Sometime all the way back in 2013, I was approached by Christopher Grant of Awesome Games Done Quick and presented with an interesting opportunity. He suggested that I should come down to the event and do a speedrun of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. This is a game I have some history with, you see.
The idea of speedrunning the worst video game ever made sounded amusing, but I had no idea how that would even work, and somewhere between the initial suggestion and last year's event, communication lines got weird (my fault entirely), and it didn't come together. Then he found me at PAX this past year and suggested it again. I asked him to send me some info on what a Big Rigs speedrun entailed, and he sent me this video. He wasn't joking. There is an official method for speedrunning Big Rigs.
I felt sort of weird about the idea still. I have no involvement in the speedrunning scene, and while I'm always down to help out with charity, I felt like I might be intruding on this cool thing that the AGDQ team has been putting together since 2010. I felt like kind of an interloper, you know?
Ultimately, I got over it and agreed to take a brief jaunt down to Virginia this week for the purposes of Big Rigs-ing for fun and charity but mostly charity, if we're being honest here. I'm really glad I did. Despite finding myself unable to run the game properly on my own PC--thus preventing me from getting much of any practice in whatsoever--I turned in what I'd consider a respectable run, had some laughs with the folks that came to watch the event live, and stuck around to watch some other folks' runs during the remainder of the Awful Block. I watched a man blow through Radical Rex while painstakingly describing every single way in which that game is broken and terrible. I discovered that Beethoven's 2nd is depressingly lacking in any Charles Grodin whatsoever. I learned for the first time what Town With No Name is, and I am forever changed by the discovery.
I also learned that a bunch of you out there are mighty generous. In what I can only assume was intended to be a jokey inclusion, a bidding mark of $3000 was offered, which would require me to show off the "infinite speed" glitch in Big Rigs. You know, it's that thing that happens when you hit the "reverse" button in that game and just keep it held down for a while. Not exactly a difficult task, but y'all hit the donation target with ease. That's super rad.
Awesome Games Done Quick is still going as we speak. They've got stuff lined up through this weekend, and thus far have raised over $500,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
There's a good chance this is both the beginning and the end of my speedrunning career. If that's the case, I'm glad I got to do it for a worthwhile cause. Thanks again to the whole AGDQ crew for having me out. And thanks to Sean Lee for capturing my run, along with the embedded chat. You can check it out in the video below, if you're interested.
152 Comments