SNES Speedruns Set New WC Record (March 6, 2018)

[ChrisReid]

Speedruns are another element of modern video gaming that haven't yet taken hold in the world of Wing Commander. CirclMastr is working to change this with some quick runs of WC on the Super Nintendo. This is an extremely competitive area where challengers use precise measurement tools and work aggressively to shave off every fraction of a second they can get. Since the goal is ultimate speed regardless of method, anything goes as long as it's not cheating or external manipulation of the game. As such, in these playthroughs there is liberal use of the ejection system to maximize movement through the mission tree. In the losing run, it's simply a race to get through to the end of the Apocalypse System (the SNES version of Hell's Kitchen). The winning run requires strategic ejection to get to Hubble's Star, and then it takes key successes in that system, Rostov and Venice to get the Pewter Planet. He's already crunched his initial 46 minute run down to 41 minutes. It's a different way of playing through the series, and it'll be interesting to see how fast he can get in the future!

World Record because I've found no evidence that anyone else runs this. The SNES version of Wing Commander differs from the PC version in a number of ways that contribute to make it a much slower run, even in the best circumstances. "Much slower" still means pretty quick, however. I intend to get this record under 45 minutes, and it could probably get under half an hour with a good run and good RNG.

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Original update published on March 6, 2018

 

[Wedge009]

I generally watch speed-runs from speeddemosarchive.com which focuses on verified human (as opposed to tool-assisted) speed-runs. Though their updates seemed to have slowed in the last few months, they still have a pretty healthy library - my brother did one for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door some years ago and I think it's still up there. Personally I don't enjoy the idea of speed-running - I play games for fun not competition and if there's a time constraint that tends to frustrate me particularly if I make a mistake in my haste.

Anyway, WC1 is an interesting choice because of the branching mission tree and the fact that there's no real penalty for ejecting (other than potentially automatically failing the mission branch you're on). Knowing which mission objectives are critical to the branch and which ones can be ejected freely in would be rather helpful, I imagine.

 

[Quarto]

I find speedruns to be a fun and exciting concept... that I absolutely cannot get into. I appreciate the efforts involved, the research to find the best way through and all that. I love the way many speedruns are team-based, with a support team figuring out a strategy, and one player being deployed to do the actual job - it's cool, because it reminds me so much of what happens with aircraft testing, where the test pilot is only a part of an entire team.

So it's a cool concept... but egad, I can't imagine anything less exciting to actually watch. Someone sent me a Skyrim speedrun video a few weeks ago, and rather than be impressed, I was immediately irritated by the different tricks the player used to abuse the game, and I found the video entirely unwatchable. Irritating, and uninteresting. As I said, the research is always impressive, pooling the available knowledge on exploitable Skyrim bugs and all that, but really - no, just no. And it's the same with this one. It takes great planning to execute a Wing Commander speedrun. But what could possibly be interesting about actually watching someone go through a bunch of ejections just to finish the game faster?

 

[AD]

. But what could possibly be interesting about actually watching someone go through a bunch of ejections just to finish the game faster?

Hehe, when I first played WC1 I wasn't very good at it. I would play over at my cousin's house and neither of us really knew what we were doing so we'd often eject just so we could see the next little cutscene. I don't know if we figured out then that the results were different if you actually won the missions... but there you go. For us playing games was a group activity where there was always at least one person pasively watching the other person eject mission after mission.

 

[Wedge009]

I understand the boredom aspect of watching speed-runs... but seeing enough of a game to pique my interest was what got me to eventually play Knights of the Old Republic for myself.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

(...) Personally I don't enjoy the idea of speed-running - I play games for fun not competition and if there's a time constraint that tends to frustrate me particularly if I make a mistake in my haste.
(...)

Exactly the same for me. I play really really slow and hate it when I get rushed by the game so that I can't take in the scenery. I also obsess about exploring every corner lest I miss a secret. With modern games that leads to the silly aspect that I barely play without a walkthrough anymore (at least when secret rooms etc are concerned) which slows down my playing even more. Though to be honsest, it's been years since I played a new game...

Hehe, when I first played WC1 I wasn't very good at it. I would play over at my cousin's house and neither of us really knew what we were doing so we'd often eject just so we could see the next little cutscene. I don't know if we figured out then that the results were different if you actually won the missions... but there you go. For us playing games was a group activity where there was always at least one person pasively watching the other person eject mission after mission.

Same here. First I watched my brother play, then I played/watched with my friends. Good times.

 

[Quarto]

Hehe, when I first played WC1 I wasn't very good at it. I would play over at my cousin's house and neither of us really knew what we were doing so we'd often eject just so we could see the next little cutscene. I don't know if we figured out then that the results were different if you actually won the missions... but there you go. For us playing games was a group activity where there was always at least one person pasively watching the other person eject mission after mission.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Watching someone play is a lot of fun. Watching someone do a speedrun is not .

 

[Wedge009]

Eh, that's your opinion - and that's fine! If it's a game that I've played before I can sometimes pick up helpful strategies for taking down a certain boss (even if I don't necessarily employ those strategies with the same haste for myself). And even with games I don't know, I like watching those game-breaking glitches that can finish games in minutes as opposed to hours. Even if I have no idea what's going on, it can still be pretty funny.

Exactly the same for me. I play really really slow and hate it when I get rushed by the game so that I can't take in the scenery. I also obsess about exploring every corner lest I miss a secret. With modern games that leads to the silly aspect that I barely play without a walkthrough anymore (at least when secret rooms etc are concerned) which slows down my playing even more.

Yeah, since time to play games is hard to come by, my completionist self is always disappointed for missing things I didn't know about, so often a guide will be handy not so much because I can't beat the game itself but because I want to make sure I find all the extra bonuses that might be hidden away.