Half-Life Speedrun Sets Amazing New Record

[DirgeNovak]

Speed runs that fuck up how the controls work in a game have no credibility to me. Some of these falls should have killed them. There is no way to jump all the way up to the control room window from the test chamber like that(Okay that one might be possible, but it's still pushing it). Also there's a very clear bit that was cut at 8:21.

 

[Vigormortis]

Speed runs that fuck up how the controls work in a game have no credibility to me. Some of these falls should have killed them. There is no way to jump all the way up to the control room window from the test chamber like that. Also there's a very clear bit that was cut at 8:21.

No, you're entirely wrong. On all accounts, I'm afraid.

For one thing, it is possible to jump up to the control room window in the test chamber at the beginning of the game. In fact, there are several methods of doing it without being killed - all of which can be performed without any modding or assistance. (there's even one that forces the map to change by causing your character to touch the map change event entity)

For another, most of the falls that occurred during the run were survived by touching a ladder just prior to hitting the ground. The the GoldSrc engine, you can fall from any height and survive as long as you either land on a ladder first or land in water of a certain depth. The others were survived because the players had over three thousand hitpoints. Watch the segment at 16 minutes in. You can find an explanation on how that bug works in the video description.

As for the bit at 8 minutes in, it wasn't cut, as far as I'm aware. What happened was either a save bug specific to that section (which saved them maybe 3 seconds total) or a forced map change using an entity bug (likely using the boxes).

I had no idea that people take speedruns so seriously.

Even worse, many come in complaining about the "legitimacy" of a run without having even a sliver of understanding of what the run entails, what mechanics are present in the game, and what maneuvers are actually possible in the game. There are even some who are bitching about the run "moving too fast". (it's called bunny-hopping, people. look it up.)

Every move done in the run is possible to do by hand. Hell, I can do many of them, and I suck at speedruns. The only purpose of this run was to see how fast someone could physically run through the game, assuming they never made a single mistake. It's a sampling of just how fast the game can be beaten.

 

[thom_cat_]

I'm not impressed. Abusing or glitching one's way through the game just doesn't seem right, from my perspective. If it's legitimate without any funky scripting or glitching, then I will be impressed.

Maybe you'd enjoy the other categories of speedrun better, like the ones I posted earlier?

Spoiler: Half-Life Single Segment in 32:55

Spoiler: Half-Life single-segment (no scripts/hard) in 36:58

The way I see it, multi-segment runs are training for single-segment runs. Still impressive, and they show you what's possible, just don't try to compare the two apples-to-apples.

Just want to mention that that no scripts/hard run was just beaten
http://www.twitch.tv/kukkye/c/4093467 34:29

 

[actar411]

Are you kidding me? Exactly how much manipulation is permissible in a "speed-run" before it stops being considered a "legit" play-through of the game? Or are people still gonna tell me that this is mechanically identical to playing the game normally? I will never understand the speed-run community, and I'm not sure I want to try. ._.

Yeah that hit me part way through the watching, for sections of the run the guy was outside the actual map. If that's allowed on top of glitches and other things why not just no clip straight from map start to map finish and call it a day.

Part of the fun of any% speedruns is just seeing how fast you can get to the finish without using cheats. Using No-clip would make it not a speed run, it would just be exploring the map. TAS is all about using a program to enter commands faster than is humanly possibly, but the game still recognizes them. Meaning, if you could push all of the buttons just right, fast enough, in the right timings, you could replicate this time.

As for those who say that exploiting glitches makes it not a speedrun, I simply say you're wrong. Here's the fastest any% run of Ocarina of Time (that I know of). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH6xhZ7BfHQ It's all about looking for the right frames and stuff. I'm sure people could explain it better.