I hope you'll forgive a little bit of personal rambling, because (in no small part due to the first run today) I feel an irresistible urge to tell something about the way I got to know SDA. To keep a really short story even shorter, I discovered it in 2004, but only dropped by once or twice, thinking "yeah, this is kinda neat", then largely forgetting about its existence. In my defense, I was still young and stupid back then. In any case, the 'breakthrough' happened when I saw a run of one of my favorite games - Morrowind. It being a game of huge proportions, I didn't consider it remotely possible to beat it in less than 15 minutes. Ever since seeing that run, I was hooked. So, why am I telling you this? Because the old, 14 minute and 26 seconds single segment run that impressed me so much, AND the 7:30 segmented that followed shortly thereafter have both been demolished by Janis 'Pendrokar' Lukss' new single segment. Using a bug present in version 1.0 of the game and a plethora of different tricks, he managed to get the time down to 0:04:19. Yes, you didn't misread, 4 minutes and 19 seconds. As impressive as the time itself sounds, it pales in comparison to the video of the whole ordeal. I personally recommend this one.

Speaking of my favorite games... Harri 'Rogston' Väisänen and Esa 'SaunaChum' Kivirinta keep on chipping away seconds in Thief: The Dark Project, a game that encourages the player to patiently hide in the shadows and evade encounter, ideally not having the enemies notice anything is amiss. The duo of speedrunning taffers evidently doesn't subscribe to this philosophy, instead opting for a quicker approach - namely, to do everything they have to do and get out fast enough to avoid registering to the senses of the guards. 7 levels in total have been improved, and a new run (the training level) joins the level table. As usual, these are money runs. There's too many of them to list here (our master thieves have really done a lot of good work), but you can get all ILs here. Curiously, the new total time (0:35:41) is 40 seconds longer than the time before the improvements were uploaded - but before you start wondering how that's possible, let me remind you about the Training run (which adds over a minute and a half to the timer).

Lastly, in a fortunate coincidence that lets me pretend this update has at least a partial theme, we have a new run for another stealth-based game, Hitman: Blood Money. It's an individual level run, as well! Mark 'ExplodingCabbage' Amery has made a New Game+ run, and before you ask, yes, there was a run for this game before - one done by mister Amery, in fact - but he asked for it to be replaced by this new run. ExplodingCabbage switches the Rookie difficulty from the old run to Pro - the hardest of the four difficulties. Using every little timesaver he could think of and straining agent 47 to the limit, he finishes all 13 levels in 0:22:44. Check them out, they're really entertaining.

I've been around this site for quite some time, and in that time I feel I've been exposed to a lot of what SDA has to offer. I've watched a bunch of runs, submitted a few of my own, taken part in forum activities, and attended live SDA events. But today's update marks a first for me in my stay here: my first obsoletion. For the first time in just over three years, my run for the criminally underappreciated NES title Faxanadu no longer has a home on the game list. Replacing it is Rhett 'ShinerCCC' Dobson's debut effort for the site. Through the use of a glitch from the TAS and a much tighter and more difficult route he produced a significant improvement from my old 0:36:24 run with a very solid 0:30:14. If you're curious about some of the finer points of the improvement be sure to check out the included audio commentary. And now that it's happened, I have to say getting obsoleted isn't so bad, especially when it's a great run like this one replacing your old effort. Congrats man.

Next up we have a run on another NES game that too often gets lost in the shuffle. When people talk about 8-bit Konami games it's usually games like Castlevania, Contra, or Gradius that get mentioned, with next to no attention paid to a great little game by the name of Jackal. While somewhat obscure, this game does have its fans, one of whom is Marko "Master-88" Vanhanen. Motivated to see this game have its place on SDA, the Finnish runner persevered through the game's several random elements and performed some tight maneuvering in the production of his "no upgrades with deaths" run. Getting a time as low as his 0:08:54 with only grenades is quite an impressive feat, and I definitely suggest checking this one out.

Lastly, after two less than mainstream games, we finish with the amazingly popular Mega Man 9. Those familiar with this game's history on SDA are no doubt also familiar with the name Mike 'MegaDestructor9' Dickson. He's been the sole owner of the IL records for this title, and while that isn't changing with this update, three of our hosted videos are. The improvements are as follows: Galaxy Man down from 0:01:38.41 to 0:01:38.11, Splash Woman down from 0:01:32.86 to 0:01:31.91, and Wily Castle 2 down from 0:01:56.85 to 0:01:54.43. These runs bring the total time of the table down three seconds to 0:20:13. To the uninitiated viewer 3 seconds over 3 runs might not sound like a lot, but if you watch the runs the level of optimization in them is plain to see. Check these ones out, you won't be disappointed.

First up today is an inaugural run for a title from the Nintendo DS. Metroidvanias have historically been riddled with game-breaking glitches, and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is no exception to this trend. Runner James 'Aftermath' Downing took full advantage of this fact in the production of his hard difficulty new game + run with major skips in two segments. While the name of the category is quite lengthy, the run itself clocks in at a very quick 0:04:09, and for those of you who spend those four minutes staring quizzically at the screen wondering what exactly is going on, don't fret. Included is an embedded audio commentary to help clear up the finer points.

Next up we have a shining example of a game being beaten far faster than its developers ever intended. If you happen to find yourself a complete, in box copy of Ogre Battle 64 and check out the list of selling points on the back you'll see that it promises "over 50 hours of gameplay." This may hold true for a first time player, but certainly not for the likes of Ben 'simmeh' Boven. Through the utilization of an item duplication glitch and some solid strategies along the way, Ben decimates the developers' estimate, finishing the game in 4:24 using six segments. This one also comes with audio commentary for your listening pleasure.

Now I know some of you are looking at the title of today's update and thinking that three games in one update really isn't anything all that special, and you're definitely right on that point. However, when one of those games has three different full game runs being posted it's definitely a noteworthy occurrence. Such is the case today for Mega Man Zero. In the span of a month Youri 'Elpis TK31' Landweer both improved his own hard difficulty with mission skips run from 0:11:19 down to 0:10:31 and completed runs for two new categories, namely hard difficulty with deaths in 0:22:59 and an ultimate mode run in 0:09:05. No audio commentary for this batch, but you can check the game page for some . . . interesting written comments.

And while this is old news to the forum regulars, it should be mentioned for those of you who don't frequent our fine message boards that we now have the entirety of the footage from our charity marathon available for download. Anything you may have missed or moments you'd like to experience again can now be immortalized on your hard drive. Just head to the schedule page for the links.

First up today we have a run for a new category on Trauma Center: Second Opinion. Japanese runner 'szsk' is no stranger to this game. He previously published a normal mode SS run, and while that run is very impressive in its own right, today's offering represents the completion of a much larger task. For this run he's set the sight of his Wii-mote on hard difficulty and completes every mission available in the game, leaving all his patients GUILT free with perfect XS ranks throughout. In short, 100% completion. Oh, and did I mention this was done in a single segment? Completed in 2:34:03, this is one not to miss.

Keeping with the medical theme, we have a new record in an old category for Dr. Mario 64. Kari 'Essentia' Johnson has had sole ownership of the page for quite some time, but no longer. Kevin 'neskamikaze' LaLonde has offered up a new run for the "Classic mode with deaths" category, topping the old mark of 0:38:50 from 2006 with a very quick 0:37:02. To cite our recent marathon, I think many of the viewers (myself included) were very surprised just how entertaining watching a run of this game can be. Check this one out; it's definitely worth the watch.

Last, but certainly not least, is one of the most anticipated runs to come to the site in quite some time. Freddy 'Frezy_man' Andersson is a man who needs no introduction. One of our most prolific runners, he bolsters his own reputation for excellence today with an improvement of one of the more hotly contested titles we have to offer. You may have heard of it, a little game called Super Mario Bros. 3. After logging literal thousands of attempts, the Swede of Speed was able to comfortably beat Andrew Gardikis's time of 0:11:01 with a truly stellar 0:10:48. I think it's safe to say this game has been pushed pretty close to its limits, but the runner himself admits there's still seconds to be squeezed out of it. The only question is who is going to rise to that challenge?

Apologies for the delay on this second update of mine, and since it's a little later than I originally intended I'm upping the usual serving size for this one. Yes, the added run is entirely because of me feeling guilty about making you good people wait 10 whole days between updates and nothing at all to do with the fact that we have quite the backlog right now. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The first run on the menu today is an improvement over a longstanding run on the game list. Zack 'zallard1' Allard is new to SDA, but no stranger to high level play on Star Fox 64. An accomplished high score player, he recently turned his efforts to speedrunning the game. Through the use of a few new strategies and the tightening of some old ones, he was able to take down the old mark of 0:25:45 for the "with deaths" category set by Brett 'Psonar' Ables back in 2006. The time of the new run is a very quick 0:25:16, which he achieved by trusting his instincts and using the boost to get through.

Next up is a new addition to the site also coming from the N64. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is a great example of one developer improving on the work of another. The first Star Wars game for the N64, Shadows of the Empire, was produced by LucasArts and is generally considered a fairly poor third person action title with two fantastically fun flying levels. About two years later along comes developer Factor 5 with this game consisting solely of flying levels and critics and players alike adored it. One such player is runner Evan K. N. Jankowski who today provides us with a single segment run with deaths clocking in at 1:01:17.

Last, but certainly not least, we have a run of a game that truly changed the face of its franchise. To call Star Fox Adventures a departure from the previous games in the series doesn't really begin to describe just how amazingly different this title is from the ones that came before it. Taking place outside of an Arwing for the bulk of the game, the series moved here from straight up space shooter to a style more similar to that of the 3-D Zelda titles. Whether this was a good move for the series or not is a matter for debate, but what is certain is that runner Justin 'UCpro' Salamon has put this game through its paces. Making use of 100 segments, Justin saves the aptly named Dinosaur Planet in a speedy 4:46. 100 files is a lot, so we have torrents available for the medium and high quality versions for easy downloading.

Hello SDA viewers. I'm Breakdown and I'll be your updater today, and if you're reading this it means I managed to not break the framework of the site getting this thing posted. But yeah, I'm the new guy on staff. I've been hanging around the site for years now and have been given the opportunity to give a little back, and intend to do so with pride. My only hope is that I can keep the quality of these front page updates up to the standards set by those who have come before me. I truly have some large shoes to fill.

But enough about me, you're here to see some runs, right?

The title of today's update serves the dual purpose of expressing my fear of my technical ineptitude being put on display for all to see as well as quoting one of the more memorable lines from the movie on which today's first game is based. As with most wildly successful movies, Jurassic Park has been ported to just about every console imaginable in nearly every gameplay style imaginable. Really the only thread tying them all together is that each features a variety of dinosaurs that you need to blast your way through in some form or fashion. Today's offering is on the SNES version of the game, which has no shortage of dino blasting, but also has a focus on exploration and item collection to advance the plot. The three man team of Patrick 'ev0lution' Seibert , Frank 'Nokia3311' Jahn, and Nicolas 'ZdadrDeM' Grosmann make their way through this single player adventure in a very efficient 1:02:36 on the PAL version. Sure it doesn't have the length of a Spielberg film or a Crichton novel, but this run is an excellent example of how less can indeed be more.

Vagrant Story is generally heralded as one of the more innovative games Squaresoft ever produced. Lauded by some and reviled by others, it features a deep combat system and an intricate item crafting mechanic. Love it or hate it, though, there is no denying that Yadir 'Riskbreaker Y' Osornio annihilated it, cruising through the game using 13 segments and finishing in just under 2 hours (1:59 to be exact).

Also of note is that we have more videos from our wildly successful Charity Marathon ("Classic Games Done Quick") up and ready for download, commentary included. We currently have up through Strider on the second day ready to go. You can find the links on the schedule page, and keep an eye on that page because there's more on the way.

Hundreds of Star Wars games have been released since the franchise began its existence in 1977, an overwhelming majority of them not very enjoyable. However, our new star (pardon the pun), Star Wars: Republic Commando, is one of the more notable exceptions, partly due to the fact it puts the old adage 'if you want to have something done right, do it with 3 copies of yourself' to the test by making you the leader of a clone squad. '-Arcadian-' doesn't seem to like being a clone too much, because he's trying to get through the whole experience as fast as possible in this Easy run of Geonosis, finishing in 0:35:41. To compensate for the player character's lack of Force abilities, he used 15 segments, in addition to his own Jedi-like reflexes.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is a game that needs no introduction. What definitely needs introduction, on the other hand, is the absolutely insane improvement of the Assassin run by the absolutely crazy Sören 'FraGFroG' Heinrich. Drawing on sinister powers that shouldn't be named, he managed to save over 16 minutes and actually bring this epic game under the magical 1 hour threshold. This 0:58:52 in 33 segments is so crazy, you're really gonna think Sören is possessed. Which actually might not be that far off from the truth: this game is infamous for drawing players in for good, and 'FraGFroG' couldn't evade this mysterious power and had to also make another run. Virtually identical to that 58:52, it abuses a death in the last segment to save a pretty palpable amount of time - 24 seconds, to be exact (0:58:28). Go check it out.

Our Charity Marathon ("Classic Games Done Quick") is now over. We got off to a slow start, but we made up for it: we ran 67 games in just over 55 hours and collected over $10,000 from over 450 people for CARE (and we are still accepting donations for the next few hours). We usually had at least 1,000 viewers on our streams. That's not bad for our first shot at this! There is already talk of another marathon, but nothing is concrete yet, so keep dropping by SDA to stay informed.

Much of the marathon (both game and commentary streams) is already available for viewing on our ustream page. Higher quality versions (with both streams in one video and without problems with sprites disappearing, for example) will follow soon. Right now as I type this I'm burning all 55 hours of video from Mike Uyama's DVD recorder in 2-hour chunks, then copying those DVDs to my laptop's hard drive in preparation for combining with the Flash Media-encoded commentary stream. Syncing the two streams will be the real hard part, but I don't anticipate that will take me more than a few days. Keep checking back, and you'll see that nice version of the marathon available for download here soon. Otherwise, if you don't want to wait, just hit the ustream recordings.

We'd like to thank all our runners and mods, the MAGfest staff, CARE for being willing to try us out, and especially TheSpeedGamers for taking us under their wing for our first run through this charity marathon game they built completely from scratch. You should know that there would have been no Classic Games Done Quick if not for your vision.

Here's to another record-breaking year!

Our Charity Marathon ("Classic Games Done Quick") begins tonight at 6 pm Eastern Standard Time (US)! Please tune in and donate to support CARE's mission to combat world poverty! (The live stream will be embedded right on this very page starting later today.)

If you want to help beyond just donating, you can spam the link to our promo video. (Or, you can download a higher quality version if you want to upload it to your own account somewhere.)

See you tonight!

It's that happy time of the year again, folks! Just to remind you, there's the MAGFest 8 in just a few days, complete with the speedrunning marathon for charity. Oh, and it's also the Christmas period. To celebrate that holiday we have 3 new runs.

Let's start off with Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne - because nothing capitalizes on the Christmas spirit better than murder and violence (exhibit number 1: Die Hard). Johannes 'KroKus' Lindell improved 4 times from the individual level table. My old p2c3 was beaten by 2 seconds, so it's 0:00:16 now (and good riddance, my run was actually pretty weak). Johannes also knocked off 4 and 3 seconds from p2c4 (0:00:22) and pro3 (0:00:53), respectively. However, the greatest time gain is without doubt the p3c4 run (Vinnie's Used Car Lot), where sarou's old 4:18 was obliterated by exactly a minute (0:03:18). All those combined are in fact enough to drive the total time under 20 minutes, specifically down to 0:19:52! Good show, good show.

Another game equally famous for its cheery atmosphere perfectly fitting the holidays is Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Thanks to the numerous differences between the PC and PlayStation versions of the game, Luciano 'LucianoRX' Matyak's single-segment of the PC version is significantly shorter than Carcinogen's run, clocking in at 0:49:35. Reasons for the time gain range from mundane - the PC run is on a lower difficulty and not an A-rank run - to more sophisticated, like the ability to skip some animations that are unskippable in the PS version. Those differences of course mean the old run is not obsoleted.

Finally, we have the epic ending to the epic story (and the not so epic update) - Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Defiance does well at wrapping the story up (and at using the characteristic, faux-Shakespearean dialogue), however does so at the grave cost of sacrificing gameplay. It also has what might be one of the worst camera systems ever designed - so bad, you're likely to consider it the real villain after just a few levels. That did not scare away Paweł "carosh" Małczyński, who took it upon himself to prove that you can get through the game with speed and style, and generally succeeded, as shown in this segmented 3:09.

So, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and good Life Day *hurgh* to you all.

Some of you might have noticed that some SDA members went to a gaming convention last year called MAGFest 7 during New Year's. This year we're doing the same thing and going to this year's event, creatively titled MAGFest 8, from January 1-4 at the Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia.

Similar to last year, we'll be doing a video panel, and you can see the list of clips here.

Don't worry, you won't be left out if you can't come to MAGFest, because we will be hosting our charity marathon, Classic Games Done Quick, a 2-day marathon with 72 games mostly on NES, SNES, and Genesis that will be streamed right here on our main page. Like any good marathon, we will be raising money for charity. The charity we're raising money for is CARE, a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting global poverty.

If you want to help us out at SDA, you can get the word out. Go to this topic for more information on how to help us.

Thanks go to Lindsey Layne King, The Speed Gamers' official artist, for creating the great (or as Earthworm Jim would say, "GROOVY!") banners on our marathon page. You can find her work on The Speed Gamers' website and her Youtube channel.

This update contains just a single game, but that only means you have some additional time to tune in to TheSpeedGamers' Pokémon charity marathon! Starting at 6PM (CST) Friday, TSG will be catching all 493 Pokémon to benefit Ally's House. Please join them in supporting a good cause. If you're wondering about this plug and what exactly it has to do with SDA, well, you'll know soon enough if you don't already.

As a tennis enthusiast and a sucker for goofy games and ideas, I admittedly might be more interested in Wesley 'SD2' Bester's Mario Tennis: Power Tour speedrun than most viewers. But hopefully you'll dig it too. Although they do like sports, I don't know if the Takahashi brothers (founders of Camelot) ever envisioned that they would one day best be known for Mario sports instead of Shining games or even Golden Sun. Maybe that's why this particular installment is actually a tennis RPG, feeling like an odd combination of Mario Tennis, Golden Sun, and yes, Pokémon. Our latest in SDA's proud tradition of runners named Wesley chooses Clay (the character, not the surface) and aces his way to a single-segment Singles 1:14:55 on Easy. He even provides a handy box score at the end of his comments.

Most newly-posted speedruns get to stay on SDA quite a while, but not Richard 'Belmont' Jasionowski's Magician mode 0:22:14 of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. His predecessor in the category, Wayne 'soteos' Frank, had his run last four years, but Richard 'Belmont' only enjoyed four months before Riku 'Emperor91' Vanhanen came along. If the last name sounds vaguely familiar, that's because Marko 'Master-88' Vanhanen is his brother. Who knows? Maybe there's a 'Godking+94' in the family. In any case, Riku has managed to cut the time down substantially to 0:19:04, while simultaneously cutting 12 segments down to 8. Richard's run already included wall climbing and large boning — it's every bit as humorous and inappropriate as it sounds — so play them side by side to see the optimization differences.

Once upon a time, there was a speedrunner named Andrew Gardikis who was downright ecstatic. He had just finished beating Jim 'vgmrsepitome' Hanson's Rush 'n Attack run in 0:09:53! Or so he thought. After careful timing, it turned out he had only tied Mr. Hanson's time. If you think you know where I'm going with this, I probably just crossed you up; Jim Hanson himself is the one featured in this update, returning to the scene of his first speedrun. The grenades he got in stage five account for five of the twelve seconds saved in this 0:09:41. The other seven come from minor optimizations, which is especially impressive given that Jim nailed his run in only ninety minutes of attempts. Jim is a shrewd man, having set a very manageable personal goal of one run on SDA per year, meaning this one was gravy.

Congratulations to Jeff Feasel for winning the 5th SDA tournament! Tied for first place going into the final week, Jeff and 'Baron Dante' finished first and second respectively, with razor-close final scores of 204 to 203. (Yours truly had the most points with 211, but as tourney host, I had the highly unfair advantage of prior experience with all of the selected games.) With a record number of participants and lots of positive feedback, this proved to be the most successful tourney to date. Thanks to all participants and even everyone who just followed along! You guys made all of this possible. Let's keep building a stronger SDA, and with any luck, the next tourney will be even more successful.

Before diving into today's games, I would like to inform you of the next masterpiece from SDA's One Tenor. Mike Uyama had business in the great state of Pennsylvania, so he stopped by to visit Chip 'Breakdown' Vogel. The ensuing Ristar audio commentary was practically inevitable. It's one of my favorite yet, and not all of that is due to the game in question.

My apologies if you were tricked by the title and expected the PS2 game, but today's Rygar speedrun is on the European version of the original NES release. Most runners choose either NTSC or PAL versions of games to run — physical location usually has quite a lot of say in that — but Kristian 'Arctic_Eagle' Emanuelsen blazes his own trail and tries his hand at both. Spurred by both a bounty and an old rejection, Kristian battles through the game in 0:28:38, over a minute faster than previously done. This joins his 0:24:59 NTSC run, but there are too many minor version differences to fairly compare the two. Don't worry, you still get to use your shield as a weapon in both!

You don't get to use your shield as a weapon in Sonic Adventure, but you do get to use yourself as a weapon, which I guess counts for something. While I'm dispensing version info, today's speedrun is on the DX Director's Cut version for GameCube. That shouldn't be a surprise, really; the Dreamcast gets no love, and all of our other Sonic Adventure runs are on GameCube already. The speedrunner known only as 'Bertin' has shaved two seconds off the time of the shortest category, Super Sonic. His 0:01:52 with deaths replaces a run by Andres 'Mad Andy' Montalbetti, who is perhaps now as mad as ever. The improvement comes from a faster Perfect Chaos fight, which is a bit like saying a Sonic Spinball run was improved by faster pinball sections.

Speedrunning can be an expensive hobby both in time as well as money commitment. Although capturing technology has become much more affordable recently, runners still had to purchase the games they intend to run. Until now.

I'm very pleased to announce: Speed Demos Archive is now accepting runs on Freeware games. Before we get to the celebration ceremony you may want to have some history on this change. One of the original rules when the site expanded beyond Quake was that games had to be professionally published to be considered for SDA. It made sense at the time to stop poorly made and short games from being submitted. However, this was also about the time that Cave Story was released and showed the world that quality gameplay could be had for free, and since then, several other free games turned out to be well suited for speedruns. At the same time, the videogame industry is changing with a lot of small companies making professional quality titles on a budget and publishing them on their own. And then we have titles such as Dink Smallwood that were once published but have been available for free for over a decade now, but technically still meet the original requirement. To make it simple: There seems to be no reason to exclude some games from SDA for arbitrary reasons, so the decision was made to drop the rule.

So what does that mean for you as a (possible) runner? As long as what you pick qualifies as a game in some way we are likely to accept it now. This includes Flash games as well, although there are still some technical issues with their inconsistent framerates.

The beforementioned celebrations are, of course, three brand new runs on Freeware games. First of all we have Tower of Heaven in 0:02:03. Tower of Heaven is a short platformer that constantly adds more restrictive rules you have to respect (or die). Because a speedrunner doesn't waste time doing silly things such as walking left or touching walls, Maciej 'groobo' Maselewski had no trouble plowing through the game quickly.

Next we have some early holiday spirit with Merry Gear Solid: Secret Santa in 0:02:18.14. A parody of the popular Metal Gear series, this game involves sneaking through a building as Santa avoiding children that are up much too late. Bart 'TheVoid' de Waal did a good job optimizing the game, although groobo already pointed out some minor improvements. With a sequel to the game announced for this December you can be sure to see more Christmas espionage on SDA soon.

Lastly we have a very special run on an outstanding game, Iji. Daniel Remar has started working on this game at about the same time SDA has moved beyond Quake, and only finished at the end of 2008, taking longer than many million dollar professional titles. It's an action platformer involving some RPG elements and there's really no way I could describe how great the game is in a single paragraph. If you like games at all (which I know you do if you read this), do yourself a favor and play this. It's just that good. What makes this run special is that it is the first run on SDA by the game's creator. Daniel uses all his detailed knowledge on how the game works and hours of playtesting in order to beat it in an amazing 0:27:18 on normal difficulty. The run is very well optimized and planned and uses some pretty neat small timesavers throughout. There's still plenty more difficulties and game modes left, so I'm sure this is not the last we see of this game on SDA.

It's a cruel mockery of the recent Academy Award winning theme song from Titanic. I call it... S.O.S.! Here is a unique game that was a virtual unknown on the SNES but has somehow picked up a small cult following online in recent years. It's a platformer where you rescue passengers from a sinking ship, but Wesley 'Molotov' Corron knows it's every man for himself in the name of speed. So he picks old man Jeffrey, ditches his beloved wife, and makes his escape in a mere 0:03:16. Or does he! You'll have to watch Jeffrey's worst ending to find out. Wesley became bored while waiting for his 0:03:41 Luke run to get verifiers, so here is the result.

Another game with a bad ending, at least for DK fans, is the original Donkey Kong. After his brilliant Donkey Kong Jr. text commentary — oh yeah, and the run was good too — Ray 'Croc-Doc' Cullen has made another house call for its predecessor. Just like last time, Ray bucks the trend and includes entertaining text commentary and informative audio commentary. There's even less of it this time, however, since this run takes only 0:01:05. Previously manning aping the page was Giel Goertz's 0:01:22 on the European version. The only real improvement was one jump on the second stage, but Giel still decided he would rather bow out of the game page.

Last but not least, we have a self-improvement by the famed Mega Man speedrunner, Mike 'MegaDestructor9' Dickson. He has destructed his prior Mega Man 3 Anniversary Collection run by nine million fold. Okay, that's not true at all, but his nickname isn't MilliDestructor7 or anything. I'll save you the math and tell you that his 0:32:42 has fallen thirteen seconds to 0:32:29. Mike estimates that choosing the Anniversary Collection over the NES cartridge saved him about four minutes. If that wasn't helpful enough, he also goes through and details exactly where he gained or lost time compared to his previous run. So read that, if you would.

Coinciding with one of the most important game releases lately, we have a run for Valve's Left 4 Dead. Ignoring that pesky 'cooperation' aspect of the game, Tristan 'Serial Gamer' Languebien proves that if you want a thing done right, do it yourself. Mostly opting for controlling the cute chick (can you blame him?) and killing all the other characters to avoid them getting in the way, Tristan managed to run all the levels in the game alone. It's an individual level run of all 20 levels on the PC version, and the total time combines to 0:45:27. That is not a very long zombie invasion.

Speaking of zombies, there's a game developer named Sigma Team, famed for creating the aptly named Zombie Shooter. To further prove they have a knack for original and mysterious names, they created Alien Shooter: Vengeance (hello, clever segue!). Guessing what that game is about is left as an exercise to the reader. If you're having trouble envisioning what could be its focus, you should watch Patrik 'Cremator' Salonen's segmented run. He doesn't waste time, only the monsters in this 0:32:19 on Normal difficulty. If action game runs keep flowing in at this rate, we'll run out of monsters to destroy soon.

Also of note, Enhasa made a little mistake in the last update. Tales of Vesperia is not actually the first dual-play run - there was Adam 'No1 Inparticular' Young's run in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. (Editor's note: This is what I get for being away on "sabbatical" at that time.) Also, I'm pretty sure there's some sort of capital punishment for the title of this update. Oh well...

Are you ready for one of the more highly anticipated speedruns in recent memory? Just your luck, you get two.

It's the triumphant return of the acclaimed Twilight Princess runner, Daniel 'Jiano' Hart. He's taken on the normal category for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, for which Peter 'pyh189' Yeh's time of 3:37 in 18 segments has stood since the middle of 2005. With the benefit of many new discoveries and Daniel's renowned dedication, it was eventually realized that a high-level run including all the tricks was indeed possible. So it was that this run — originally targeted at two and a half hours — ended up pushing two hours flat, with a final time of 2:03:04. And oh yeah, that's single-segmented. Check it out for yourself and be amazed! It's remarkable that so many advancements could be occurring all at once nearly ten years after its original release, but the Majora's Mask community isn't done yet, and perhaps sub-two hours is in the future.

It's also the triumphant return of 3/4 of the four-piece motley crew that previously speedran Tales of Symphonia. Their breakup was not fueled by drug addiction or solo careers but by Mark 'Peebs97' Peebles and Michael 'Flip714' Dix going off to college during the making of this Tales of Vesperia run, with Marcus 'DaBlueDragoon' Dix and Tyler 'ukm101' McDaniel still in high school. After having to restart the run twice due to unfortunate miscues, with a different lineup each retry, the final roster for this 43-segment New Game Plus 7:34 was just 3M. Once again, the group tag-teamed to write both informative summaries for each segment and some extremely entertaining off-beat comments too. This game isn't even built for dual-play, but Michael decided to play with one controller in each hand anyway. So not only is this a multiplayer run, but SDA's first ever dual-play run as well!

Two of my favorite speedrunners are back. Jeff Feasel has obsoleted a run by yet another one of my favorite speedrunners, Damien 'Dragondarch' Moody. Since his Legacy of the Wizard 0:30:06, Damien has been derailed by a psychotic and suicidal DVD recorder that ate a couple of his yet-unpublished runs. But that is a story for another time. Today we focus on Jeff and his single-segment 0:28:52. Since the route is mostly unchanged, Jeff's biggest time saver was simply to maximize his chances of getting speed-scroll drops. The super speed is more interesting, more fun to play, and more fun to watch. The Falcom charm shines again.

It's too bad there isn't a character named Nyaa in Sunsoft's Journey to Silius. Yes, I looked. This is even the case in the original Japanese version, Raf World, and in the unreleased prototype that was created before Sunsoft lost the Terminator license for the game. No matter. We'll make due with Jay McCray, the protagonist. Jay is masterfully controlled by Dag 'ktwo' Cato, whose run on the European version finishes in just 0:13:48. That's more than enough time to format a floppy disc containing evidence that terrorists were behind an "accident" that destroyed an entire space colony. Don't forget to scroll your screen for advantageous sprite limits!

Dungeon Keeper is a Peter Molyneux and Bullfrog classic, and you know that means a lot when said about the man and the company that brought us Syndicate and Populous. Hailed as innovative not only for the compelling gameplay, but also for letting the player be ostensibly evil, it seems to lend well to speedrunning, as proved by Maxime 'zoonel' de Lacheisserie. By mixing good multitasking with thought through planning, he concocted this segmented 1:55:19 for us, undoubtedly letting out a maniacal laughter after the evil ordeal was done. Of course, you could contend whether this act was truly mischievous - after all, what is bad about giving us another good run to watch? It's in 20 segments, by the way.

Shaun 'MMAN' Friend made an improvement to one of his old runs - and by old I do mean old, after all, 2005 was a while ago. It seems it was in dire need of improvement, as the new, 2009 run of Tomb Raider III is over 24 minutes faster. Shaun speeds through the third installment of the series about the Indiana Jones inspired adventurer and her bountiful bosom in 2:04:10. This palpable upgrade is done at a slight price - the number of segments increased from 19 to 27, but that's hardly a crime when the time saved reaches levels this significant. The runner mentions his plan for improving another of his Tomb Raider runs from 2005 - lets hope his work will keep being this entertaining.

If you build it, they will come. That's the idea behind the new features page anyway. There isn't any new content at the moment, but there are some old classics available. We are working on some more runner interviews and other things. I would like to take the time to remind you that you have one more day to try the unbelievably great week one SDA tourney game: Granada. Now that these tourneys are official, it would be nice to really bump up the level of participation. Thanks.

First off, we have old Sonic the Hedgehog, brought to us by the Awesome Australian himself, Mike 'mike89' McKenzie. He once held the Sonic the Hedgehog record on SDA, and once again he holds the Sonic the Hedgehog record. Particularly clever readers will notice what I did there with the hyperlinks. That's right, Mike did not take back his Genesis Sonic record but instead staked out a new one on the Sega Master System and Game Gear game. This run will look quite different to those of you who have only played the Genesis version. It's also a bit shorter, as demonstrated by Mike's 0:11:08 with deaths. I know I'm highly impressed.

Then we have new Super Mario Bros. Actually, the game is matter-of-factly titled New Super Mario Bros.. But what happens when the game is no longer so new? Will it then be a misnomer? Also, will Nintendo follow up with a Newer Super Mario Bros.? You've got questions; Jordan 'Greenalink' Greener has the answers. Here is a 45-segment 100% 2:26:20 to prove the point, produced naturally on his trusty DS. This uncontroversial work was inspired by a very controversial work by someone else at another site. By the way, Nintendo has already pulled out all the creative stops with the title of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Trust me, Jordan is ready.

On the SDA forum, we have had several weekly tournaments before, and all were great fun. We've placed an increasing emphasis on the community, and it was recently suggested to me to write more about some community features such as these. So I'm pleased to announce the 5th SDA weekly tourney, beginning as we speak. Since this resides in the Casual Speedrunning board, you can be sure that this is an excellent way to try out some amazing games and compete with fellow speedrunners in a friendly atmosphere. All you have to do is play and post. I hope to see you there!

David 'marshmallow' Gibbons has been under some real fire as of late. Another of his speedruns from 2004 goes down today, as newcomer Austinn 'Davis' Hallman has beaten his Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble Hard 100% in 1:51 by fifteen minutes. Hard mode has one key advantage, incidentally: you start each stage with both monkeys, which saves you the trouble of finding a DK barrel. Whereas David's run uses 11 segments, Austinn's 1:36 uses 58. The astute reader might notice that this equates to one segment per stage. If all this segmentation makes you dizzy, don't worry, Austinn also provides a Hard single-segment any% in 0:51. At SDA, you can have your cake and eat it too.

The other Donkey Kong game in this update is Donkey Kong Jr.. (The first period is part of the game's title, while the second one marks the end of a declarative sentence.) Did you know? This is the only game in history in which Mario is the bad guy. I was overjoyed to learn that this speedrun was done by Ray 'Croc-Doc' Cullen, who delivers with some of his trademarked awesome text commentary — if you want solid information, you'll just have to listen to the audio commentary. Ray chronicles the tale of a wee ape youngling in diapers who is endlessly ravaged by thoughts of revenge. It'll take you longer to read this harrowing tale than it will to watch the run, which clocks in at a svelte 0:01:28.

Yep, it's the bear and the bird in their debut game, Banjo-Kazooie. Another of David 'marshmallow' Gibbons's old N64 speedruns has come under duress — it was a good five years while it lasted. Daniel 'Gibbatizer' Gibb has gibbatized David's single-segment 100% 2:55:01, and all that is left standing is his own 2:40:05 in the same category. I don't know exactly what "gibbatizing" entails, but it sure sounds cool. Perhaps it's what Daniel says to a girl after an eventful night together: "You've just been gibbatized!" Or maybe it simply means spending several years to complete a run, while implementing a new route and some nifty tricks.

Today's other featured runner will have to rely solely on his nickname, as 'sinister1' has requested that we remove his true identity from the game page. So all I am at liberty to say is that this man has beaten his own Double Dragon II: The Revenge run. Thirty-nine seconds shorter, and still with deaths, this 0:11:22 is filled with an even larger number of flying knees per second. But that's not all! He brought along a best friend, Joe 'jprophet22' Corbin, and they churned out this two-player 0:12:13, also with deaths. Now, you may be wondering why this run is slower than the other one, but after watching just a bit of the added lag, you'll see.

I recently learned of a gaming band called Contraband, which is pretty much the greatest name for anything I've ever seen.

Needless to say, this update is dedicated to the popular run 'n gun series. First we have Contra III: The Alien Wars, which has been attacked by more than one runner. Neither of them took down Mike Uyama but instead added new categories. Fresh face Kyle Halversen has a Hard difficulty 0:05:24 with deaths. Percentage-wise, this has to be the run on SDA that cuts the most time through death abuse, and it's all due to a peculiar exploit that will be very familiar to fans of Battle Garegga. News mainstay Jeremy 'DK28' Doll continues his relentless assault with two low% runs: 0:15:59 with deaths and 0:16:11 without. Simple arithmetic will show you that deaths save much less time in this case.

As you can see, low% is a popular Contra category because truly nothing is more manly than taking on hordes of baddies with no shirt and only your trusty peashooter to keep you company. And no man is more manly than the Swede of Speed, Freddy 'Frezy_man' Andersson! He has improved the low% time previously held by the aforementioned Jeremy 'DK28' Doll. It's a big one too, as 0:12:48 is now 0:11:34. Do you remember the any% Contra audio commentary, produced by a band of merry miscreants? Did you wish sometimes that everyone else would just shut up for a moment so Freddy could actually give insight into the game itself? Too bad, Mike Uyama traveled all the way to Europe just to ruin your day.

It's a familiar name with our first run today. Jeremy 'DK28' Doll doesn't play as Donkey Kong this time, but he does play as Little Mac in Super Punch-Out!!!! Jeremy has broken things down into four segments, which means we're getting some pretty optimized stuff as the entire show only lasts 0:03:24.97. Per segment you can call him the One Minute Man. Mr. Doll would like to thank Mrs. Doll for helping him with the Spanish in the audio commentary, which sounds like a sports announcer at ringside. Follow along with the action as opponent after opponent is knocked out faster than he can say "no más!"

Here's another familiar name. Give a warm welcome back to Jeff Feasel! Tom 'rdrunner' Votava's Deadly Towers 0:43:10 was long held to be a speedrun that might stand forever. It wasn't that the run was unbeatably optimized, but rather that the game is considered so bad that nobody would ever want to put in the time or effort or mental status to beat it. I suppose after you've conquered only good games such as Bionic Commando, Gauntlet, Adventures of Lolo, and River City Ransom, you too might give in to your sicker perversions and come away with the long, dark 0:33:56 of the soul.

Let's lighten things up with some Paperboy. Oh wait, this is the most twisted of all today's games. It's the inaugural speedrun for Yadir 'Riskbreaker Y' Osornio, who will soon be a familiar name in the news. Extra! Extra! Read all about how he intentionally crashes his bike, vandalizes homes, and generally acts like an all-around Johnny Knoxville. Yadir brakes for no man, canine, grandma, reaper, or graveling in his 0:10:50. This speedy recklessness is sure to earn him a promotion, demotion, or some other type of motion altogether. Watch the run and see what all the commotion is about.

The fresh memories of Nigel 'ridd3r' Martin's previous visit here are still lurking in the shadows, and he already has a new run for us. In an almost complete mood change, he went from World Of Goo into the World Of Noir. Max Payne is a game that successfully merged amazing action with a dark and edgy story reminiscent of old noir movies, and made bullet time a widespread addition to games (perhaps too widespread). Mister Martin merges cunning routes and tricks with exceptional execution in a similarly successful manner in this 29 segment 0:29:22 run in New York Minute mode, decimating the old run by nearly ten minutes. Of note: the old New York Minute record was formatted as an Individual Levels table. However, seeing as you can't start the levels with pre-set inventory and health, such a distinction didn't make much sense, and so the IL table is replaced by this segmented run. Since the adventures of the metaphor-loving, revenge-seeking vigilante are bound to be popular, here are the Medium Quality and High Quality torrents.

Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast is one of Bioware's most known RPG games. It's also a game containing a lot of bugs. And if there's anything speedrunners like, it's bugs that dramatically speed gameplay up. With the application of some refinements to the earlier runs, both the single segment and the multi segment categories have been improved. Curiously enough, not by one person - Julien Langer submitted a self improvement to the segmented run on normal difficulty (0:14:36 in 12 segments, knocking off almost 2 minutes), and Benjamin 'Beenman500' Culley applied Julien's tricks in a risky single segment run on the normal difficulty, finished in 0:18:29, 6 minutes better than before. Torrents: segmented, single segment.

Quick update today with two Mega Man improvements. The first of these doesn't require much explanation. Mike 'MegaDestructor9' Dickson has beaten his own Special Stage time for Mega Man 9. The time has dropped from 0:01:52.40 to 0:01:47.65, bringing the total time down to 0:20:16. Five seconds is nothing to scoff at when the length is under two minutes to begin with.

The second of these would require more explanation, but it was Chris 'Satoryu' Kirk who did this run of Mega Man Maverick Hunter X. So you can just listen to his fabulous audio commentary instead. Gone is his old 0:42:52 in 13 segments from 2006, and in its place is this shiny new 100% 0:37:01 in 15 segments. This is the fourth iteration of this run for Chris, so one could say he is a wily old veteran.

Let's say you're Nintendo and you have to come up with the title of a new Mario Kart game for the Wii. There's no greater utilitarian move than to just name it Mario Kart Wii. The F-Zero X speedrunner formerly known as 'PiccoloCube' has changed his handle to 'UchihaSasuke' in the years since. Whatever the case, his real name is Jose Karica, and he is the proud owner of a brand new Normal mode 1:07:38, single-segmented. Sold all your Nintendo consoles and handhelds to buy a Wii, but hunger for some ersatz recreations of arbitrarily-selected older courses? Well then, this is the game and the run for you.

What kind of party is it? A Mario Party. Who's invited? Everybody! That's right, before Nintendo became the undisputed party game company, they started it all off with the also fittingly-named Mario Party. And unlike WarioWare, these mini-games can be completed at different speeds by different people. Kevin 'neskamikaze' LaLonde took advantage of this circumstance and pumped out a 100% Mini-Game Island run in 0:45:45 and nine segments. Cower in fear as Mr. LaLonde valiantly fights through assorted mini-games in order to set up an ultimate showdown with none other than... Toad.

Today is a big day. Two classic but conspicuously missing games receive their first speedruns! The first of these is River City Ransom by Technos — may you rest in peace. Are you a generic enough dude to barf? Find out by watching Jeff Feasel as he explores the nature of the frailty of man by beating upon him with a trash can. Download this cultural artifact, performed single-segment on Novice difficulty, with a speedrunning time of 0:10:30. Considering that the Twin Galaxies time is 0:34:04, and the best on YouTube is 0:15:20, I think it's safe to say this run qualifies as a marked improvement over previously known records.

And then we have the seminal Bonk's Adventure, starring the titular cavebaby who bonks enemies with his massive forehead. PC Engine fans everywhere will be saddened to learn that this is a run on the Game Boy port. Don't put away your winky smiles just yet, because this version displays its own brand of charm. Rob 'Mickey Mage' Whitener is back with a one-minute improvement over a previously rejected run. After adjusting for Super Game Boy usage, this one rescues Princess Za in 0:18:53. Incidentally, I have learned that "za" is not a valid word in Scrabble, but I suppose that's why you need to challenge that sort of thing.