Wednesday 21 August 2013

Speed Running: The Greatest and Most Depressing Hobby

Right, I'm quite busy today so instead of talking about a specific title or ranting on industry bullshit I'm going to say something quick about my new love with speed running.

Recently I've been trying to get into this whole thing and the game I chose to break myself in was They Bleed Pixels on Steam, if you have been watching the play through you've probably heard me mention it a few times.

The thing is though, Speed Running is both a greatly satisfying and greatly depressing little past time and I'll explain why.  What's great about getting into speed running is that you get a lot of replayability out of your game.  Ironically, do to the game really fast you have to play it over and over for hours and hours so you can get quite a lot of length out of quite a short game if you start trying to speed run it.  Also the feeling of setting a new personal best time is amazing, when you come to the end of a run and you see that you were faster than you were a few days ago, it's a great feeling.

On the flip side though, for They Bleed Pixels at least, most runs can end up dead before you even hit the halfway point in the game.  A small mistake can cost you a lot of time and if you're losing lots of time then you may as well just start over.  What's even worse is if you get quite far and you're having a good time then suddenly you screw up and all your effort goes right down the drain.  It's one of those things that just makes you want punch a hole through your computer monitor and rip your controller in half.

Luckily there have been no hardware casualties yet during my efforts but I'm going to assume as I take up a couple more games, something will get broken at some point whether through constant use or extreme frustration.  Still, if you find that the games you're dropping your hard earned cash on are a bit on the short side and leaving you disappointed, take up speed running, it's a great way to extend the life of a title and you may even make a few friends with the friendly communities that are out there.

Once I finish the playthrough I'll upload a They Bleed Pixels speed run attempt of my own, so keep an eye out.

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