Well I did it once and I'm doing it again. While temperatures began to drop as the second half of winter rolled in, I took the week off from working on projects to go and watch the first of the 2022 charity marathons hosted by Games Done Quick. Of course, I'm talking about Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 Online, which wrapped up Saturday last week with a grand 139 games showcased across a total of seven days. Since I was really craving a new "season" of speedruns, I wrecked my sleeping schedule just so I could catch many of the early morning runs and now I'm going to be spending some time repairing it and getting back to my normal schedule of content creation.
Summing up the marathon itself, it was very, very solid. I'd say it closely matched the quality of Summer Games Done Quick 2021 with a nice selection of runs and runners from across the globe, once again showing one of the biggest strengths the online format has brought to the events. However, the lack of an in-person crowd to help drum up excitement as you saw in live, on-site GDQ's is still absent for understandable reasons. The online format also meant weaker support for legacy and retro consoles and hardware, and this time it was especially noticeable with PC/Computer games dominating the marathon and many of the games being shown were newer releases from 2020 and 2021. On the bright side, the younger age of many of the games shown in the marathon led to many more world records being set in this one marathon compared to previous marathons, and speaking of records, a total of $3.4 million was raised--the highest Games Done Quick has ever made in a single marathon.
Many people in the Games Done Quick Discord near the end of the marathon were asking each other what their favorite preferred runs were, and with so many runs it's very, very hard for me to narrow it all down to precisely one pick. A few of the runs I've seen people cite as their favorites, unfortunately, never really caught my eye, though that's probably since I've never been into Dark Souls games or other Souls-likes in marathon settings--the same goes for RPG runs without enough action or fast pacing to hold my attention. That said, here's my favorites from the marathon from what I was able to catch live and as VOD's as of the writing of this blogpost, sorted by what "day" they were run on the schedule.
Day 1 (Sun): Donkey Kong Country 2, Mega Man 2, Marvel's Spider Man, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Day 2(Mon): Kirby's Dream Land 3, Crash Team Racing, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania, Super Mario Galaxy
Day 3(Tue): NES Block (Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger, Bucky O'Hare, Spacegulls, The Kiron Conquest), Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Day 4(Wed): Sonic Block (Sonic R, Sonic Robo Blast 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, Sonic Adventure DX), Pokemon Crystal, GeoGuessr, ShootMania Storm, Trackmania
Day 5(Thu): Diddy Kong Racing, Awful Games Done Quick Block (Taz-Mania, Meegah Mem II, The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness, Sonic Jam (Game.Com), Zadette), Discworld, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Lost Judgement, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix HD, Resident Evil Village
Day 6(Fri): crossbeats REV. Sunrise, Ultraman Ball, Rockman & Forte, Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories, Portal Reloaded, Super Mario 3D Land, Stepmania
Day 7(Sat): Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R, the Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, Casio Mario World, Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, Halo: Combat Evolved, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Tetris: the Grand Master, Portal 2, Deltarune, Metal Gear Solid
Yes, there were that many picks that I'd put in the spotlight for just one marathon, though some of the choices would fall under "honorable mentions" if I were to give them any sort of ranking, which would take me even longer to assemble up a full list for.
So what kind of runs would I love to see make the big stage in a future marathon? Well, while I do love the roster of runs we've been treated to, I always enjoyed seeing older console games show up to be destroyed in a run, but considering we're at an age where many of the most notable retro titles have been run at least once in a GDQ in the past several years it would make sense to move on and find new games to showcase on the show floor for the first time. Another type of run I always enjoyed catching live was the "relay race": two teams of two to four runners each competing in custom-made Mario levels made just for the event in either Super Mario World or Super Mario Maker- passing off the controller to the next runner if they fail.
At this rate I have doubts that we'll be going back to live events anytime soon but no matter what happens I'm sure Summer Games Done Quick 2022 will be a blast when it happens later this summer and we'll get another wave of awesome speedrunners showing off their favorite games to a wide audience.
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