Videogames are machines masquerading as worlds; conflagrations of code specifically designed to create unreal environments. The best and biggest games can take dozens of hours to explore, and beating them is a serious investment of time.
There are those, however, who zip through at a breakneck pace, beating the game in a fraction of the time required by even the most ardent players. Such people are called speedrunners, and some of the best of them have for the past week competed in Awesome Games Done Quick, an annual charity tournament that draws hundreds of thousands of viewers.
It's been utterly riveting.
Watching a speedrunner tear through the sprawling world of a AAA title is not at all like watching Interstellar on fast forward. The thrill lies in seeing how the best speedrunners manipulate and break these familiar machines, exposing the fascinating ways they work.
Take, for example, Kingdom Hearts, a Disney-infused role-playing game. It's one of my favorite games, and at my best I could blow through it in about about 15 hours. On Monday, a speedrunner who uses the handle Zetris beat it in three. Such a feat requires a deep understanding of the rules and logic that govern the game's world, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the bugs that let you subvert them.
Late in Kingdom Hearts, players encounters Chernabog, the star of the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia. He's vicious and frightening, a massive serpentine boss capable of doling out remarkable amounts of pain. He's a formidable opponent, and even an experienced player faces a tough battle that will last several minutes.
Zetris put him down in about 15 seconds. After a quick combo to Chernabog's face, he used the game's summon system to call Mushu (yes, the tiny Eddie Murphy-voiced dragon from Mulan), and lob fireballs at Chernabog's face. His health bar dropped so fast it looked broken.
