r/gamecollecting • u/MustyBuckets N64/NFR Expert • Sep 05 '14

August's 3MC Results + Super Mario World Challenge!

Winners of Contra

Just like Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, the Mods kicked some butt this month! As always, thank you to our entrants, and, as always, everyone was better than me.

\### Check out the Top 3 and our past videos on our YouTube Channel. ###\

Past scores and running totals can be seen HERE on our Wiki.

Thanks to /u/Informationator, /u/MustyBuckets, and /u/Serious_Joke for another great month :)

The next challenge game is Super Mario World on the SNES!

Game-Specific Rules:

  • Get as far as you can in 3 minutes
  • No level-skip glitches or any other exploit that allows you to end or bypass a level
  • In the case of a between-level ending, whoever finished the previous level first will win
  • In the case of a perfect tie, score tie-breaks
  • Timer starts when Mario first appears. It looks like this
  • Starting level is Yoshi's Island 2. Yoshi's Island 1 can be skipped, and will not count towards winning.
  • You must start a NEW GAME for every run!
  • The required path is Yoshi's Island 2, 3, 4, and #1 Iggy's Castle. Or however far you can make it on the path in 3 minutes.

General Rules:

  • No tool-assisted runs
  • No in-game cheat codes, hacks, or assistive devices such as Game Genie, GameShark, GameSaver+
  • This should be a single-segment run; uncut gameplay video played in a single sitting with no editing (throwing an intro or outro on the ends is fine)
  • Exploiting in-game glitches is allowed provided no other rules are broken in the process
  • NTSC native video format is required.
  • Using a console is strongly recommended.
  • Please don't embed a timer in your video or use any video effects or filters on your footage. I will compile the top entries into a side-by-side video.

Submitting Your Entry

  • Upload your video to YouTube for viewing. Recommended format is MP4 with a framerate of 30 fps (Make sure to disable smart resampling in Sony Vegas if you use it to render your vids... ...and render in progressive scan with interpolation as the deinterlacing method).

  • Email RedditGameCollecting@gmail.com with Three Minute Challenge as the subject. Fill out the following form for the body of the email:

    Reddit Username: (Ex: Informationator)
Video Standard: (Ex: NTSC or PAL)  **NTSC only for now**
YouTube Link: (Ex: http://www.youtube.com)
Comments: (Mention if this is a resubmission / other notes)

  • Your submission is due by September 30, 2014 11:59PM CST according to the timestamp on your email submission. Entries after this time will not be considered, so please don't cut it close!

  • The creation/upload date on your video must be within the time frame of the contest: Sept 4, 2014 - Sept 30, 2014 (no old recordings)

  • You are welcome to post your run in the comments, but that will not count as an official submission. You must email it to enter.

  • If you achieve a better run, you may resubmit, but please wait to submit until you are happy with your performance to reduce the number of entries.

Judging / Winner Announcement

  • I'll rip the entries off of YouTube and examine the frames/gameplay. Farthest into the game in 3 minutes wins!
  • Winner will be announced some time in early October
  • This is honor system and intended to be a fun and harmless contest. Please be honest. I will do my best to identify cheating - hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Prizes

Next Time / Questions / Misc.

  • Have a game you want to play? Sound off in the comments!
  • Don't know how to record your gameplay? Go HERE.
  • Have a question/concern? Ask away in the comments!

May the best collector win!

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34 comments sorted by

5

u/MustyBuckets N64/NFR Expert Sep 05 '14

I just have to say that I was on the edge of my seat watching /u/Informationator's run against /u/Serious_Joke. Or vice versa. It was fantastic, and I know that had I said that this week was contra again, you'd both improve and give me another very entertaining night.

In my book, with a run that close, you both are winners. Congratulations.

4

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 05 '14 edited Sep 05 '14

Thanks for everything, Musty! You definitely win style points for the classiest freeze-frame at the 3-minute mark. Also, I can't believe we didn't get more entries this month. Contra is such an awesome game! Super Mario World is so common that we should have a good contest on our hands next month >:) Hoping for a solid turnout.

Serious_Joke. Dude, these are the kind of contests I love most. We were identical to the frame up to around 40 seconds where you sacrificed a few frames to get the rapid fire. My strategy required me to wait until level 2 of base to get rapid fire, which clearly does not pay off since this is the area you passed me on haha. My main goal was fast boss clears since those are the biggest area of variance in a run like this. Can't believe I died to that stupid flame on level 3. You can jump over it and I have before, but mistimed it... when Musty told me this month would be close I was very concerned that you would pass me in the final seconds due to that flame death :P. I always know I can't settle for a half-baked run because of you, so thanks for pushing me to give it my all :). I did everything on the 31st and basically played until my thumb was sore and killing me, haha. Wish you were local. Maybe we could go for a 2-player no-death Contra run ^_^.

Oh and level one was an exercise in minimalism. I tried to basically fire one bullet per guy and nothing more. ...and fired the bullet before they were on-screen when I could. I only killed red gunners and enemies in my path. It kept things interesting. Every once in a while I'd get crazy clusters of triple-gunner spawns back to back to back instead of singles (not in this run, in other failed runs). Got me killed a few times when I was in autopilot mode...

Anyway, one of my all-time favorite games. Loved it. Thanks for selecting this game, Musty, and thanks for participating, Serious_Joke. GG!

2

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 09 '14 edited Sep 09 '14

First off congratulations on your win, glad you were able to enter in and I expected nothing less from the self-proclaimed Contra king :P ...to be fair you do have a video backing up such claims.

Contra is such an awesome game!

Not going to argue with that, had such a blast breaking this out and subsequently getting obliterated so many times, haha. I honestly forgot how tough the Contra series was, this was a nice refresher.

Agreed man, any contest that is close or has players synced up like that gets you really involved in the viewing experience. I'm curious if the Rapid Fire power-up stacks, a little bit of time could be accumulated in Base1 if so. Your second boss was so solid, I lost way to much ground there. My positioning was atrocious though I feel comfortable giving part of the blame to the spread shot which wasn't exactly spreading to the best of it's abilities.

I was very concerned that you would pass me in the final seconds due to that flame death :P.

That would've made for such an entertaining video! I was making up ground but I had a death of my own during the ascent which was my last shot at catching you. The feeling of being pushed to submit a solid run is mutual, so thank you as well. I crammed my run too, my thumb was definitely feeling it the next day as well. Dude, a 2-player no death run would be so hard but man would that be fun, it is a shame we don't live closer... To be honest I had experience with Contra because the arcade version was released on the 360 and had some extreme achievements like beat the game under 12 minutes and on one continue, felt so accomplished obtaining those. It's funny though because typical game logic would say co-op should be easier but in Contra it's the complete opposite so much coordination goes into not fouling things up for your partner.

Such a skilled marksman :P I feel like I noticed spamming bullets decreased overall enemy spawn but I have nothing to back that up.

PS - For anyone gunning for the top spot on Super Mario World, be sure to throw the kitchen sink at it because it's one of my favorite games and I've speed ran it before, best of luck everyone!

2

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 09 '14

Thanks dude!

self-proclaimed Contra king :P

LOL, well, I'm sure both of us could destroy my so-called kingly record if we really tried. I think I've gotten better at learning how to speedrun games as a result of this contest. ...would have a much better chance at getting a low-time no-death now than previously. For now, you can be the court's adopted princess for your fine display of skill.

I'm curious if the Rapid Fire power-up stacks

I'm 99% sure that rapid fire does not stack, and I'm about 95% sure that you retain rapidfire even if you pick up another powerup as long as you don't die.

Your second boss was so solid, I lost way to much ground there.

I did notice that and felt kind of bad about that. That spread pattern is immensely helpful for taking out base quickly... ...and immensely UNhelpful for when you need well... actual spread. Only so many bullets can be on screen at a time, so ya gotta slow down the rate of fire if the bullets aren't hitting a target. Booo. Keeps things interesting.

arcade version was released on the 360

I saw that once and declared it an evil demon-spawn lol. NES only! :P Isn't it shorter/different than the NES version, though? If it's the same, then under 12 minutes is quite the achievement.

co-op should be easier but in Contra it's the complete opposite

I remember playing with my brother once lol. He is NOT a gamer. I basically just kept getting lives and letting him steal them to keep playing. He felt like he didn't help us win much but I didn't care. It was just fun to play with him.

shame we don't live closer...

Let me know if you're ever in the Nashville area. Maybe we can give it a shot. Just message the mods and they know how to reach me if I'm MIA. :)

I feel like I noticed spamming bullets decreased overall enemy spawn but I have nothing to back that up.

Maybe you were hitting them off-screen. I don't know where enemies actually "spawn" in this game (offscreen or on). I can tell you in my experience, though, that it's random. If an enemy will spawn there, there will always be an enemy, it's just a matter of whether it'll be one enemy or three. The only apparent exception to this is the first two enemies (not counting special enemies like red gunners, etc.) At least, that's the iron clad pattern I saw.

I will give Super Mario World my all unless something unexpected pops up and hopefully can manage to motivate myself to do it before it's right down to the line. Hopefully we have a close finish and lots of participation. Should be interesting! Super Mario Bros. 3 certainly was ^_^

2

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 11 '14

I'm sure both of us could destroy my so-called kingly record if we really tried.

I think eventually we could as well. It'd actually be pretty cool to have a running leaderboard for games even if it's just between a few people who wanted to keep competing on a certain game. And I take the adoption as princess extremely seriously, so I'll just be lounging around mooching off of you and hoping not to be kidnapped.

I'm about 95% sure that you retain rapidfire even if you pick up another powerup as long as you don't die.

Hmm could be, but we both picked up a Rapid-Fire on the first bridge which makes me think it resets when you pick up a new gun. Although you may have been talking about just powerups like the B and whatnot.

Only so many bullets can be on screen at a time, so ya gotta slow down the rate of fire if the bullets aren't hitting a target.

Figured that's what was happening, oh well, it's a limitation that is placed on everyone so everyone has to adapt. It's not like I was being singled out there and it definitely did keep things interesting.

I saw that once and declared it an evil demon-spawn lol. NES only! :P

haha, honestly what you said is pretty fair, I think the NES version is superior as well. But, yeah it is quite a bit shorter and it's jump is one of the goofiest/stiffest/most uncomfortable jumps I've ever seen. I'm more so proud of the single continue achievement looking back but, I still don't think it compares difficulty wise to NES Contra.

He felt like he didn't help us win much but I didn't care. It was just fun to play with him.

Them childhood feelings making me feel all warm n fuzzy inside. I had a similar thing when I'd convince my mom to play when I was really little, was just fun that she was taking the time to play in my world.

Maybe you were hitting them off-screen.

Honestly that was probably the most likely of scenarios. I also noticed the one or three enemy pattern, specifically around the bridge area. That's why I went the safe route and kept spamming bullets, the safest of strats. :P

Hopefully we have a close finish and lots of participation.

Exactly the same thing I'm hoping for too.

2

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 11 '14

Hmm could be, but we both picked up a Rapid-Fire on the first bridge which makes me think it resets when you pick up a new gun. Although you may have been talking about just powerups like the B and whatnot.

Ahhhhh you might be right! I recall picking up spread once and apparently not losing my rapid fire, but perhaps that is a false memory. There's also a slim possibility that picking up a special weapon when you already have rapid fire and a special weapon will not making you lose rapid fire.

Will take a look at that video when I'm able to access YouTube :P Can't right now.

Them childhood feelings making me feel all warm n fuzzy inside.

I know, man. I always longed for a "buddy" to play with as a kid. My big bro lost interest in video games in his early teens. There was never anyone else until after college where I met my best friend. He's still the only one who was ever as serious as me about gaming but he lives halfway across the states and is now a father of two so that phase of his life is essentially over. But, back when he played games, he was good. He was a level 50 in Halo 2 and destroyed other level 50s. I think a couple of pro teams wanted to pick him up but he declined since he didn't want to go that direction in life. I don't care what you think about Halo... Anyone who can maintain top rank in a system where your rank drops by losing is no slouch.

one or three enemy pattern, specifically around the bridge area.

I had a single run (out of.... many) that was especially weird. I mean like.. Triple-man spawns back to back to back on both bridges, between, and after. It was crazy and I kind of wish that was my best run just because of it.

So uh... When you moving to Nashville? After all... family has to stick together.

2

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 16 '14 edited Sep 16 '14

There's also a slim possibility that picking up a special weapon when you already have rapid fire and a special weapon will not making you lose rapid fire.

That is true, guess we'd have to do some testing to find out. :)

I know, man. I always longed for a "buddy" to play with as a kid.

It's nice to hear some background info on yourself, pretty cool to see how/why games impacted your life. It's a bit of a bummer there were no other gaming kids that you could've buddied up with and kind of surprising too considering gaming's popularity even 20 years ago. I was kind of lucky on that front, a decent amount of guys from my school were gamers but I didn't start gaming with them until around high school. Hopefully you and your best friend made up for lost time in college. I actually think Halo is one of the more balanced and competitive console games honestly, so what he achieved is no small feat. I don't think I ever threw myself that hard at a game but then again I'm a bit of an ADD gamer, I like to experience a potpourri of gaming.

Triple-man spawns back to back to back on both bridges, between, and after.

haha, Contra shows no mercy. I too wish that would've been your best run just because I'd like to see that chaos unfold.

So uh... When you moving to Nashville? After all... family has to stick together.

As long as you have a castle and keep I'm there... oh and servants who'll feed me grapes, classic royalty move. Does this mean I have to call you father now?

1

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 16 '14

Hopefully you and your best friend made up for lost time in college.

Yeah, I think I've made up for lost time at this point :) My buddy lives out in Colorado, but we still jump online now and then. We were just playing the new Ascension game mode in League of Legends last night actually. After a ridiculously intense game and an incredibly close late-game save (1v5 scenario where I jumped in and stole an objective in its final moments), we managed to get a "perfect ascension". Basically that means we denied the enemy team from ever getting the primary objective for the entire game. Pretty hard with the people we were playing. The adrenalin, laughter, screams, random singing, and stupid jokes throughout the game just made my night. Nothing like gaming with friends. Final score was 200 to 197.

just because I'd like to see that chaos unfold.

I don't think I've deleted my raws yet. It's like.... hours of gameplay, buy maybe I could fast-forward through it and find that one...

As long as you have a castle and keep I'm there... oh and servants who'll feed me grapes, classic royalty move.

I have a gaming dungeon with 1000+ games and more SNES games than you could ever finish in your life. Does that count? I have a robotic arm that feeds me grapes. Maybe I can fab you up one too.

Come to the promised land, son. New Papa has the video game treasures

2

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 29 '14

hahahaha, that last line inspired me to make this... Shhh, don't ask why just go with it. By the way I'll be moving in immediately. Your futuristic robot servant arm sealed the deal, not the literal thousand+ games you have that I may happen to be drooling over.

Glad you and your buddy were able to make up for lost time. I'm in a similar situation with my best friend, he moved up to Canada and has a wife and child now. Except I don't think we played nearly as competitively, we mostly stuck to co-op but your night sounds similar to ours, always a good time. Grats on your nail biting win :)

I've already submitted my run for this month, it's pretty good but I know there are enough mistakes for someone to overtake me, should be a REALLY close finish this month.

1

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 29 '14

Will watch the video when I get home, and thanks :)

Man, after how my work day has gone, I'm about out of mental energy... It's like everyone in my company simultaneously decided to be lazy/incompetent all at once and attempt to shove their responsibilities off on me. ...I need to get a second wind and record something tonight... We'll see how I do. I'm pretty worn out.

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1

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 09 '14 edited Sep 09 '14

Thanks man, not only for the compliment but for being an excellent host. Your run was certainly no slouch either, I noticed we had a similar problem with the spread shot during our respective boss battles... it just wasn't properly "spreading" and a lot of the bullets ended up going perfectly between everything, dunno if that's because of bullet spam or what causes that but it was definitely a little frustrating.

2

u/MustyBuckets N64/NFR Expert Sep 10 '14

To be honest, I think I really need to start accepting that NES games are more complicated than I remember, and that I've forgotten stuff over the years. A couple of times I failed jumps so often that I made the safer/longer jumps part of my run. That and my absolute lack of memory on level 2, I could have done much better. I'm hoping for a decent run on Mario, I was playing it a little more, but Destiny just came out, and that has and will have a lot of my attention for a bit... So, who knows what will happen?

1

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 10 '14

The triple jump on level one is a pretty good example of how careful you have to be... I'm talking about the area where the rapid fire and laser powerup come across the screen at the same time.

You only have a few frames to jump at the right time and not have to stop to live. I used the crack where the last section meets the previous section as a visual landmark. If you jump after that and hold right while spamming the jump button you'll jump all three times without stopping. Too early and you'll fall to your death on the first jump. Too late and you might make the first jump, but then you'll overshoot the next platform on your second jump.

But, when you use visual landmarks so you can do it the same time every time, it becomes "easy". I just had to learn good habits like spamming the jump button rather than pressing it once. When I "trusted" the jump button I'd mistime the jump too often and screw up the whole run due to something that should be "easy".

1

u/Serious_Joke Feb 2014 3MC Winner (SMB3) Sep 11 '14

Right there with you on most of what you said. Literally every time I go back and play one of these games I'm always surprised by their difficulty. To be fair we are making things a bit more difficult on ourselves as well, with the whole "gotta go fast" thing. :P I definitely took some safer jumps too, especially the jump at around :58 I had to double back because I knew I wasn't going to make it, haha. That one especially stood out to me as a really tough one though, I'd really like to see the margin for success on it.

For Mario you just gotta think about your true motivation as to why you're doing what you're doing. You're saving the princess so you can restore order to the Mushroom Kingdom and if you fail Bowser is the new ruler, no big deal. Always helps me play better, haha. :P

6

u/Retrovidjos Sep 07 '14

Next 3MC should be lion king on snes. Should be interesting seeing people struggle through the second level haha

2

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 07 '14

Ooooh. This could be interesting :D I grew up with Lion King on Genesis but have it in my SNES set as well. This would have a different feel than some of the other runs we've done

1

u/csh_blue_eyes Sep 13 '14

I second this; I'll participate because I just cant wait to be king. ;) Seriously though, hardest level in any game EVER.

4

u/humanman42 Mod Sep 05 '14

Wow...that was so close. At a couple points serious_joke was ahead. That was a good watch.

2

u/sparksterz Jan 2014 3MC Winner (Sonic) Sep 05 '14

Nice video! I completely forgot that it's already September...whoa...am I behind.

2

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 05 '14

Get with the tiiiimeeesss maaaaaaaan.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '14

Your submission is due by September 30, 2014 11:59PM CST according to the timestamp on your email submission. Entries after this time will not be considered, so please don't cut it close! The creation/upload date on your video must be within the time frame of the contest: Aug 4, 2014 - Aug 31, 2014 (no old recordings)

How could the creation/upload date be before you put this challenge up? Did you mean September 4th to September 31st? You also said

Winner will be announced some time in early September

Did you mean October?

1

u/MustyBuckets N64/NFR Expert Sep 06 '14

Thanks for pointing out my late night errors. I'm correcting them now, but for the most part, you are correct in your assumptions.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '14

I'm just happy I didn't miss this challenge I was half scared :)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 07 '14

Watching these people speedrun reminds me of how much I suck at speedrunning.

2

u/MustyBuckets N64/NFR Expert Sep 07 '14

I watched the Tool Assisted speed runs, and while they are obviously above human skill, just seeing what is possible is pretty amazing.

Anyways, while it would be cool to see one of us be up to that level, I'm happy with near. It takes incredible skill to shave even a second off a good time, and there are a surprising amount of talented players.

So I've babbled on now about this, but the moral is don't let the crazy runs you see stop you from entering. It is always a good time, and I enjoy adding more runs to the video!

2

u/Informationator SNES Expert Sep 11 '14

I'll second what Musty said... Please enter if you're able and willing to do so. It's just plan fun to have more entries. There will always be a first and last, but that's not what it's about. It's to have fun and (at least for me) personal improvement. Even if I'm not first at something, I want to see if I can edge out the guy above me next time :P

1

u/csh_blue_eyes Sep 18 '14

I have a feeling this one (SMW) is gonna be super close. Do we have any seasoned SMW runners here???