty happy about the fact that there is another Genesis run up, and happier still that it's on Ecco the Dolphin. In fact, there are two runs on this game, one being an individual-levels effort in 0:22:31, and the second a complete single-segment run in 0:28:32. Both these runs were forged by the talented hands of Jared 'BlueGlass' Minnihan. (You can also download a temporary .zip file containing all of the DivX AVI or H.264 MPEG-4 Medium Quality versions of the Individual-Level runs.)

There is also a run on Gunstar Super Heroes for the Game Boy Advance, the sequel (or should that be "tribute" ?) to the original Gunstar Heroes. John De Sousa tears through this game as Red, single-segment style, on Easy mode in 0:18:51.

What, you want more ? Okay - the game is F-Zero X on the Nintendo 64, on which Jose 'PiccoloCube' Karica has improved his Space Plant 2 time to 0:01:16.433.

It must be pretty galling to have a run rejected on grounds of play quality, as happened to Mychal 'trihex' Jefferson when he originally attempted PlayStation title Crash Bandicoot 2. Fortunately for everyone, a change in the death abuse rules helped persuade him to keep going and he finally produced this 100% run in 1:39:59 - faster than the rejected attempt by over 25 minutes !

With another new addition to the gamelist, the dynamic duo of Richard 'chillout' Karlsson and Peter 'Kibumbi' Knutsson has produced six runs on PC title Aliens vs. Predator 2 and its expansion pack, Aliens vs. Predator 2: Primal Hunt. On the original game, we have Alien in 0:18:50, Marine in 0:40:03 and Predator in 0:23:47. On the expansion pack, we have Corporate in 0:09:36, Predalien in 0:06:25 and Predator in 0:14:24. Phew !

For a long time I wanted someone to beat my Mega Man X low percent run. I even mentioned it on the forums a couple of times. Freddy 'Frezy_man' Andersson took my whining into consideration and got a time of 0:34:51, over a minute faster than my run.

When I first read that Xbox offering Jade Empire was based on ancient Chinese martial arts, I could not help but wonder whether there were any giant enemy crabs involved. I suppose the gentleman to answer that question would be Trevis 'garrote' Hall, who whizzed through this new addition to the SDA repertoire in 2:41.

It's been one year since SDA officially started hosting Starcraft runs. With the combination of new tricks, glitches and better play, the total times have been drastically reduced. Starcraft's original time of 4:04:42 has gone down to 3:28:39, and Brood War's time of 4:30:00 has gone down to 3:03:40. *Wipes away tear* Ahem.. anyways, on to the runs.

Alex 'Aresake' Eustis returns with a vengeance producing three more runs for Starcraft: Brood War with combined savings of 0:14:03. He ran Protoss 3 "Legacy of the Xel'Naga" in 0:05:53, 0:00:55 faster, Terran 7 "Patriot's Blood" in 0:06:27, 0:05:31 faster and Zerg 5 "True Colors" in 0:14:14, 0:07:37 faster. Some of the time saved is from a new glitch discovered by Blake 'Spider-Waffle' Piepho where the player forces the game menu to open in a transmission that would otherwise pause the game but keep the in-game timer ticking. These are the first runs to feature this glitch, so there is of course potential for more time to be saved.

metroid zero mission gets a shot in the arm today by metroid 2002's mark 'kridly' meisner. mark lowered the hard 100% time in metroid zero mission from andy bolton's long-standing 1:00:59 by several minutes to 0:58:24! because this run was processed with my newest game boy player methodology, its quality ought to be quite extreme, especially in the "high quality" videos. of course, if you just want to stream it, our streaming flash solution is there for you (and don't forget to embed segments you like in your own sites!).

fourteen-year-old movie tie-in games might not be much fun to play today, but when jonathan 'barrage' bean runs them, they're a blast to watch. his run of predator 2 for the genesis clocks in at 0:11:39. i bet danny glover wishes he could run that fast in real life!

william 'pirate109' tansley's 22% run in the european version of metroid prime isn't new today, but its quality is. thanks to the fantastic improvements made in capture and encoding methodology over the past two years, i can finally release this run the way it was meant to be seen. it's not the fastest low percent run in metroid prime, but if you want to see the game in superior pal color and resolution, it would be a great way to do that.

Mike Uyama has conquered another game in the Metal Slug series: Metal Slug 3. He did a run on hard mode in 0:33:19.