Speed Running

A few weeks back, I was talking with a couple of friends about speedrunning (speed running?) and my general annoyances about the practice.  Like the good minded people they are, they called me out on it, and to my credit, I did a piss poor job trying to explain why I was annoyed with speed-runners. 

While attempting to explain this, I realized something. 

I was unable to explain why I had not been a fan of speedrunning because my reasoning behind the practice was flawed.  I think.  I have mentioned speed running a bit, lastly on my article about Ultimate NES Remix on the 3DS, but only in a brief and general sense.  And I think what I said there really encapsulates my general mindset towards speed-running.

I personally like to take my time in games.  I like looking around.  In both Breath of the Wild, and Skyrim, I will often avoid fast traveling so that I can see as much of the world as possible.  I want to be able to take in as much of the world that so many artists, designers, creators, programmers, developers put their time and effort into creating.  In games like Gone Home and SOMA, which are often described as walking simulators, you could hypothetically speedrun, but so much of the game is built around experiencing the world and understanding the story.

I think that is something else that makes me unreasonably annoyed is when people speed run story and narrative driven games like Dear Esther or even Morrowind.  However, in the case of Morrowind is where my friend's points very much comes into play.  They said that some of the people who use exploits to speed-run games know these games so much better than the rest of us.  This person speedrunning Morrowind in less time than it takes me to run half a mile, knows more about this games mechanics and some of the items than I found out from my 161 hours of playing.  And then there is the guy who used a semi-recently (three years ago recently) discovered exploit to overload (for lack of a better short definition as to what was really happening) Super Mario World and reached the end credits in 4:49.8.  While I would not say that he beat the game, or completed the game, he did reach the end credits which you could normally only watch by defeating Bowser.

And as Conklederp occasionally says, why should I try to yuck anyone else's yum?  If someone enjoys speed running games, who am I to tell them that they are wrong.  Well, if that person says that the only real way to play a game is to speed-run it, then I might have a legitimate argument with them, unless we are talking about Super Meat Boy or Mutant Mudds, both of which seem like they were designed with speedrunning in mind.

So after coming to this realization with friendly assistance, I believe that my feelings have been downgraded from annoyance, to acceptance, but with the occasional bemusement for specific types of games; looking at you Firewatch and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs speed runners. 

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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