What's your favorite game to watch speedruns of?

[Lauren Morton]

Hey PC Gamers, did any of you watch Awesome Games Done Quick last week? Because Mollie and I brought on our colleague Ted Litchfield to talk about speedrunning. None of us are speedrunners of course (except that brief period Mollie spent as a top 10 Solitaire speedrunner IYKYK) but we all really appreciate watching them do what they do. We talked about some of the ways speedruns work, our favorite tricks we've seen, and some of the best games to watch.

What's your favorite game to watch speedruns of?

Mollie proposes that a great speedrun to watch has a trifecta of jankiness, visual clarity, and precision play. I think that's definitely the case for Dark Souls speedruns, which are my favorite to watch. If you have a favorite game to watch runs of, does it match her theory?

We talked about a lot of different things this week so here are some links to check out:

• AGDQ 2024 schedule with links to watch VODs
• This year's The Typing of the Dead speedrun that Mollie thought was awesome
• Peanut Butter the dog's Gyromite speedrun
• That time I asked Dark Souls speedrunners to explain how they found the Sen's Gate skip
• Shoutout to some of our favorite speedrun explainers Summoning Salt and Tomatoanus

Stop laughing about Tomatoanus, Mollie!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Now you mention it, I still watch some speedruns and challenge runs of FromSoft games semi regularly. There's something reassuring about watching people off handedly talk to chat while beating up bosses that took me 10 tries to scrape by, usually without getting hit. Also the games are pretty familiar so theres no chance of anything getting spoiled.

 

[Alm]

I don't really watch speedruns, I must admit. Can a racing game count as a speedrun?

I was watching Mario Kart 8 200cc tips yesterday while the YouTuber was trying to beat his PB.

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't think I've watched a speed run yet, but I was toying with trying one myself for 80 Days.

I was chuffed I beat the 80 in my first playthru last year, and it's on my Replay list, so one of the customized replays should be lowest duration, right? My time was 79, and I looked up the fastest so far—just curious.

29 days! Twenty and nine freakin' days!! Not feeling so chuffed now

 

[neogunhero]

I don’t watch much, but I enjoy the ones where the game is so broken the players use exploits rather than cheats. Launch day version of Half Life 2 comes to mind, that game had so many exploits in the early versions that I had to download a copy and try them out myself. More games need prop-surfing as a feature.

View: https://youtu.be/gm9lE97sIJo

 

[Colif]

I don't have one game I watch speedruns of, I instead will watch a speedrun of any game that takes my interest... Its how I found out the first Sim City actually had a win state.

Some games I don't see point of speedrunning... okay, just Journey. It only takes 2 hours to finish even if you take your time...

Some games are so stupidly designed you don't even have to glitch them to beat the entire thing in just over two minutes

There are Different categories of speedruns too.

Some try to beat game as fast as possible without breaking outside game engine... then there is Doom Eternal where you rarely in the actual map and running around on top of it. Or Portal where they just use the game to break itself.

 

[Lauren Morton]

I don’t watch much, but I enjoy the ones where the game is so broken the players use exploits rather than cheats.

Yeah totally agree! I much prefer runs that hinge on exploiting AI or weird tricks than glitching through walls.

Some games are so stupidly designed you don't even have to glitch them to beat the entire thing in just over two minutes

Speaking of exploiting AI 🤣 what a challenging run!

 

[Zloth]

Some games are so stupidly designed you don't even have to glitch them to beat the entire thing in just over two minutes

He said in the video that they have to play the original version to do that. Hence: glich, not stupid design.

 

[Colif]

Its sort of both.
Bad design as you can get the towns folk to kill him for you.
glitch because after he dies there was a chance game would just end.

I never played game, I had wanted it before it was released but it wasn't released on the console I had. I don't know if they fixed the crowd killing him. I expect they probably did.

A lot of speedruns are run on the 1st version of the game as the methods they use are fixed in patches. Or in some cases specific languages are found to be faster.

 

[Frindis]

A few I watch:

MrLlamaSC - A very good Diablo 2 player who answers questions/talks with his audience.
Karl Jobst - Youtuber who not only talks about speedrun records but has also done a few himself. He talks regularly about fake speedruns also and is currently in a lawsuit against Billy Mitchell. He is also one of the people who brought up the inflated prices on some of the rarest retro games and how said prices were tied into some shady business done by a few culprits.
Muty - A lot of world best in games like Blood, Half-Life, and Quake.

 

[steeleman21]

There's two categories of speedrunning videos I love watching; games that I have personally put a lot of hours into, and games that are broken janky-ass nonsense.
Generally, I think it's always fascinating to listen to people talk passionately about anything they know inside and out. I love the runners at AGDQ that explain the intricacies of what they're doing, and why, as they go through their run - I just think there's a particular joy in listening to people who are masters of their craft, even if their craft is glitchless any% on Pippa Funnell: The Stud Farm Inheritance on PC.

 

[Zloth]

From this article by

...while killing companions and stuffing them into boxes or other characters' inventories seems to be the Divinity Engine's kryptonite, enabling all kinds of skips and mischief.

That makes me wonder if developers ever leave things like that in on purpose. After all, it only needs to be there in the very first version. They can fix it with a 1.01 patch on the first day to keep anybody playing the game normally from running into issues.

 

[Colif]

Pretty amazing they can beat long games in such short times now

 

[Frindis]

Pretty amazing they can beat long games in such short times now

Even more impressive when they can't

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nebKDhbVOiE

 

[PCGMollie]

Generally, I think it's always fascinating to listen to people talk passionately about anything they know inside and out. I love the runners at AGDQ that explain the intricacies of what they're doing, and why, as they go through their run - I just think there's a particular joy in listening to people who are masters of their craft, even if their craft is glitchless any% on Pippa Funnell: The Stud Farm Inheritance on PC.

This is defo one of my favourite things too! Watching people effortlessly run through a game, talking about what they're doing and having a blast while it's all happening is so interesting to me. I can barely focus on a game when my cat is yowling at me for food, let alone trying to talk my way through every step and trying to beat a WR.

Something I didn't get to mention in the podcast (but have mentioned in previous episodes!) is that in 2020 I ended up getting super into Solitaire speedrunning during Those Times. I watched this PointCrow video live and since I was still living at university with not a lot to do, I ended up giving it a go. I think I ended up placing 5th before I eventually gave up. I'm not sure how long I was at that spot, I can't imagine it was very long.

 

[Colif]

Probably not best channel to advertise on a competing website but watching Devs react to their games being broken is a lot of fun too