This was the technique used by American Dad speedrunners. Unfortunately, speedrun.com banned it after years of controversy, since fast-forwarding videos doesn't count as a speedrun.

Summoning Salt Documentary: https://youtu.be/yPvKhFXc7ck

Speedrunners are perfectly capable of defining categories better than that.

If it's funny enough they'll add it as a category, track it, and then ban it in the rest of the categories. "No major glitches" is a common sort of speedrun restriction.

You aren't playing the game then. There is a difference in being creative in what actions you can take as a speed runner versus just playing back a video recording.

Ultimately glitch-assisted speed runs are not a pre-defined category. Whatever the community agrees goes. The point is to have an interesting skill-based competition whether that skill is reaction time and precise inputs or finding exploits.

break off the tab after you record it

[dead]

If you haven't read about the Pilot Wings coprocessor differences, it's really interesting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19883714

'tech' in speed running is a reference to "technique" rather than "technology". https://glossary.infil.net/?t=Tech

Unfortunately, there isn’t an up-to-date video that I’m aware of that explains the entire run in its totality. But you should get a pretty good idea from simply watching the run. It’s a marvel to watch, especially if it’s a game you’re familiar with. SHiFT’s most recent 100% record is probably a good place to start[1]. He’s the runner mentioned in the article and he’s held the record for every category that matters for 8.5-10 years. (Fair warning, though: he tends to use strong language and he’s almost always in a foul mood.)

If you do want a run with some explanation, GDQ is probably your best bet[2]. Unfortunately, the run hasn’t appeared at GDQ since AGDQ Online 2022, but you still get a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about, even if you don’t get to see how the run has evolved since then. That one is also an Any% run, so you can get an idea of the differences.

[1] https://youtu.be/FzkgU3EI-bk?is=G1NDOumOKUhqRbOU

[2] https://youtu.be/GX7aVH8Q0gg

I would consider Jak 3 to be even better than that BUT the darker art direction really hid a lot of what it was doing. Shame really.

There are usually separate categories based on various factors, like which console a game is played on (if it was released on multiple), what the win condition is (do you need to 100% the game, or just see the credits roll?), and whether certain glitches are allowed. Those are nearly always software glitches, but hardware glitches aren't unheard of :)

Speedrunning communities generally hate it when having more money leads to an advantage.

If you ban deliberately smudging/scratching the disc, then some runner with a lot of money will just buy a lot of copies of the disc, find the one that glitches the most consistently (because of pre-existing scratches, or even manufacturing defects that aren’t visible)

Allowing some kind of mod is the most equitable compromise.

That's kinda what happens with DNA -- a random mutation will make the resulting organism 'incompatible with life' -- or it will create a change that gives a huge advantage for survival.

A very different community both in kind and demographics. It introduces a new community to the game rather than preserving what once existed.

I would be more conserned with the laser motor wearing out. That is what killed my Dreamcast. The laser was fine but the motor to move it just gave up from too much use.

The article seems to suggest that you can damage the console itself, though, not just the disc.

On some systems/drives if it detects an error that is big enough it will reset the carriage. You can here it reading and rescrubbing over and over. That can cause the carriage motor to overwork and burn out. Not sure of this system does that or not. But that would be my guess.

Exactly. And in the worst case the disk itself might disintegrate due to rotational forces, transferring some of those forces to random parts of the interior of the disc drive. Physical and higher sustained speeds and increased temperatures due to many read attempts make that more likely (but still very uncommon). This isn't entirely theoretical, I have a dead drive to prove it, although not from speed running.

Intentionally sloppy code, like leaving exploits in the game. Like if perform some action in a very specific way, you trigger an overflow that unlocks an item that's otherwise very difficult or impossible to obtain. So rather than these exploits breaking you out of the intended flow of the game, it's a real game mechanic. Like having that unobtainable item unlocks a story path that changes the ending. I guess it's more like an Easter egg but it relies on typical game glitching techniques rather than extensive exploration.

In Halo 2, there was a level where if you damaged a banshee in a specific way and made it follow you down a tunnel, you could hijack it at the exact moment when a new level loaded at the end of the tunnel (otherwise you couldn't use it). Then you could fly up to the top of the level and find a modified weapon that was incredibly powerful (scarab gun). There was another secret weapon (energy sword) you could obtain by performing typical boundary breaking moves and walking on invisible walls. Normally, you'd be doing this to skip combat but the game was also rewarding you for it.