Can we speed-run through November and December please?
Just under three months to go until you have to put your backlogs on hold for a week to watch a cavalcade of insane and informative speed-runs. The next event will be held from January 8 through January 15, and with the schedule now finalized we can start looking ahead.
If you’re not aware, AGDQ (Awesome Games Done Quick) is the largest speed-running event in the world and is held biannually (Summer Games Done Quick in early July). Many of the best speed-runners gather in a hotel to do a week-long marathon of nothing but speed-run after speed-run. The best part is that’s all for charity, raising well over $1 million per event in recent years for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and for Médecins Sans Frontières during SGDQ.
I find myself saying this every time it rolls around, but there’s so many games I’m excited to see utterly destroyed. Just to name a few, I want to see Metal Gear Solid 2, Resident Evil Zero, Hitman: Blood Money, and Super Monkey Ball 2. Super Monkey Ball speed-runs are always some of the most jaw-dropping considering how difficult those are. Even for more tame runs, a lot of the intrigue is hearing about how the games’ logic and coding works and then how the speed-runners unravel it.
A popular, though perhaps not majority, opinion is that the runs have become more strict in recent years, not allowing as much shenanigans as in the past. While that is an understandable and legitimate complaint, I still find the event fun. After reading about Chris Carter’s visit, I want to go myself now more than ever. The only game I’ve ever done a “speed-run” in was Oblivion, by stacking paintbrushes outside the final boss encounter.
There is debate over whether runs are better with or without glitches, but it’s not such a simple dichotomy. There is a balance. Sword lunging in Halo 2 is a glitch, but most would accept that more than just activating the credits like in early Pokémon games. The one and perhaps fatal flaw of these speed-runs is that once you’ve seen a game for a given category run once, there’s really no point in watching again unless the route or time has been significantly improved. It helps that so many new games are coming out all the time!
AGDQ 2017 Schedule [Games Done Quick]
