Good times, for sure. We once stayed home instead of going to a concert like we had planned to, because a friend showed us her new PC game, Lemmings. Got hooked immediately and played through most of the night.

Loved my C64, playing Rambo, Zoids, Falcon Patrol, Ghosts 'n' Goblins, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, Aztec Challenge, Forbidden Forest, Killerwatt ... (what's the max characters a forum post can have, haha?) C64 speedruns would be great to see during a GDQ.

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Despite the youthful awkwardness and the constant forced HYPE!-ing for donations, Games Done Quick is still worth watching. Also, you cannot argue the incredible amount of money it generates each time, charity-wise. SGDQ closed with over $3 million this year for Doctors Without Borders. Applause to that.

Tomb Raider Legend run was fun. Same girl ran a Tomb Raider game last GDQ which I also remember liking. The Half-Life race was okay. A lot of the others I've avoided because they're mostly the same old games. I know the speedrunning community heavily favors retro Nintendo type stuff, but GDQ needs a fresher slate of games if you ask me.

The only thing I have a problem with the GDQs is the link to general twitch culture, which is always extremly opinionated when it comes to literally everything, but on certain things its strangly a hivemind. Sometimes a good game gets shit on only because a streamer doesn't like it, but thats being an influencer is all about. At worst they're worse than the worst this board has to offer from what I know but its unsuprising since Twitch is diverse and big. It makes sense that their rules became pretty strict, though sometimes unjustifiably so.

And people are prone of being nostalgic about these games as most people who attent GDQs have grown up with the NES/SNES stuff so I can't really blame the staff for showing the same games over and over again. Its simply what the crowd wants.

However, most of the best stuff around GDQ revolves around games not being speedran too much. The Warcraft 3 speedrun comes in mind which was fantastic, one of the best commenteers of all time and to nobodies suprise it also was one of the hypest speedruns in the last GDQ.

After all, that was isn't rare gives the term legitimacy in the first place. Let them have their Marios and Final Fantasys, it simply makes the other games stand out more for those who enjoy them. It gives people a special memory that isn't the same as your usual OOT or CT speedrun, mostly because there is a chance that a unpopular game will never be shown on such an event again.

Fond of the derailing, because I appreciate your suggestions. Heli Rescue reminds me a lot of Choplifter.

Gotta look those runs up, thanks. I know - like Dray2k stated - that they go with what's popular regarding the game selection, but I'm also not too excited about one more Super Metroid run at this point. Always love the obscure stuff, bad games block is fun every time.

There are other speedrun marathons out there, and many of them focus on a particular type of game that isn't your standard retro Nintendo stuff. For example, off the top of my head I can think of:
* Blast the Process: Sega games, either on Sega consoles or by Sega on other systems.
* RPG Limit Break: Role Playing Games (though their definition of RPG is more permissive than mine, including games like Crystalis and Mega Man Network Transmission)
* Really Long game-a-thon: Games with long speedruns, generally long enough that they wouldn't appear in a GDQ unless extremely popular (like Final Fantasy-level popular). The very first one was built around a 100% speedrun of Baiten Kaitos, which requires 336 hours of waiting to get one specific item.

(By the way, a few years back, Skybliz did a speedrun of Oregon Trail for the Apple 2. Ever heard of that game?)

RPG Limit Break usually focuses on JRPGs from what I've seen, which makes sense given their name, but I'm not into the genre. I was a NES and SNES gamer so theoretically that stuff should interest me, but I feel like GDQ just focuses on it too much and I'm burned out on it. Oh boy another Mega Man block, another Mario race... I just fall asleep thinking about it. I guess that's just me though since they raised more than ever. What do I know.

ESA is probably the one that focuses more on the Western PC style games I'm more into, but the language barrier tends to make the commentary less entertaining.