speedrun time!
precision instrument time!

So, here it is.
This is the most impressive one, but there are other good ones on his channel.

Gran Turismo Speedrun

WAIT A MINUTE! XD

Isn't a speed run for a racing game a tad redundant? Is there another way to play a racing game?

Same here. I'm more of a gamer that likes to observe and explore, to find all the secrets, etc. and have full situational awareness by careful observation. I like to savour the full game experience rather than try to rush through a game as fast as possible or to try to beat a record. Unless of course it is a racing game or something like that where the whole point is to be faster. :) Generally speaking, if I look up the average time to complete a game on a site like howlongtobeat.com or one of the other similar sites, I will generally complete the game in 150% to 200% of the suggested time as I not only tend to be completionist, but to slowly take my time and immerse myself, sometimes micromanaging inventory items or other aspects of gameplay. It'd definitely put some people to sleep for sure! LOL

Mind you, speedrun videos can be rather entertaining to watch even though I'd have no desire to do it myself. I just watched a video a few weeks ago of someone completing the original Halflife game in about 42 minutes start to finish and it totally blew my mind. So I can appreciate the fun aspect, the skill and the challenge that people that do speed runs experience.

This leads me to wonder... What the fastest time is that anyone has played and completed Skyrim... I've played a single game and put in about 380 hours so far and I'm about maybe 75-80% done as my best guess (not sure as I haven't completed it nor seen the ending before). I wouldn't watch a video of someone speed running the game until I've finished it at least once, but it'd be very entertaining to see someone blow through the entire Skyrim game in a few hours or whatever if that's even possible. ;)

Hrm, I just about forgot about that game. I played it about 8 years ago and got about 2/3 or more through it until a bug in the game stopped me from proceeding further and I had inadvertently overwrote my useful savegames or had some other tragic loss like that. I never got over the frustration to resume playing it, but a lot of time has passed now that I should consider starting the game over from scratch again some time and finish it this time.

I like speedruns only if they don't exploit bugs.
And then speedrunnung that game has to make some kind of sense to me, so I mostly like speedruns of platformers and the like, not RPGs.

An example of what I like are the Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams Time Attack videos by OMGarrett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9r_-5lHLDA&list=PL-L4-W3HYXp_7J6Og6t9gvNyFMnLT4qo6

There's a difference between finishing a lap really quick and getting to the end of a game really quick (;

Yeah you're right. I withdraw the jab.

I did some back in 1996/97. Quake... Axe-Master contest. Defeat E1M1 on Nightmare difficulty with 100% kills and secrets using only the axe as a weapon. My best time was just under 2 min, my then best friend (DrJones) held the record for quite some time at 1:37 - I was there when he did it. He was beaten by IIRC someone named Gizmo who managed a stunning 1:26. DrJones tried a few times but the best he ever managed was iirc 1:34 and in speedrunning 8 seconds an eternity so he gave up.

I don't know how people finish games so fast. I mean, you have to stop and smell the roses.

^ And like jdsgn just said 'there's a difference between finishing a lap really quick and getting to the end of a game really quick.' I'll replay a track over and over until I know every twist and turn so I can take the best lines at the highest speeds. But I have to play the track over and over.

In the same way I'll replay a level in a TPS so I can appreciate my surroundings and run through the level in a way that's maybe cinematic or realistic and also slick and efficient. Of course, I have to really like the controls and design... which brings me to Alice:

I didn't run into any bugs per se on my playthrough but my god you really have to keep in mind that this is an early 3D platformer and as such the amount of times you will die may really begin to bug you.

At first I tried to play through each section a few times until I could run through the whole section and get to the automatic save without dying. But Alice was meant to fall off every damn rock and into a fire pit, and drown in every pool of water, and fly off every cliff, and get pushed to her doom. Often. It was designed to happen often and the quicksave button was meant to be abused.

So with Alice I tried at first to stop and smell the roses or eat the mushrooms as it were, especially in sections like the Pale Realm which really looks very cool, but after a while I just began hitting quicksave every few steps because the weightlessness of Alice and the constancy of her doom got to be too much, and in this way I got through the game. And maybe I even got to take in the story a little better than I would have if I'd tried to break up and perfect every section.

In any case I'm glad it's over; it was too tedious for either a smell the roses playthrough or a speedrun.

Here's a nice TAS

I love speedruns. All the kinds. Sheer speed, glitching the hell out of an engine, what have you. I always run around in Wacky Races (the NES one), because I have played it so much already that nothing remains to do, but speedrunning. But I'm not a pro, so it's more like a "run through the game slighty faster than somebody who hasn't played the game yet". :D

One of my favorite runs is this one :)

Can't say I have. The only speed boost I get is when I skip cut-scenes (and only after I've seen them enough to know them well). I am one of these people: Hey, looks like there's half an inch of fog of war over there that I missed, I better go over there and clear it out. What's behind this rock? Does this path go somewhere or nowhere? I can honestly say I get my money's worth; I can play something for years and not finish it.

I sometimes do it in business sims, to see how fast you can game the game.

For example MadTV!: Restart till you can buy the movie Rear Window on day 1, then Nipponix, then do lovestories and BP, both satellites by day 4 or 5.

And the opposite would be...Maxruns, like playing Might and Magic 6 till the chars are like level 250 or so,higher than anyone elses.

Maxruns kinda reminds me of my level 105 demi fiend overlord of hell in Nocturne or my character in Morrowind was so powerful he could just look at Vivec and he would die of shock.