The annual speedrunning superstream Awesome Games Done Quick starts this weekend, and it promises to be a musical one. Events include a player beating a series of Elden Ring boss battles using a saxophone as a controller, and 16 minutes of Crazy Taxi with a live backing band rocking out while the driver collects his fare. Other notable events include two players storming through The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild while sharing a single joypad, and an amorous attempt to resolve “all the romances” in Fallout: New Vegas in 30 minutes – wait, there are romance options in New Vegas?
Ah, I completely forgot those are there eight named characters in the radioactive wasteland of Bethesda that allows you to do the horizontal hip hurray. Including a robot named “Fisto”. Well, you can look forward to that on Thursday. The festival of nippy nonsense starts on Sunday 5 and runs until Sunday 12. A whole week full of saxy shennanigans. You can view the full schedule on the Games Done Quick website.
Crazy Taxi’s appearance at the speedrunning fest may have been inspired by news of an upcoming reboot. And the musical accompaniment may include some old favorites from the original soundtrack. Long-toothed taxi drivers will remember that the Dreamcast and arcade versions had a punk rock OST with lots of Offspring and Bad Religion, but those songs was removed in later editions of the game due to licensing rights.
However! You can watch the band scheduled for Awesome Games Done Quick perform the Offspring song “Way Down The Line” this submission videowhich they ran alongside a playthrough of a player’s previous speedrun. They even change some of the lyrics to jokingly refer to speedrunning. And I enjoy the way they abruptly stop every time the game timer runs out and the menu appears.
On the jazzy side of things, you may have already seen the saxophonist complete “Dr Doot.” a no-hits run from Elden Ring in his own time. This time he is confronted with a ‘controlled’ group of bosses. It’s very satisfying to hear the brassy doots and swoots as he calmly rolls away from danger.
There are also some newer games on the roster. Alan Wake 2, Windblown, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and the remake of Silent Hill 2 will all see different types of speedruns. Some ambitious people are also planning to binge through UFO 50, with organizers devoting 50 minutes to the retro collection. Does this mean they spend one minute on each match? Or perhaps they plan to complete as many games in the compilation as possible? Don’t know. But it could be an interesting one.
The organizers of Games Done Quick regularly raise millions of dollars for charities during their biennial events. This year they once again support the Prevent Cancer Foundation. At last year’s Summer Games Done Quick (the short beachy sibling of the classic January event), a Sekiro player was interrupted during a speedrun by that most baffling of Windows interruptions: sticky keys. But it didn’t stop the shinobi from raising the event above $2.5 million.