Half-Life Speedrun Sets Amazing New Record

[Fdzzaigl]

I wouldn't call it legit due to the glitches.

But it's still damn impressive to watch. Especially around ten minutes, when they're like "Oh hai thar G-man", and fly right past him.

 

[josemlopes]

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. ._.

There's two kinds of Speed Run, one that most people would broadly recognise as a Speed Run (one guy, frantic clicking, one go) and the other is tool assisted.

This is tool assisted, it's like the unlimited dragsters of videogames, nothing short of altering the game's code is off limits in building the absolute fastest run from A to B and the how doesn't matter as long as it's fast.

Of course within speed running there's lots and lots (and lots) of arguments about whether TAS runs are 'real' speed runs or not, because Internet. You've got to admit it's impressive to see a play through strung together that goes from end to end in twenty minutes, that's eleven hours and fourty minutes faster than I managed Half Life!

One thing that makes tool assisted speedruns matter to exist is that it gives you the idea of what is the fastest possible time to achieve. It isnt really an achievment, at least not a big one, but its still something interesting to watch and understand.

No one is doing these and thinking "Oh, that guy beat the game in that time? Im going to use this little helper here without them knowing and beat his time", its more of a "I wonder how fast this game can be beaten without the human element".

 

[idarkphoenixi]

Am I the only one who thinks a "speedrun" should mean the time it takes to beat a game in one sitting? Glitches are also a grey area since you're not playing the game legitimately.

 

[UNHchabo]

Am I the only one who thinks a "speedrun" should mean the time it takes to beat a game in one sitting? Glitches are also a grey area since you're not playing the game legitimately.

You're looking for a single-segment run, and those exist, and are counted separately. I posted a 32-minute single-segment run of Half-Life earlier in the thread.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I'm ok with using glitches which are in the game, as most Speedruns do that. However when you start using scripts, well at that point you're into Tool Assisted Territory, so I don't consider this a "legit" run, not even slightly.

It's an interesting curiosity, but to me, it's just not a Speedrun.

 

[UNHchabo]

I'm ok with using glitches which are in the game, as most Speedruns do that. However when you start using scripts, well at that point you're into Tool Assisted Territory, so I don't consider this a "legit" run, not even slightly.

It's an interesting curiosity, but to me, it's just not a Speedrun.

The Half-Life speedrunning community decided to allow bunnyhopping scripts because people were binding a dozen keys and the mousewheel all to the "jump" function, and mashing them every time they wanted to go fast.

Is there really anything lost in allowing them to hold down spacebar instead?

Edit: Not to mention that most of the really prominent timesaving techniques in this run compared with previous runs are entirely feasible with normal controls. The Health Door glitch, for instance, wasn't in the Half Hour Half Life run, and probably accounts for the majority of the saved time in this run.

 

[uchytjes]

I was with it up until they went outside the map. I don't care what glitches you use as long as the speedrun doesn't go outside the map.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

haha oh jeez, more speed run news the escapist surely isn't divided on this issue at all, and never resorts to stubborn flaming.

personally I would never attempt something like this, but I can recognize the achievement and find it pretty cool nonetheless. so thumbs up for them.

 

[Vigormortis]

Wow. This is a hell of a run. Serious kudos to the team behind it. They didn't just beat the previous record, they obliterated it.

And now to sit back and watch the Escapist forum shit all over this run; decreeing it 'illegitimate' because it "wasn't done in the spirit of the game" or some such bullshit.

Anyone want some popcorn?

The Half-Life speedrunning community decided to allow bunnyhopping scripts because people were binding a dozen keys and the mousewheel all to the "jump" function, and mashing them every time they wanted to go fast.

Is there really anything lost in allowing them to hold down spacebar instead?

Kind of, but not entirely. Insofar as everything that's done in the video is entirely doable with enough practice, patience, and time. (hell, even I can do a lot of the things they did in the run. In sequence, almost assuredly not, but I certainly know how to do them.)

Edit: Not to mention that most of the really prominent timesaving techniques in this run compared with previous runs are entirely feasible with normal controls. The Health Door glitch, for instance, wasn't in the Half Hour Half Life run, and probably accounts for the majority of the saved time in this run.

Oh it most definintely does. They used a few time saving techniques here and there prior to the door glitch, but those 4k hitpoints allowed for a ludicrous number of grenade jumps, Tau Cannon pushes, etc, etc.

That door might have easily shaved a solid seven or more minutes off the run.

 

[UNHchabo]

If thats the point, and you're allowed to undo any kind of human error by taking segmented clips from hundreds, if not thousands, of separate attempts, why is it even really considered any kind of challenge? Like I said earlier in the post to another forumite, thats not longer a speedrun, its a simulation. Thats cool and all, it really is, but thats not a speedrun.

Now if somebody managed to do all of that in one take, I'd respect that. As it currently is, all we have is a plan that has been shown to be possible, but not actually performed by a person in an actual speedrun. Its awesome that people managed to figure it out, but its still not an actual speedrun.

Cause there's a difference between a multi-segment-run and a Tool Assisted Speedrun. In a multi-segment run, each segment was successfully done by a person in realtime, as opposed to a TAS, where frame-by-frame play is allowed. Normally segments last for at least a decent portion of a map, so the transition is probably not going to be in the middle of a trick.

Think of it this way: it's hugely impressive to see someone complete an Endurance Obstacle Course without stopping, but that doesn't mean that people can't have a competition timing themselves doing individual stages from that course. It just means you can't compare the times apples-to-oranges.

Edit: Added clarifying text:
at least a decent portion of a map

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Is this one of those bullshit speedruns where the player just glitches the game?

*checks*

Ayup.

 

[UNHchabo]

Taking away all of that, its still misleading at best to call it a "speedrun" of a game when the entire game was done in separate pieces. If you're doing a speedrun of a singular area of the game, then thats cool, but thats only a speedrun of that entire level, and only if its done in one take. Yes, its impressive, and I've challenged myself to improve on individual levels in games before, but pieceing them all together doesn't make it a speedrun.

It's a full speedrun in the sense that each segment starts where the last one left off, with the same amount of health, armor, and ammo. During the planning phase of most speedruns they'll start off by seeing how quickly they can finish each level, then the next phase is figuring out how to piece those runs together; the sort of "grab a medkit to save a bunch of time 3 maps down the line" thing that I mentioned earlier.

Speed Demos Archive is the most common source for speedruns; they have rules that encompass both single-segment and multi-segment runs (they don't do Tool-Assisted runs), and they're kept in separate categories.

Some key excerpts from their FAQ [http://www.speeddemosarchive.com/lang/faq_en.html]:

Why do you allow glitches but disallow cheat codes and tricks like crooked cartridge?
Using glitches is simply trying to use whatever is within the rules of the game to your advantage. When you use a cheat device or outside alteration, then you're breaking the game's rules. As for cheat codes and debug codes, they differ from glitches in being intentionally programmed, so they are naturally outside the rules of the game as defined by the designers.

For games that let you save anywhere (i.e. without save points), a half second save penalty is added for each save. This is designed to discourage someone from potentially using thousands of segments in a run.

From the Rules of SDA [http://www.speeddemosarchive.com/lang/rules_en.html]:

A run is either single-segment or segmented:

*Single-segment: Beats the game in one sitting. Resetting or using save&quits midrun are allowed, but may be a separate category if they speed things up significantly.
*Segmented: Uses saves or passwords to play parts of the game individually and then combines the 'segments' into a full run. We may instead host runs of each level in an ?Individual Levels? table if the game is split into levels and nothing transfers between them.

 

[StriderShinryu]

As explained somewhat earlier, a TAS run basically anything goes. However, the point is to push the game to its absolute limits by any means. Speed is one thing, but just warping to the credits isn't the aim. Exploiting everything the game allows you to is. Like in portal where you can just jump through the elevator doors. Things that require frame perfect timing, pixel perfect precision, all go into TAS runs to show what -can- be done.

A lot of times stuff done in TAS runs can work their way into normal runs, and the normal runs improve. So everything you can do in a TAS run you can do unassisted. It just may be way way more difficult to pull off.

This is pretty much how I see it. I don't really personally consider TAS runs to be real speed runs but TAS runs are, however, still important for the development of proper speed runs once the game reaches a certain point and simply "playing the game fast" has been taken to it's limits. TAS runs can show you where the possibilities and limitations are. It's just not a proper speed run to me, however, until it's actually a single player doing it all in one go.

 

[Arawn]

Okay I myself and a fan of non-tooled runs. Single or segmented really aren't something I consider. That being said I did enjoy the show. Truth be told I never "finished" Half-life. While watching this video I got a small flash of deja vu, but I think I watched someone else finish those segments. Didn't realize that game was so long, almost tempted to take another stab at it. Part of it to see if I can do it, the other to see if my skills make the game less taxing.

 

[My name is Fiction]

I'm just imagining Gordon Freeman yelling "I FUCKED UP I FUCKED UP I FUCKED UP" for the entire video past the resonance cascade.

Or when Gordon get the coffee and the crack.

 

[EHKOS]

I'll be honest I have absolutely no idea how any of that works. But it was pretty cool.

 

[michael87cn]

Something is screwy with that speed run. There were several points where the player fell a ridiculous distance and took no fall damage. In fact, they should have died several times but didn't. I dunno how they did that.

 

[Magmarock]

Exploits much. I'd really like to see someone speed run this game without using it's shortcomings to their advantage.