Before I got into cubing, I was very into speed running. I started out with the Super Monkey Ball series, and for a while I was ranked #2 in the world for Super Monkey Ball 1 and 2, holding several WRs on various levels. Then I got into Metroid games. I briefly held the any% WR for Metroid Fusion (don't remember the time though), and I held the any% WR for Metroid Zero Mission for a while with a completion time of 29:54. I was the first to break the 30 minute barrier in that game. I was obsessed with running Metroid Prime for a long time. My best time at that game was somewhere around the 1:15 mark, which was pretty good at the time (current WR is 1:03). The last speed run I did was a 100% completion run of Super Mario World, which I finished in 1:31:45. I finished that run in January 2005 and that record still stands today.
One of the main reasons why I stopped speed running (other than getting into cubing) was the emergence of TAS runs. I know they have their benefits, but there are too many newbs out there that don't know the difference between TAS runs and legit speedruns, and it takes a lot away from the speedrunner. Case in point: I worked on my Mario World run for a good 7 months. Less than a month after it got published online, a TAS got released that finished in something like 1:22:xx. Now for a run of 90 minutes in length to be only 8 minutes slower than a theoretical "perfect" run (TAS) is very, very good, but the average person won't know that and would no doubt consider my run to be inferior to the faster, albeit faked, time.
It's kind of like if someone were to do a speed BLD solve in 10 seconds and post it online as if it were a legitimate BLD solve. The average person that sees that isn't going to know the difference, and then when they see somebody do a real BLD solve in 50 seconds, they aren't going to be impressed.
Sorry to go on a mini-rant, but I really can't stand TAS runs. When that Mario World TAS got published after I worked so hard for so long on my legit speed run, it felt like a huge slap in the face and I haven't really had any desire to do another speed run since then.
If anybody wants to check out my Mario World run, it is available for download at
http://speeddemosarchive.com/MarioWorld.html. Also check out
www.speeddemosarchive.com for legit speed runs for over 500 games!
