The summer games happened quickly The Games Done Quick charity event series has long been a favorite among gaming fans and critics at Ars Technica, combining classic, beloved video games and carefully thought-out methods to tear them apart in search of high-speed exploits. This year’s summer program is particularly special, as it’s the first in 2.5 years to take place in a physical space—albeit with some of the strictest masking and distancing requirements we’ve seen at a live public broadcast in 2022. (The organizers of GDQ show up to read the news, which makes sense for a series benefiting Doctors Without Borders.) Even with the precautions being taken, the combination of players, commentators and crowd in the same room brought excitement back to her shows, so This We’re rounding up some of the best series from the past week, as archived on GDQ’s official YouTube channel. The event is still going on as of this article’s publication, which means you can watch it right now via their Twitch channel. The final races of the event, dedicated to the Elden Ring, will be completed late on Saturday 2nd July. Tunic speedrun, Summer Games Done Quick 2022
Tunic, 2022, “true end”.
If you haven’t played Tunic yet, we recommend you pause before watching this spoiler-filled breakdown of the game with many of its biggest secrets. (My review of the game back in March has far fewer spoilers.) But if you’ve already collected the game’s hidden “instruction booklet” pages, consider it a must-watch because it features a fascinating guest on real-time commentary: Andrew Shouldice , the game’s lead designer, developer and artist.
He’s joined by a member of the Power-Up Audio team, who worked on the game’s soundtrack, and they reveal a lot of information about how the game was made—including confirmation of how many of the biggest feats the developers intentionally left in the game. At one point, Shouldice watches a trick begin to play, telling the crowd that he had planned for it to be a possibility, but would never be able to personally activate it. A few minutes later, the speedrunner showed off the trick, allowing him to warp through a wall and bypass a ton of difficult content.
Advertising
Halo Infinite speedrun, Summer Games Done Quick 2022
Halo Infinite, 2021, “no tank gun”.
The speedruns of many classic games come in many categories, and the most broken ones are known as “any rate” runs, as they allow players to use any tricks and skip any missions they want. In some gaming situations, these kinds of runs can be boring to watch, and the infamous Halo Infinite glitch is no exception. This speedrun begins with a demonstration of the “tank gun,” which bolts a gun of unlimited ammo into Master Chief’s feet. That’s too much help for speedrunners’ tastes, but this SGDQ demo still features a bunch of weird tricks that combine geometry and other uncanny feats of physics—all boosted by the Chief’s instant access to a new hook element. Sure, the grappling hook makes players move much faster around the world, but it’s also featured in a wild bug that makes players bounce off explosive barrels in gravity-defying ways. Thunder in Paradise speedrun, Summer Games Done Quick 2022
Thunder in Paradise, 1995, all-cutscenes shown
We’re not sure if this is GDQ’s first speedrun dedicated to a full-motion video game (FMV), but it’s definitely one of the dumbest examples of the 90s CD-ROM genre. Thunder in Paradise is based on the short-lived TV series of the same name, which starred Terry “Hulk” Hogan with his son Jack Lemmon as a crime-solving action duo on the beach, and it was as bad as it sounds. The video game version, ported to the CD-I console, forces players to watch unbelievably bad live-action footage between small-arms shooting segments. In most speedrun video games, players skip as many cutscenes as possible, but GDQ chose to show the entire footage filmed from this game while editing the game parts as quickly as possible. Come in bro.
