There’s been a pivot away from “classic” speedruns games over the last few years - I get that Doom or Sonic 2 or Goldeneye or other 90s games aren’t guaranteed a place every year, but it seems like the games that kicked off the speedrun scene are often overlooked these days.
That said, there is Quake, and there is SMB3 where I dont know who the runner is but that couch is a banger.
I was looking forward to seeing Still Wakes The Deep runs, but I find them really… unexciting, I think is the sentiment. Like the 2016 Doom onwards, the runs are technically outstanding, but there’s a lot of walking on invisible geometry with collision detection, or random tricks like railboosting in Doom that seems to break a game. I get that that is an entirely subjective opinion though, maybe I’m more suited to No Major Glitches runs!
I get that Doom or Sonic 2 or Goldeneye or other 90s games aren’t guaranteed a place every year
FWIW Sonic 2 was the game that kicked things off this year.
But also I think the goal should be either showing off new tricks or showing off new games. Older games are going to have fewer new tricks. Obviously sometimes a barrier is broken or a new category is put together that has interesting gameplay, but in general we probably will see fewer old games.
That isn’t to say that old games should go away completely, but if there is a bias towards newer games, it makes sense.
Is there much innovation happening for the old games? If not, that might be a significant factor. That, and people also tend to speedrun games after playing them for real, and more people play modern games.
Its also worth remembering that the people who grew up with and have nostalgia for those “classic games” are late late 30s-mid 40s and have other stuff to do than to sit and watch a stream for five days.
At the end of the day, GDQ is a company that raises money for charities. And they need to focus on what will get the most eyes, and thus wallets, on the product. Watching someone glitch through the ceiling in a 2D sonic that nobody in the audience has any real interest in ain’t gonna do that. Breaking apart the games that the audience IS familiar with will.
I dunno. I fully agree it is the correct thing to do and am glad they do it. But I’ve been pretty sour on GDQ proper since AGDQ 2021. The Show Must Go On and all that but something about the discord mods going completely insane to shut down ANY mention of the violent insurrection just rubbed me the wrong way. And, to my knowledge, there wasn’t even a “Hey… this is really fun and all but maybe just check a few news sites during the break and make sure everyone you know is okay…” on the stream. I’ll watch a VOD if it goes viral but it is just hard to vibe with that looming over it.
There’s been a pivot away from “classic” speedruns games over the last few years - I get that Doom or Sonic 2 or Goldeneye or other 90s games aren’t guaranteed a place every year, but it seems like the games that kicked off the speedrun scene are often overlooked these days.
I definitely always want 80s/90s games in GDQ lol, but I’m old so what do I know, I can still enjoy newer games sometimes
Like the 2016 Doom onwards, the runs are technically outstanding, but there’s a lot of walking on invisible geometry with collision detection, or random tricks like railboosting in Doom that seems to break a game.
but the glitchless/etc runs of those Doom games on high difficulty are amazing, Doom Eternal is so fast it’s basically a single-player e-sport
There’s been a pivot away from “classic” speedruns games over the last few years - I get that Doom or Sonic 2 or Goldeneye or other 90s games aren’t guaranteed a place every year, but it seems like the games that kicked off the speedrun scene are often overlooked these days.
That said, there is Quake, and there is SMB3 where I dont know who the runner is but that couch is a banger.
I was looking forward to seeing Still Wakes The Deep runs, but I find them really… unexciting, I think is the sentiment. Like the 2016 Doom onwards, the runs are technically outstanding, but there’s a lot of walking on invisible geometry with collision detection, or random tricks like railboosting in Doom that seems to break a game. I get that that is an entirely subjective opinion though, maybe I’m more suited to No Major Glitches runs!
FWIW Sonic 2 was the game that kicked things off this year.
But also I think the goal should be either showing off new tricks or showing off new games. Older games are going to have fewer new tricks. Obviously sometimes a barrier is broken or a new category is put together that has interesting gameplay, but in general we probably will see fewer old games.
That isn’t to say that old games should go away completely, but if there is a bias towards newer games, it makes sense.
Is there much innovation happening for the old games? If not, that might be a significant factor. That, and people also tend to speedrun games after playing them for real, and more people play modern games.
Its also worth remembering that the people who grew up with and have nostalgia for those “classic games” are late late 30s-mid 40s and have other stuff to do than to sit and watch a stream for five days.
At the end of the day, GDQ is a company that raises money for charities. And they need to focus on what will get the most eyes, and thus wallets, on the product. Watching someone glitch through the ceiling in a 2D sonic that nobody in the audience has any real interest in ain’t gonna do that. Breaking apart the games that the audience IS familiar with will.
I dunno. I fully agree it is the correct thing to do and am glad they do it. But I’ve been pretty sour on GDQ proper since AGDQ 2021. The Show Must Go On and all that but something about the discord mods going completely insane to shut down ANY mention of the violent insurrection just rubbed me the wrong way. And, to my knowledge, there wasn’t even a “Hey… this is really fun and all but maybe just check a few news sites during the break and make sure everyone you know is okay…” on the stream. I’ll watch a VOD if it goes viral but it is just hard to vibe with that looming over it.
I definitely always want 80s/90s games in GDQ lol, but I’m old so what do I know, I can still enjoy newer games sometimes
but the glitchless/etc runs of those Doom games on high difficulty are amazing, Doom Eternal is so fast it’s basically a single-player e-sport