There's a kind of inverted uncanny valley-esque slot right between "this fan game shows too little effort" and "this fan game is trying too hard to be the game it was inspired by" where it becomes impossible to criticize stuff like
Mega Man: Square Root of Negative One. We're not straying from the basic guiding principle when making any form of sequel though: old foundations, new house. In this case, it's either a crazy house or a haunted mansion, I can't tell. The story: The city gets attacked and "Obviously Wily is behind this". The assets: stolen (as they should be). The "Men": very very scary all of them really. I gave it a spin and fought through the only
slightly campy Plant Man's stage on about 3 non-laggy frames-per-second (and my compy can run The Lemmings on Full). The boss itself would have required hopping on moving 1-block-wide platforms at peril of getting bubble transformed by those trademark Hanoi tower spikes below. I don't feel too-too bad.
'peter afro' seems to have dallied in this dale of discerning derivation (how DOES
i derive actually? It's something boring like 0 isn't it?) for no longer than
0:02:31, abusing some kind of Easter egg warp teleport. Slick run all in all. Skip only doable in v. 1.2 though so don't miss your exit!
From the realm of "Men", as e.g. Metal Man, to the realm of Metal Max, the Returnage. As in
Metal Max Returns. As in Metal Max Returns Returns... urr... returns to the front page today, in the same quality. Well, higher quality. More fast. Dammit, can a Man really not watch The Barber of Siberia at 2.30-o'-clock the same time maintaining flowing verbal expression at the dead-on angle? Who invented this?
The sacrifices made in order to let you know
Marcus 'crazedlink00' Duchow got bored of the numbers 4 and 11 and done did improved by exactly blackjack seconds to
0:03:50. In this curveball JRPG-meets-heavy-track-vehicles, the less ambitious of us can conclude their shooting star careers (in whatever the tank was for) earlier than the Beatles were to innovations in the studio, presumably heading off to Liberty City for a bit of a rampage instead.
In a game series cool enough not to be ridiculing itself in including two, no more, no less, exclamation marks in every title's name, there was fierce competition at one point, in both Individual Levels and Single-Segment runs. Today, that's only true for one of the two. Along came
'Summoningsalt' to demonstrate to these old-time has-beens they really just needed to be paying attention. Finishing only about 43 in-game seconds ahead of any human being ever, continuing today, the living daylights are being knocked out of not just all the mangy rope-groping amateurs in the game itself, not just the has-beens, but factually every single person ever having touched an NES controller within a ten-mile radius of a copy of
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, including moms wiping the dust. Not that the controller should have had any on it. This
0:15:12.14 recorded in one glorious go will wipe off any self-complacency about whatever you count as your proudest achievement faster than the spring clean at the Incredibles.
I cannot over-emphasize the blasphemous amounts of stupid the run really is. I'm actually going to directly quote sinister1's verification comment to try to get it across:
"This runner has contributed to many new and exciting strategies in this game which made an insanely low time like this a reality. After a steady progression of runs after first beating Matt Turk's original 16:59, this runner developed the highest level of consistency ever seen in this game. He has ended more runs with sub 2:30 Tysons than is conceivable. Those are big parts of the reason he has this time. This game is extremely punishing and when you get a rare opportunity when the stars align and luck like this occurs you have to be mentally strong enough to be unfazed and have the technical skills to execute at the highest level. This runner did that like a true MTPO champion.
No run is unbeatable, but this one is about as close as it gets due to the extreme luck required (I would estimate 1 in 50,000) and need for 20 or more frame perfect inputs at the very end knowing what is riding on it."
A run like this could really fill an update all by itself...
Finally, let me explain why the "ey" in "odyssey" had to be changed to the "ee" in Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. It's rather a long story. It all started when... and that's why! What? Oh sorry, this is with large skips! It skips all opportunities at fraternal solidarity too, stomping hapless mudokon slaves into the muck AND BEYOND. (Bad ending? How dare they?! I was going to come right back for you guys!). The heavily glitchy 0:13:15 by the famtastic Sam 'Samtastic' Locke still complements rather than supercedes existing runs by virtue of being on the unwieldier PlayStation version. Read the betrayer's comments for a break-down of techniques used and for his shameless shout-outs to fellow conspirators.
I'm always happy and grateful to see people, doubly so new ones, crossing the threshold into the chamber of verifications! This is, as always, something you can do after e.g. having had a run accepted yourself. Takes some effort (in some cases not really) but remember that the runs in public verification really are for anyone to take a look at.
