The Time Attackers: A Secret Gaming Subculture

The time attack (i.e., speed run) has become a cultural phenomenon. These people are to gaming as Michael Phelps is to swimming; they take a sport and trivialize all your hopes of accomplishing even a fragment of that greatness in such a short time. If you’ve been sleeping under your Intellivision, time attacks are when gamers take classic games (time attacks among contemporary games have become more prominent) and destroy them in times you never thought possible. They create shock and awe in the press of a b button, and make your gaming accomplishments shrivel. Are there Steve Wiebes and Billy Mitchells among us?

I’ve just wandered onto the website speeddemosarchive.com and seen the majesty that is the time attack. Feelings of nostalgic NES greatness have vanished and I’ve picked two impressive time attacks to share with you.

The first of which is a favorite, Contra. In the video, the gamer destroys the vile Red Falcon, saves the universe, and becomes a hero in about 12:30. This is impressive; however, a better score by about two minutes has been confirmed by the SDA. The player’s name is Freddy ‘Frenzy Man’ Andersson who completes the game in 10:24. I know what everyone is saying, “Oh I’ve beaten Contra without losing a life or having to continue,” but the question is can it be done in a little over 10 minutes, pushing it all the way? This brings me to the next hare-e endeavor on the speed run circuit.

I have a bone to pick with the next game, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I received it as a gift, and due to the mind-numbing difficulty, never completed the game. It gathered dust in a shoebox under my bed, periodically coming out for a rematch with Toon Town. This time attack completes the game in roughly 6:40, which trivialized the countless hours I’ve spent playing it. The standing verified record on SDA is 6:05 by Tom ‘Redrunner’ Votava who pins Judge Doom against the wall and beats him to death like Ivan Drago does to Apollo Creed in Rocky 4. Like Judge Doom, my eyes have turned red and I have steam rocketing out of my ears.  Votava beat the game faster than it takes to eat a sandwich or pick a channel to watch on television. Nothing short of incredible.

In the end, time attacks serve to show us that there are gamers out there with incredible free time and mad skills. They have created sport out of classic and now even contemporary games. It has as a generational gaming concept fueled game design to include ‘Panic’ and ‘Time Attack’ modes in contemporary games – even rewarding players in games like WoW who can level the fastest. Time attacks are much like the Olympics of gaming; I can only imagine how the Big Mac tasted after Phelps won 8 Olympic gold medals, or when Andersson and Voltava got World Records in Contra and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?