Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Sourceruns team have completed a 8:31.93 run of Portal, which is absolutely ridiculous, brilliantly devious and laudably investigative. The latter descriptor is appropriate because of the level of understanding required to complete the run. These glitch-hunters have an in depth knowledge of each chamber, of the Source engine and of the strange ways in which portals work. You can watch the run below, and read about the techniques used and the analysis of each chamber in an extensive document. Oddly, the closest I think I’ve ever come to exploring a game in this way was when I played deathmatch Doom for an entire year without stopping. I knew every layout and every trick, and I was still rubbish.

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Blisteringly fast gamers are currently racing their way through top games in front of a live audience to raise money for autism research. It’s the Speed Demos Archive Summer Games Done Quick event, running from the 24th to the 28th, and you can watch it live. There are prizes to be won, games to be played, and large generous donations to be made.

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This can take pride of place next to that 4 minute long Morrowind speed run. Somebody’s posted a video that travels all the way through Myst to the ending cutscene in a whopping 1 minute and 45 seconds. The footage is old as the hills, but the Hivemind policy on this is clear. If none of us have seen it, it’s statistically impossible for any of you to have seen it.
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I was passing through RPGCodex and noticed something you can file under either “Huh?” or “Blimey!” depending on how you’re wired. It’s a Speed run. Of Planescape Torment.

That’s the first of seven parts. Total time? 1:01:06 and he didn’t even skip the final movie. If only the resolution was a little better, then you could actually pause to read the text and have a Torment-in-miniature experience. I suppose I should get around to writing something about the joys of watching other people play games – my brother and I working through Lucasart adventures, flatmates doing Resident Evil and so on.