Archive for the ‘Perfect Dark’ Category

Let the Summer Entertainment Begin!

So with the inevitable appearance of this thing called summertime almost everywhere except Australia, where it’s always warm, the game play around the Elite generally tends to die down pretty significantly. We’re not going to see 10+ world records every month like we did when the winter updates came every month and everyone was still in the honeymoon stage with twitch. With that said, however, we have had some pretty significant events happen in the last few weeks. Without further ado, I’ll begin with the most important event!

CEDRIC, a Japanese player whose real name is Takuya Kakizawa, has become Perfect Dark’s newest speedrunning king with the flurry of recent world records he’s attained. CEDRIC’s Villa Perfect Agent 1:29, a time that tied David Clemens, was the time that put him over the top of gone-but-not-forgotten fellow Japanese player Takahiro Arai. Both players maintain a roughly 30-point lead over the perpetually dangerous Rayan “Ace” Isran, who could storm back on a whim and at any moment.

On the Goldeneye side of things, we have a new top 10 points player amongst other world records achieved. Luke Szklarz, frequently mentioned in past updates, has made his presence felt with an onslaught of 90-plus point personal records. His recent Bunker 2 00 Agent 0:57 helped secure his 10th ranked spot over American player Shawn Johnson. Jim Barrett, your quack author for all of these updates, finally became the 20th player to get Runway Agent 0:22 over 9 years after it was initially achieved in 2004. Jimbo’s 0:22 gave him enough points to secure him 12th spot in the points and a top 10 spot in time. (which, as of this update, is a 3-way tie for 10th!) Goldeneye champion Rayan Isran has continued to do damage on the rankings, tying Marc Rützou’s Aztec Secret Agent 1:35 and Henning Blom’s Depot 00 Agent 0:47. “Ace” has also done something the top players rarely do, and that is post times in the PR topic! Rayan also posted a Bunker 2 00 Agent 0:56 along with Train Agent 0:59. (skipped over 1:00, goodness!) Finally, Marc Rützou also contributed to this entire mess by tying Ace’s Control SA 4:05. He’s currently on a mission to untie Control 00 Agent, posting 3 failed 4:07s in the last few days. Unbelievable.

Finally, I believe new players who do good things should be recognized in the best way to further motivate them to keep playing. New player Brian “Swompz” Dupont has successfully achieved the “big 4″ PRs to get a speedrunner started – Dam Agent 0:54, Runway Agent 0:23, Bunker 1 Agent 0:18, and Archives Agent 0:17 – the players who watched his stream, and myself, wish him the best in his quest to continue to get good Agent PRs and climb the ranks! This goes for all the other new players who have discovered the Elite recently!

In an ending note, the real entertainment for quite a few of us is in the 2013 Elite Summer Contest! The contest is now underway. A full bracket and biography links can be found in the board topic, which is found here. Take care gentlemen, and keep those PRs coming!

Procrastination at its Finest, Summer Looms…

So I’m aware we haven’t had a front page update that holds any relevant content in regards to the latest world records or other significant events (minus Silo DLTK of course), and I blame that on me being pretty busy/lazy and the fact that streaming activity has significantly dropped in the last few weeks! A few players continue to hang on, however, including Marc Rutzou with his Bunker 1 00 Agent 1:03 (a 2nd place tie), and myself – nothing terribly special out of me, but inching ever close to that soughtafter top 10!

With myself and that other fellow Marc out of the way, I want to highlight 2 other GoldenEye players who continue to show their impressive pure-strafing skill. Luke Szklarz, an Australian native, has skyrocketed into the top 12 in points lately with his influx of insane PRs – he currently sits in 7th in Agent points but 18th in 00 Agent points! The other player is the notoriously entertaining Ryan Lockwood, whom right now is currently trying his luck on achieving an incredible Silo Agent 1:01. Ryan has dedicated a countless amount of hours into proving he can achieve the time, conquer the troll of a level, and establish himself as one of the best Agent players in history.To round out GoldenEye, I give a shoutout to Stefan Persson who got his very first world record with Archives Agent 0:16 way back on April 5.

In the world of Perfect Dark, we have one significantly active player who’s actually doing a fair bit of damage there. Cedric, a Japanese player, has nailed a few good records. We’ll start with Defense Agent 0:49, the 7th person to do so. He also got a very slick Chicago SA 0:26, the 5th person to do so. Cedric’s records are highlighted by an incredible 3:09 Attack Ship PA however. This record, a 2 second untied, continues to improve what used to be the longest standing untied of all time (by Greg Lewis for over six years). Cedric for now is the last hope for Perfect Dark to continue any activity and generate interest until Boss and Ace decide to play again.

There’s usually not much to update in the summer months, that’s what the headline suggests. Be on the lookout for summer contest headlines, and meet highlights. Have a great rest of May, folks!

The January Update – The Elite’s Ace in the Hole!

With the passing over of the new year, one must now look back at the last 366 (leap year!) days of 2012 to truly appreciate how far the Elite has come. With the new implementation of twitch.tv integrated into the habits of mostly every Eliter, we have created and showcased 27 individual channels with a multitude of interactive videos and highlights that will be saved and remembered forever. Along with some actual world records being set live on stream, one can now appreciate a few live player reactions along with countless chatter’s reactions when such a moment happens.

Since January 1, 2012, Goldeneye has seen a time cut of 18 seconds. This is insane for a 15-year old game of course, and its greatest contributor could very well be Rayan “Ace” Isran, but we’ll get to that later. Perfect Dark has seen a total time cut of 44 seconds, primarily because of Ilari Pekkala’s Investigation Agent findings (see: The JUNE Update!)

Lets start at the very top, and assuredly the Elite’s player of December 2012 by a wide margin. As noted in the previous update, Rayan Isran completely destroyed Jungle in now what is Goldeneye’s 2nd untied streak on one single level (Marc, Train). As a player ranked barely in the top 15, I can only marvel at Rayan’s amazing consistency at levels that troll the living hell out of all of us. A perfect example in this case is his tying of Silo Agent 1:01, a record previously held by only David Clemens and Marc Rutzou. Rayan’s level of play would rise however, and the Elite would find its collective self checking the board tops every day for new untied records – those being Control Secret Agent 4:05 (a TWO SECOND untied), Facility Agent 0:43 (primarily because of a strategy tweak), and Facility Secret Agent 0:52 (just insane overall). To cap off the year, Rayan added a Frigate Secret Agent 1:01 and Surface 2 Secret Agent 0:49 – both records having an average completion rate to a normal Eliter of about 1/5,000!

Fresh off his re-addition and welcome-back to the Goldeneye rankings, Henning Blom kept active and posted a sweet Caverns Secret Agent 1:19 – only the 4th player to tie this record. With his re-addition, his times are under constant monitoring and ultimately need to be approved by the rankings moderator Axel Zakrisson before any new time makes it onto the rankings. Henning currently sits in the 4th spot, just ahead of Bryan Bosshardt.

Speaking of Bryan, his notable accomplishment of the month was finally taking out Greg “Funky Buddha” Lewis’ longest standing untied record of all time – Attack Ship Perfect Agent 3:12! After weeks of slaving away at possibly the most trollish level in either game, Bryan posted a sweet 3:11 and ended an era of a 6 year untied record. In total, Greg held the record on Attack Ship PA since Summer 2005 – an INCREDIBLE run!

Greg Lewis was not about to lose his credibility in Perfect Dark however. Good old FB posted some slick new Deep Sea world records, including an Agent tie of 2:27 and a brand new untied of Special Agent 2:56! Greg was in danger of having 0 world records in Perfect Dark thanks to Bryan’s determination to take out 3:12, but Greg saved himself just in time.

Strangely enough, rounding out the bottom of the world record achievement list is Marc Rutzou and Luke Pettit. Marc’s typically strong months have cooled down just a bit in December, probably from a burnout of playing the game so much. Marc posted a Control 00 Agent 4:08 TIE of David Clemens, and a Control Secret Agent 4:07 before Rayan blew that record out of the water. One must also note that Luke Pettit finally nabbed himself a common world record – Archives Agent 0:16

On the personal record front, a few players have been absolutely on fire lately. Eise Smit has gained a bazillion points over the last month has has climbed to 27th in the overall rankings. Luke Szklarz has kept up his run of PRs and has climbed all the way into the top 50 from out of nowhere. Yours truly, teh Jimbo, with my somewhat entertaining streams and endless hours of playing has finally cracked the top 15 again with the temporary passing of Wouter Jansen (who nailed Archives 0:55s to pass me back) and barely edging out Axel Anderson. Ryan Koch successfully held off the charge by Jimbo by posting a Control Secret Agent 4:16 – enough of a point and time gain to discourage me from playing as I take my routine beginning-of-the-year break for a few months. Finally, Guilherme Alberto secured his 12th spot on the rankings by posting a solid set of Control times, as well as Bunker 1 Secret Agent 0:23 and Surface 2 00 Agent 1:32.

The November Update – Insane records, new podium player!

October has come and gone. For most of us, it was a time of foliage changing color and cooler temperatures, but boy did the world records stay hot! Not only did both games see some huge activity, but there was a significant change in the point rankings in Goldeneye, as well as some insane untieds by a potential high-profile player. Lets start with the most important stuff from October.

Henning Blom, Goldeneye’s highest-ranked Swede and top 5 overall player, has absolutely dominated the world record topic. Previously known for having sub-standard Depot times, he had suddenly risen to the top of the Depot leaderboards and is well on his way to an untied 300 point stage. Henning posted Depot Agent 0:25 back on October 7, then followed that up by tying David Monteith’s only untied record of Depot Secret Agent 0:40 on October 30; finally, he improved one of his worst times by posting an insane Depot 00 Agent 0:48, tying Bryan Bosshardt, and is well on his way to posting a 0:47 (he has 6 failed 0:48s as of this update). Along with this incredible Depot domination, Henning posted a smooth Streets 00 Agent 1:55. Overall, Henning launched himself over former champion Bryan Bosshardt to assume 3rd place and a spot on the podium for the first time in his career. Henning could easily challenge Rayan Isran‘s #2 spot and has already announced his intentions of getting there, could he perhaps one day challenge the seemingly untouchable David Clemens?

Speaking of the champ David Clemens, it’s worth noting that during a warm-up session in Minnesota just 2 short days ago as of this update, David failed a Frigate SA 1:00 by failing the engine bomb objective… the hostages completed! Henning was *that* close to losing his one and only precious yet insane untied world record to a guy who seems like he can turn it on at any moment. The featured video of David failing 1:00 is below with a live reaction recorded, it is absolutely priceless but heartbreaking to watch.

Next on the insanity list is a little-known player to most casual observers. Luke “Lucky P” Pettit has made himself known as the guy who has insane times, yet never had a world record. While rather interesting, it was a shame that he missed out on Runway Secret Agent 0:23 by a few hours or so after Bryan Bosshardt got 0:22. Luke absolutely smashed this reputation by posting an unexpected and insane Frigate 00 Agent 1:06! To add insult to injury to anyone who ever made fun of his lack of world records, he followed that up by posting a 1:05 on the very same difficulty! This is a bittersweet video to watch, because Luke took a safe strat at the end and waited for Objective A to complete at the boat, leaving it up for nearly a second and almost assuredly giving up 1:04 in the process. Regardless, Pettit did the rare feat of making champion David Clemens lose a record while establising himself as a real player and a threat to the top 10 (and possibly top 5!)

Never to be forgotten, PAL sensation and top 5 player Marc Rützou untied his own record by posting a smooth Train SA 1:23. This record was far out of reach already to NTSC players, but Marc made this record nearly out of reach for anyone by lowering his own record and proving he’s the greatest Train player of all time. Marc also finally got a Bunker 1 Agent 0:17, a record that was a glaring void in his times page up to this point. One must not look past his Aztec 00 Agent 1:41 as well, which was achieved on his way to possibly obliterating the current record of 1:40. This guy is clearly capable of setting any record he wants.

Lastly on the world record front, Perfect Dark saw it’s on share of the action. Bryan Bosshardt, never to be forgotten for his PD accomplishments (including being a former champion), blasted away a former Paragon record by posting a sweet Infiltration PA 1:40. The record likely isn’t quite as impressive as the former Paragon record of 1:52 only because a forgotten shield was left in the game in the Japanese version. Nevertheless, Bryan’s 1:40 gives him a 2 second advantage on his next competitor, Taka. Taka wasn’t completely forgotten this month; he posted a Rescue SA 2:17, tying a record set by David Clemens.

Moving onto the PR front, Jimmy Bauer takes the prize as the player of the month (in my humble opinion, anyway). Jimmy was always known as the guy who wasn’t always around, but when he posted, it was usually an insane PR or WR that took everyone by surprise. This time though, he posted a barrage of PRs that elevated him several ranks in overall time and boosted him solidly into the top 10 in points. Eddie Lovins now holds onto his top 10 spot by a mere 2 points over Dan Cervone! Bauer posted some great PRs like Jungle 00A 0:58, Frigate SA 1:03, Jungle A 0:52, as well as Aztec 00 Agent 1:48 – this being a 44 second cut and an 50 point gainer!

Ilari Pekkala posted a Silo Agent 1:04, Train Agent 1:04, Depot 00A 0:50, and even made the switch to PD for an Attack Ship PA 3:14 (during his chase for the bounty offered to take down the 6 year untied of 3:12). Ryan White has come back with a vengeance by posting some insane Statue times, as well as being the flagship streamer on the elite’s new pursuit of Goldeneye 100% world records (which is currently held by David Clemens). The streams feature Clemens, Ryan White, and Marc Rützou on a consistent basis. The viewer count at times has peaked at over 100!

Lastly, as a shout-out and thank you for hosting an epic meet in Minnesota, I must mention that Dan Edeen is slowly becoming good speedrunner. He spent countless hours for his precious Dam Agent 0:54 and Archives Agent 0:17, both taking a ridiculously long time, but it shows his persistence for these times as he strives to match his Minnesota brethren in skill at the games. This is a guy who buys and sells games on the side for some major extra cash, he’s also a guy who currently owns a Millennium 2000 controller, a Nintendo Power 100 controller, and a DK64 controller! Dan is projected to host a major midwest meet next spring at his new (big!) house, it would be the largest concentration of top-players in the history of the elite. (Hint, we could see 4 of Goldeneye’s top 5 players in one house!)

The September Update – Major Age Milestone!

On August 25, just one week ago, our beloved Goldeneye turned 15 years old. The fact that 15 years has passed by and new untied world records are still being achieved solidifies the status that Goldeneye is clearly one of the greatest and most well-designed games of all time. To this day, no major game-breaking glitches have truly been uncovered in an attempt to shave massive chunks of time off of the current overall time of 1:12:52.

Note: In the history of the official elite rankings, only 7 different players have ever held the title as points champion; 8 players have been time champions.

Continuing the trend of Goldeneye always dominating the front page updates, Denmark’s powerhouse Marc Rützou is slowly climbing the ranks – he currently sits at 5th in points and 3rd in time. After achieving Streets Agent 1:12 (see previous update), Marc completed the sweet with 1:55s on both Secret and 00 Agent. In addition to Streets, Marc finally provided a proof video for Surface 1 00 Agent 1:48 – a time which was achieved in August 2011 but never published on the rankings permanently due to a proof discrepancy.

Dan Cervone, always the sneaky speedrunner and well known for “sniping” easy world records out of nowhere, also achieved 1:55s on Streets Secret and 00 Agent. Joining the party was David Witten, who also got Streets 00 Agent 1:55. (I’m seeing a pattern here!) Finally, the last world record achieved since the previous update was Statue Agent 2:19 by Adam Bozon, who now has a 2:19 sweep of the level and is tied for 2nd on the leaderboard.

A few final notes:
- For our NFL fans out there, the elite continues the tradition of fantasy football, pigskin pick ‘em, and spread betting through one fairly large and active topic, which can be found here.

- Perfect Dark is not dead, but not very active either. Carathorn has gotten a few new times on Pelagic II, while David Clemens has been streaming his attempts at a new untied record (1:38/1:39) on Special Agent on the same level.

- Hopefully by this time next month, the Virginia 2012 compilation video will be complete and will be the primary topic of discussion for the next update assuming no major strats or untieds are found.

- Check the elite rankings to see new implementations by Your Eliteness. Not only are the rankings far more practical and efficient than they have ever been before, but now they are streamlined and look amazing! It can never be overstated as to how important YE’s contributions to the elite since last Christmas have been.

The June Update – 22 seconds gone, SUMMER CONTEST!

To summarize the month of May, Perfect Dark has completely stolen the show for headlines and activity. Investigation Agent has seen a total time drop of 22 seconds from the previous world record of 1:27 to a completely-unforeseen 1:05 by Ilari Pekkala. The record and strategy has now been optimized into a double-laser-glitch, essentially eliminating the bot-speed-luck factor altogether.

The video of the current record of 1:05 can be found here.

On the Goldeneye side of the spectrum, some new mid-carders have emerged as the powerhouses of the PR topic this month! Ryan Koch has emerged from a 30th-ranked player and is now knocking on the door of the top 15 with PRs such as Dam 00A 2:00 and Silo A 1:06. David Monteith, now shedding the mantra as “new Dave”, has gotten 17 total PRs in the month of May, including Runway Agent 0:22 and an astounding Depot 00A 0:49 as his world records for the month. David is currently ranked 25th as of this update and I’m personally very curious to see what he can do in the month of June!

Finally, the big non-game news of the month is the emergence of the annual Elite Summer Contest! All the information including brackets, links to everything, and match write-ups can be found in General Chat near the top of the boards.

We all openly welcome the time of year when contest is upon us. Certain people who are inactive throughout the other 3 seasons of the year come back to catch up and have fun as the traditions of first vote, predictions, and participant reactions roll through chat and the boards on a nightly basis.

Monumental Perfect Dark Strat Find, records getting blown away!

Did you catch what happened there? If you don’t have time to watch the video, it is now possible to glitch through the lasers! This video, provided by Dark Otto with a PR 10 seconds off of the world record, shows us what is now possible through the findings of Bryan Bosshardt, Your Eliteness, David Clemens, and Ilari Pekkala.

For more information, visit this topic for a more elaborate explanation. Note: The previous record just a few short days ago was 1:27!

The May Update – New PD Champ, Records FALLING!

There’s just something about a fairly new player storming onto the scene and setting personal records that take people by surprise. It’s a whole different ball game when that same player starts posting world records and (new) knowledge of the game at a fast pace. David Monteith has achieved some very solid times in the last month and has taken his “new Dave” mantra in stride as he flies up the rankings and the world record charts. Dam Agent 0:53, Runway Agent 0:22, and a sweet untied of Depot Secret Agent 0:40 have taken the elite by storm recently, most notably with the (relatively unknown and unused) control style of 2.4 – a style that takes hours to perfect and great patience before its rewards can be reaped.

Not to be outdone by the “new guy”, some old-timers are still around and posting some world records themselves! Karl Jobst now has Bunker 1 Agent 0:17 to his credit, as does proof-moderator Axel Zakrisson. Ryan “Goose” White came out of nowhere to post his Surface 1 00 Agent 1:49, and Jimmy Bauer became only the 4th player in the world to get Depot Agent 0:25.

Some insane activity has been going on in the world of Perfect Dark as well! With his onslaught of untied world records (Escape Agent 2:11, Escape PA 3:16, Escape SA 3:15) and tied records (Air Base A 1:14), Taka has emerged as the new #1 ranked Perfect Dark player in the world, overtaking Ace by a solid 10 points.

Goldeneye juggernauts Boss, Illu, and Clemens have also gotten a few records in their “other” game. Those being Investigation SA 2:07, Infiltration A 1:10, and a total sweep of Skedar Ruins (1:05 Agent, 1:21 SA, and 1:29 PA). These guys combined are probably the most furiously talented trio in either game, and can destroy any record with their collaboration of talent and knowledge. Beware, even Max Bout no longer has an untied record…

To end this update, I’d like to direct you to a topic created by perennial historian Greg Woll on the Goldeneye boards. The topic‘s content is Greg’s un-hoarding of valuable knowledge of the game in the last few months / years. Credit to Jimmy Bauer for helping with some of his findings.

(Hint: The boards are blowing up with new and relevant content, check it out if you’re not a frequent poster!)

Milestones galore!

10 years ago, Derek Clark launched www.the-elite.net as a universal URL all of the speedrunners from both games could call home. 10 years later it is still a very important, very welcoming, and very much alive community and website that has played host to some of the most memorable moments of our lives.

In Perfect Dark, from the days of Snapdragon and Paragon, to Karl Jobst and Randy Buikema, to Your Eliteness and Big Bossman, and finally to Ace and Taka… records have been both shattered and set in stone in a game that has died far too young in comparison with its counterpart made 3 years prior.

In Goldeneye, from Sterling to Steven, to Karl and Randy, to Bryan and Wouter, and finally to Rayan and David… this is the game that primarily has kept the speedrunning community alive as most of the former speedrunners move forward in life not just as gamers, but as friends.

Massive kudos go out to the following people for a variety of reasons:
- Derek Clark, webmaster and creator
- Jon Barber, elite historian and administrator
- Ryan Dwyer, rankings headmaster and creator
- Scott Abbey, board administrator and creator
- Greg Woll / Quentin Meunier, record historians and page creators
- Wouter Jansen, pioneer in the mandatory video-proof movement and credited with taking the elite to the next level in integrity.
- David Clemens, Bryan Bosshardt, Rayan Isran, Marc Rutzou, and any other active players who continue to push the limits of the games and refuse to be satisfied with the current records.

So many more credits could be mentioned but would this update would be far too cluttered for such a thing. Thank you to everyone who has ever been associated with the elite for making the last 10 years a wonderful experience and here’s to 10 more! May the games never die and the friendships go on forever!

Perfect Dark World Records Page (New!), and 3 second PA untied!

Gentlemen, it’s finally here! One of Goldeneye’s signature pages over the last 10 years has been the World Records Page, updated by various eliters and kept up to date through occasional updates. That page is currently updated by our very own Greg Woll with the utmost integrity and accuracy.

Now, after almost a decade, Perfect Dark has it’s own World Records page! Take some time to check out all of the quick links provided and the history of all of PD’s WRs! (note: Jon Barber at one time had an untied Agent record, take a look!)

Not to be forgotten is Denis Lucid‘s amazing time of Defection PA 1:20! This was a 3 second untied that obliterated the old time which has stood (unofficially, Sucram) since 2001!

« Older Entries