amazing race

i think we might be ready to go. wow. i've got a $30 donation from raccoon. "the most intensebidwar we have ever had." "the animals have raised more moneythan the entirety of agdq 2011." "so let's save those animals!" 'probably shouldn't haveread that last part. alright. all four of you, ready? 3...

2... 1... go! "let's go, ivan!" [cheers] and just like that, we're underwayhere at agdq 2014. we are off and running. uh, so in your upper-lefthand corner, we have garrison. 'course you guys remember himfrom last year's agdq. he ran solo.

'did a great job. he's the first manto ever get a 30 in this game. pretty big mile mark. [...] so uh, across from himwe got krauser318. you know, i was proud of him asa stream viewer for awhile, watching me playing the game,now i'm his biggest fan. so right back...right back at him. uh, bottom left of course is zoast. if you watched sgdq, he dida great job on the 100% run,

and he's currently theworld-record holder. and finally wrapping up our group,in the bottom right we have ivan, and he is looking to make the collective*proud with his performance today. and just like that,ridley's out of the way, and we'll look to getour first glimpse to see who's gonna take the lead here… with their escape off the ceres. pretty simple stuff here:dodge the steam. and for those of you who'renew to super metroid,

the goal is basically: you'regonna collect a bunch of items, fight a bunch of bosses,then get to the end. alright, so ivan tripped up a little bit there. krauser last one out of that room. all-about average, i mean ceres isn't the uh…the be-all-end-all either. it's just your first kind of glimpse to get ahead. yeah, this is not the deciding factor. this is a long race, folks.

and there's…there's something thatyou should know about these 4 players. uh, these are the 4 ofthe top players in the world, and their personal best timesare separated by… 45 seconds or less…which is-is insane because this run isabout 45 minutes long. yeah, it's…unreal to thinkthat -you know- over a year ago people were saying,"what if people can… if we can get more peopleto cut the 50 in this game," now we got people…getting under45 minutes now, which is ridiculous, so--

it's gonna be a goodrace, guys. and, uh… i guess in the next few minutes here, we're just gonna…give you guys uh,a glimpse into super metroid. if you're not familiar with speedrunning,we're gonna try to… relate some ofthe tricks to you guys, so you can understand what's going on,what you're gonna be seeing… throughout the run. and while this gamehas to do with movement, you have a huge amount of controlover samus, who's the main character there,

and the way that youcontrol her's gonna determine how fast you movethrough the uh, the areas. yes, so right off the batyou see 'em uh, doing what they call arm pumping. so everytime they mash l or r there,or looking up looking down, they're gonna gain1 pixel of movement. now that might sound like alot,but over the course of a run that adds up toseveral seconds. so… anytime they have an opportunityto move like that, they will.

so there'll bea whole lot of uh, subtle time gain & lossthrough the movement. uh, you'll see also alotof time gain & loss on bosses and just based on uh,luck itself, which plays a big rolein this run. and nice hitroom*for everybody there. looks like everybody's through,no problem. coming up on the first upgrade here,we're gonna get morph ball. it's an important one.

*chuckling* you can saythat again, sinister. *chuckles* understatement of the year. alright, so the morphing ball's actuallyreally important for speedrunning, it's going to allow them…uh, to do a trick here thatwe call the "mockball". we're actually gonna geta first glimpse of it… in this first missile roomthat they're heading towards. what a mockball does isit allows them to

preserve their moving speed-their running speed- while they're rolling, which is -i mean- what youotherwise can't do. now…that's not only useful because it allows them to move through rooms quickly, but it's also gonna let them sequence-breakand pick up super missiles early in a little bit here. yes, allowing them to skip spore spawn, but have no fear,you will get to see spore spawn tonight. yeah, you guys did donate,

so there will be a spore spawnrta race following any%-- you will get to see…thatspore spawn isn't even in this game, we're not lying to you… but that's coming up to follow…the any% race at hand here. alright, this is the first really reallyskill-intensive part of the run: the climb. uh, these guys areleaving outta here, so let's see…'see how we do. yep. so we're gonna belooking for wall jumps here, […] they know how manythey have to do in a row.

the thing to note hereis just who's-- look at how cleanthey move here. so ivan, a little bit of a hiccup at first,but he's…making up for it. yeah. the normal way up that room isjust take those uh, platforms, but these guys can wall-jump so fastthey don't need the platforms. beautiful movement there…from garrison. he's first in to the parlour now. one thing that i like aboutsuper metroid speedrunning is just… the creativity these guys havewhen it comes to naming things

because they need to be able to talk aboutthe run and…uh, room strategies, so they've actually come up with namesfor all the rooms in the game. and there's some pretty bizarre ones. we'll…kind of mention a few of themas we go throughout. yeah, really good names in this. alright, ap…proaching the first boss here-we're gonna find the bomb-, torizo. key here: missile lock. we want to look forhow many missiles are dropped. uh, you need at least 7to get that one cycle,

so we're gonna seehow many they can drop here. that's our first little bitof rng…in the run, and there's plenty more to come. let's see how we do. ivan hit the jackpo--or, zoast -excuse me- hit the jackpot.that's zoast on the left there. so he is through. ivan with good luck as well. alright, and everybody's cleared it.

so you guys will noticethere's not gonna be a whole lot of… separation early onin this run, uh because these guys areall of such high skill level. uh, they're gonna do the firstsequence break in the run shortly here in order to pick up thesuper missile upgrade, which will allow them to access other areas of the gamethat they wouldn't normally be able to, and uh, deal extra damageto bosses as well. he's correct. and, uh… again, just-just--

i just want to throw out some more room names'cause i think they're pretty cool. we got the terminator room here. yeah, gotta love that one. i like that name. 'just had to mention it, so-- like you said uh, we're gonna looking for that mockball to super missiles coming up here 'soon as they go down…this elevator. and they're allpicking up that e-tank. all the items they'regonna pick up are either

absolutely necessary to obtain orthey're just happen to be on the path and they're gonna behelpful for completing the run. uh, the runners are eithergonna get 21 or 22% of the items. yeah. super metroid is sucha refined game to this point that -you know- you couldgrab extra missiles just for safety, but…at the same time thetrade-off is the item fanfare. you have to sit through a couple secondseverytime you pick up an item, so… these guys have it to the point wherethey're getting only the things they need to beat the game,even if it means that

at the very end of the run,they're short. and zoast is through with his mockball,he picks up some super missiles. ivan shortly there after following. garrison's in there as well, and so is krauser. everybody keeping pretty good pace here. this is what we expected, folks. alright, and again, uh… the thing to note about super metroid

that -i think- is most impressiveis ammo management, so… one thing to look for,as you're watching this run, is just look at the missile and supermissile counts of these guys because…uh, that could be thebig determining factor. somebody's running low on ammocompared to someone else, they could lose timeas a result of that, so-- yeah, they may have to killan extra enemy or two, which is gonna waste a bit of time,and again that's determined by luck, so there is uh, a decentamount of luck in this run.

alright, so uh, we have the… picking up the charge beam here in just a minute. they're gonna be heading tothe first boss, which is kraid. going for uh, the kraid quick-kill. it's a pretty cool trick. yeah, we can talk a little about thatbefore we get there, too. so uh, the thing to look for on kraid: we're gonna be trying tostun-lock kraid's mouth open… to be able to get in…in the uh,the early round there

before he actually pops upin his full animation, so you're gonna look for themto stun-lock open there, get some missiles andsuper missiles in there. yup. that's just aboutprecise uh, positioning… and getting the right missilesand super missiles to come out there. yeah. these guys'reall very rehearsed on it, but that-that is the first potential uh… big…lead-change point in the run. definitely.

nn, it's just nice to enjoy the-the movement -you know- these-- these players areso good and -you know- you go back & play the game,and you're like "how come i'm not moving like that." yeah. it's uh… it's unreal to see how far the game's advanced,even…while it's-- it seems so refined already butthey always find new strats there. zoast getting grabbed there by[…] mob, but he's through. a little bit of time lost there.

and you may noticesome of these guys are uh, running into some enemies, butthat's on purpose most of the time. they're using uh, a techniquecalled damage boosting… in which they just have to facein a certain direction and uh, that allows them to get anice little boost off an enemy. zoast with a very nicetriple-shot there on super missiles… to clear the gap without losing speed. oh yeah. yeah. like you'd mentioned,

damage boosting's gonna be usedall over the run…to uh, move through rooms more effectively. yeah. you have to be careful though, 'cause you have todo manage your health. uh, you know, that's something--that's pretty important, and these guys are not gonnabe getting alot of health either. they're only getting 3 e-tanks during the entire run. alright, here comes kraid. so again uh, beforewe get to kraid here [...],

look at the ammo counts quick. you can see we alreadyhave some…variability. and that might not makesuch a big deal right now, but it could have…implications later on. so here we go with the kraid kill. zoast's got it. -garrison right after that.-ivan's got it as well… crowd: *clapping* crowd: "shh! quiet! quiet!"

and krauser. crowd: *clapping & cheering* i-i'm not sure, but i believethat might be the first time that we've had synchronizedkraid quick-kills live -anywhere in the world,-crowd: *chuckles* at the same time.great job, guys. amazing stuff so far.really close race. all these guys,getting to the varia suit right around the 10-minute mark.

just what we've expected.excellent stuff. a, ivan using a nice technique there, the uh…si-err…s-uhh… shine there…kill. 'doesn't have to use a missile. now you're gonna notice, they're gonna skipthe e-tank down here, and that's to uh, save time-you know- because this is… this run's measured in real time,not in game time, so they want to skip door transitions'cause those take a long time.

yeah. and again, that's avery recent route change, as far as super metroid is concerned,to at least to get that e-tank. it's right there,it doesn't seem like its alot of time, but… there's actually an energy tanklater on in the run in maridia that doesn't havedoor transitions around it, so-- these tiny little optimizations arewhat make this game what it is. indeed. alright, why don't we seewhat's going on with uh, saving and killing the animals.

let's head over to spikevegeta. yeah, right now, it looks like kill has actually openedup a little bit of a lead. uh, kill is at $32,744, save is at $30,869, so nearly a 2k deficit at this point. so once again, we'll remind youto get your donations in whether you like to kill or savethe animals at the end of the run. obviously…uh, killing the animals'the speedrunners' friend

because that means uh,a shorter run for them. but if you're a fan of saving the animals,you still have plenty of time to make it happen as well. we're gonna cut that off as the first runnergets to mother brain 1, just so everybody knows.you gotta get your… donation in by that time.that's when we'll cut off. yes, so a little less than uh, i guessabout half an hour actually, to get those donations in…for whichever side you prefer.

looks that way. and the reason we're actually kind of taking a little bit of a sidetrack hereto talk about that is that… this part of the gameis mostly item acquisition. so again, we're looking at movement. uh, minor details like uh, nice mockball there from zoast. uh… we'll be able tomake up time or lose time depending on how they move, but…

this next few minutes here…uh just, err… all about the good items. and they're gonna get one ofthe more important items in the game, which is the speed booster. uh, speed booster is…you know. it's got a pretty obvious name, "speed".so, "speedrunner," yeah, that's-that's your friend, definitely. what it allows you to do some thingsthat you can't otherwise do, which is basically to fly across the…screen at the cost of your health,

so that's something called shinesparking,that you're gonna see the runners do a ton throughout the course of the run. -a, nice damage boost there, from zoast.-crowd: "ooooh!" -very nice!-that's cutesy. in bubble mountain,the uh, area we just traversed,