61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

• Speedruns as Gaming CliffsNotes: Rygar

  I’ve written about my fascination with speedruns on numerous occasions here. There’s something about the manipulation and abuse of a game inherent in speedrunning that’s entrancing. With most creative works, the intentional fallacy is assumed. Speedrunning is proof of intentional fallacy, a way for the audience to literally go in and break the author’s voice. For example, Rygar on NES wasn’t designed to be played like Kristian 'Arctic_Eagle' Emanuelsen plays it. Emanuelsen skips every passage of text, knows precisely where to use every item without experimentation, and knows just how to manipulate obstacles (read: enemies) to just brush past them rather than engage them. The game, despite the maps that came with its original manual, is structured to disorient the player, and Emanuelsen’s memorization of the quickest route through the game defies that design. Speedruns also provide an invaluable resource to gaming fetishists. You will never ever be able to play everything that piques your interest. Those players brave enough to shatter a game’s intended challenge by completing it as fast as possible leave us with ready made tours of games we do not have the time to play. Read More... Posted Mar 11 2009, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, speedrun, tecmo, rygar

• Let the Mega Man 9 Speedruns Continue

  Some weeks back, our very own Bob Mackey reported on the first speedruns of Mega Man 9. But the best clip out at that point was multi-segmented and started out with 999 screws, which is kind of cheating in my book. Now, watch as champion speedrunner Nicholas “SirVG” Hoppe (who holds world speed records on such classics as Actraiser, Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood) delivers the goods with a single-segment, new-game run. (And provides entertaining captions to boot.) Hit the jump to check it out. Read More... Posted Oct 23 2008, 05:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: peter smith, actraiser, capcom, castlevania, mega man, rondo of blood, speedrun, mega man 9, bob mackey, speed run, kirby nightmare in dreamland, nicholas hoppe

• The Mathematical Guide to Mega Man

  If you've even thought about getting all of Mega Man 9's in-game achievements, then you're either a robot, or just plain crazy; and I commend you, you magnificent bastard. Unfortunately, I lack the fortitude to push myself through these optional challenges--and the time it would take me to train for them could be better spent learning another language or painting tiny things on grains of rice. Since the achievements of Mega Man 9 are practically built for being filmed and upoloaded to the Internet, I'm anticipating the hundreds of speed/challenge runs that will inevitably end up on YouTube (if they're not already there).  And if you're interested in shaving hundredths of a second off of your final time, then boy have I got a website for you.  TASvideos, a tool-assisted speedrun page, has a special section on the NES Mega Man games that provides more information than you'd ever want to know.  Here's an example:  In many platform games, you don’t need to be exactly positioned to grab a ladder. You can stand about 10 pixels beside the ladder and when you press up (or down), you’ll immediately grab the ladder. In Mega Man games, this means that by walking or jumping past a ladder you can grab the ladder for 1 frame and immediately release it in order to gain extra movement very quickly. Walking across the ladder would take about 12 frames, but by grabbing it from distance and releasing it you can shorten it to about 8 frames. I'm not sure how much of this material is compatible with Mega Man 9, but some brave soul out there has to have the free time and social disorder necessary to find out. Let's wait and watch. Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 03:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: mega man, speedrun, wiiware, mega man 9, autism, bob mackey

• Fix It: Alone in the Dark, Tiger Woods, and the Death of the Glitch

  Today was an interesting day for getting a keen look at what happens when games come to the public in less than perfect shape. For starters, Atari and developer Eden took the middling reception of Alone in the Dark to heart. They’re showing off the Playstation 3 version of the game in Leipzig at the moment featuring in-progress fixes to the game’s unmanageable, glitchy camera as well as the iffy driving and inventory control in the game. They will also be releasing these fixes as a patch for the Xbox 360 edition of the game. Of course, Eden didn’t have to do this. They could have just gone the EA route, and (hilariously) said that those aren’t glitches! That’s just the way the game’s meant to be played. Chances are though, EA will go ahead and patch Tiger Woods ’09 regardless of the funny marketing. This is the way of it with games in the age of net-enabled consoles; ship the game as soon as you possibly can, fix it later if you have to. PC games have enjoyed patching for well over a decade at this point but it’s still a new phenomenon in the world of devoted gaming machines. It’s a good thing, ultimately. If NES games with crippling slow down could have been patched, they would have been. The romantic in me, though, can’t help but be sad to see console games lose their permanent state. Glitches in classic games have a rich, memorable history. Take, for example, this classic. Read More... Posted Aug 21 2008, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, ea, mega man, atari, alone in the dark, super mario bros, speedrun, tiger woods

• We Are Watching Many, Many Speedruns. Join Us in Some Castlevania!

  As I mentioned about a month back, I’m still pretty new to the whole speedrunning scene. Truth is, they’re usually something of a hassle to watch. You’ve gotta download the whole shebang or you’ve got to watch like eight parts of the same run on YouTube. I demand instant gratification from the internet at all times! Which is why I’m pretty thrilled that the go-to source for all things speedrunning, Speed Demos Archive, now has most of their catalog of world-record runs viewable as flash videos! Read More... Posted Jul 09 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, castlevania, speedrun, speed demos archive

• Free Running: How Speedruns and TAS Make New Games

  Outside of trailers and preview footage, I’ve always been averse to watching video of games being played. I’d just rather have the controller in my hand. This isn’t to disparage the spectator aspect of videogames. A huge part of the classic arcade experience is passive, watching others demonstrate skill at certain cabinets or just enjoying live competition. Watching someone else play a game at home is also an essential gaming experience, allowing you to not only empathize with their experience but also see a game in a much different light. You notice things about a game when not solely focused on its core goals and can learn a lot about the way it was made and the way people play it. I wasn’t introduced to the world of speedruns until just a couple of years ago when I discovered my colleague Pete’s fetish for them. Read More... Posted Jun 04 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, super mario bros 3, speedrun, tas