Lets racing time

How would you guys like to add Mighty No. 9 to the future games to be raced list?

And to make it even better, I think it should be a blind race done on the day the game is released.

that sounds like both a great idea, and a completely terrible one. It would be hilarious to watch all the failure, but it would probably take 6 hours.

As maybe the closest thing LETS RACING TIME has to an executive (?), I'm going to make an executive decision and say "no day one races". Like I realize I don't actually have any authority to do that and can't actually stop anyone who wants to, but I think it's a Bad Idea for lots of reasons and will frown and cross my arms disapprovingly if it ever happens.

Just tell them you're not mad, but you're dissapointed.

No, I'm totally with Brickroad on that. I think it would be a negative thing to have that kind of race on the channel.

Now, if people learn the game pretty well, I'd be all for doing one quickly, but please god not blind.

If Shantae: Risky's Revenge actually hits Steam some day then we should totally race that.

I'd have suggested the first game too, but it might be a touch too long.

Well yeah. Duh. Also, Duck Tales Remastered.

In actual race processing news, I figured out the issue I was having with one fo the videos for Yoshi's Island, so now all that remains is the actual gruntwork of getting everything slotted together. kefkafloyd did me up a real nice background and, rogue's audio aside, it should all be real pleasant.

In the meantime, we have been experimenting with a few Minecraft games (such as Blocks vs. Zombies and TF2 Dustbowl) and we totes think this is a thing we might want to put up on the channel. How many of you dudes have Minecraft and would be down for these kinds of shenanigans?

Got Minecraft and would be happy to join if it fits with my schedule, and if I can remember how I did a good recording of it.

Say, how's the Sonic 3 race coming?

Karen won a contest which got us, among a bunch of other cool things, download codes for every version of DT:R under the sun. What I'm saying is I'm calling shotgun on that race, whenever it is.

*cough* Along. There's one last hurdle.

The music is a done deal though. Or was. I'm loathe to touch it for Reasons, but Smooth McGroove might force my hand. I'm not an Ice Cap man myself, but dang.

Also, by chance could anyone rustle me up a column of icons of the six coins from Mario Land 2? Non-linear game is non-linear, and as much as I don't want to do it, the race will benefit from having some progress markers for everyone.

How's this?

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Haha, I didn't post that Ice Cap for you to put it in the video. I posted it because it was uploaded yesterday and it reminded me about the race. Plus it's a damn good song. I'm looking forward to the race, even if I did perform abysmally.

I didn't know there was such a man. What kind of man are you, then? Casino Night? Ice Cap Act 1 is about as good as it gets to me.

I agree with this in general.

That said they just hit the 2 player race mode goal at $4M, and we've got to race some of that (perhaps not quite day one).

Hydrocity Zone Act 2, yo.

Save Smooth McGroove for the inevitable Sonic & Knuckles race.

Yeah, I think I'ma just do that.
I missed this before. It's perfect! Many thanks.

Here are ideas I had back in June for NES Pentathlon challenges:

1. game: Megaman; start up state: save state; challenge: Hit Cutman with both boulders in the room.; how to earn style points: Finish Cutman off.

2. game: Metroid; start up state: save state or password; challenge: Beat Mother Brain without the Ice Beam or having any energy tanks.; how to earn style points: Climb the shaft before time runs out.

3. game: Circus Caper; start up state: new game; challenge: Skip to the boss room by taking the shortcut in the upper left corner of any stage.; how to earn style points: Don't take any damage.

4. game: Trolls on Treasure Island; start up state: password; challenge: Beat the level Teamwork.; how to earn style points: Complete the challenge without anybody else controlling either of your trolls.

and 5. game: Metal Gear; start up state: new game; challenge: Get into building 1 with your screen off.; how to earn style points: Also have your audio off during play.; Special Conditions: Screen must be turned off during the parachute scene. And if at any point you turn your screen on and you aren't in building 1 than you have to start this challenge back from the very beginning.

Out of these I felt the challenges could have been represented to the racers in any order expect 5 which should be last for obvious reasons.

"Turn your screen off" is completely unverifiable.

I tend to prefer our pentathlons to be surprise challenges, which I think eliminates a lot of expert-level play. Beating mother brain under ANY conditions is challenging enough to most people who didn't play metroid a lot as kids. And yeah, nix on anything like turning off your screen.

I also don't know two of those games. Which, sure, we could totally race unknown games. Those are fun! But anything more than "beat the level/game" is going to be unreasonable on unknown games, I think.

I don't think I've ever made it to a building in NES Metal Gear with the screen on.

Actually, it can be verified by using footage of the area the respective players are playing in.

I posted this here as I joined these forums recently and the person doing the NES Pentathlons wants to go onto the next system's pentathlons rather than keep on doing the NES's pentathlons.

Are you certain that the "Beat Mother Brain without the Ice Beam or having any energy tanks." challenge can't be done by anybody? I know it is possible for the originial Metroid game to be beaten without taking any damage or picking up any energy tanks without using any sort of outside help as somebody showed they could do it with a video that is under 40 minutes long on YouTube. In fact that is the only challenge, I'm not sure can be beaten rather something I thought might be possible because of guys like Brickroad.

Which of the games don't you know?

I thought the point of the pentathlons was for challenges, not nessecary to get people to replay games or to play new games.

That is not surprising as that little strentch is harder than about the next 1/2 of the game as long as you remember to not kill the guys that are going to take Snake into custody.

I don't think it would be too far of a stretch to say that I'm probably one of the best original NES Metroid players hanging around here, most people just don't play it because it does suck compared to Super Metroid, and there isn't any reason to play it at all since Zero Mission exists.

That being said, I think that challenge would be incredibly difficult, nigh impossible. The gauntlet leading to MB is designed to be unfair even when fully powered up, with no E-Tanks you are limiting yourself to only a few hits of any of the items in that room and you are dead. That alone might be doable with an expert player, but when you add in the sprite flicker problems, and Samus' sticky jumping and insane knockback you throw it entirely into the realm of luck I think.

I've seen similar videos on youtube, but I suspect tool assistance or editing. If it was Super Metroid, or one of the GBA ones that would be more believable, but the NES one... ehh... when someone can do it on a live stream, or right in front of me I would believe it.

Turning off your monitor does not affect video footage.

He's saying set up a video camera recording your monitor.

Oh!

No.

Speaking for myself, the pentathlons have always been more about hilarious hijinks than actually demonstrating your retro gaming skill. I like the surprise challenge format because it makes people think on their feet and sometimes puts them in a situation they aren't expecting. Shifting between things like earning a high score and trying to intentionally get yourself killed takes a bit of mental flexibility.

As for which games people here know? Based on the pentathlons we've done so far, it's apparent that no matter how classic the game is, there's someone here who has never played it. From The Legend of Zelda (myself) to Punch-Out!! (basically everyone on this forum?!), there's always someone who just never got around to playing it. Aside from Mario 3, Mega Man 2 and Tetris, I'm not sure I could name you a single NES game that everyone on this (sub)forum has played.

Of course, keeping everything mum before the pentathlon isn't without its issues, as any one of our recordings can attest. I still prefer to keep the games and the challenges a surprise, because I'm a sadist, but for that to work the challenges have to be approachable for someone who is picking the game up for the first time during the race. If I were to do another one, I might tone the difficulty down a little bit, if only to keep the race under 2 hours.

Can't name Tetris, if you specifically mean the NES version. Unless, that is, I don't count.

Mike will maybe back me up on this. In my opinion a good metric for pentathlon challenges is not "how hard is this?" but rather "how long will it take a new player to figure this out?" (With a dash of "how fun will this be to watch?" thrown in.)

I balanced my challenges by mixing in easy ones that only looked terrible (Quick Man) with ones that took a bit of time and elbow grease (Zelda L6). Mike did it by having a challenge that got easier as you went (Tetris) and making the most time-consuming challenges into little puzzles (Final Fantasy and MM2).

So there's a little more artistry to it than just "do these five hard things!" It's really about competing or challenging players, it's about getting some knuckleheads together for a good time, making something other knuckleheads will want to watch. Four black screens would be bad even if the Metal Gear thing were a reasonable challenge.