Archive for the ‘World Records’ Category

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 Sfefan 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!

Move over Michael Jordan, someone else owns the #23!

After standing for 3,217 days on the rankings (May 23, 2004), Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 has been dethroned as the 6th-longest standing tied record in Goldeneye history. Watch as Marc Rützou uses robotic perfection and a strat envisioned by Karl Jobst to nail 0:23 – perhaps the finest Agent record on the rankings right now.

Remember, 18 people had 0:24 before this (including Marc) after the recent surge of new 0:24s by several players. With this surge, Karl Jobst developed a new strategy utilizing that annoying “warping guard” while also showing great timing for the critical keycard guard kill. Karl might not have been the first one to actually execute 0:23, but he contributed greatly to its cause. Special credit also goes out to David Clemens who also participated in the race to 0:23.

Goldeneye’s longest-standing untied ever finally tied!

After 1,812 days – just a hair under 5 years – Bryan Bosshardt’s Statue 00 Agent 2:18 was finally tied, and althought it wasn’t actually used in Marc 00 Agent run, it yielded a new strat that might make that time the new standard for our top players. Marc Rutzou’s ingenious find of a small tweak in the route to and from the Trevelyan meeting has proven to save anywhere from 0.4-0.5 seconds if executed perfectly. Suddenly, a 2:18 sweep seems imminent with a possible 2:17 00 Agent on the horizon.

Side note: After tying 00 Agent, Marc promptly tied Jimmy Bauer’s only untied record with Secret Agent 2:18. The video linked is recorded live with all of Marc’s reactions out there for everyone to hear. He explains some of the facts behind finally achieving that coveted 2:18.

The March Update – Got Bunker 0:24 Yet?

The headline isn’t a joke. Since February 10, seven different players have gotten this world record in what is easily the biggest surge since Surface 2 Agent 0:49 in April 2010. Poor folks like Shawn Johnson, Eddie Lovins, and even our active rankings administrator Axel Zakrisson have all lost points simply from not hopping aboard this record bandwagon. There wasn’t a whole lot of record activity in the previous month if 0:24 is taken out of the equation, but without further ado, I give you our players of the month:

Rayan Isran: Surface 1 00 Agent 1:48, Silo 00 Agent 1:22 (both tied records, both insane obviously)

Luke Szklarz: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24, Runway Agent 0:22 (OOOOOOH….. SHIT!)

David Clemens: Egypt SA 0:45 (1.2, the man’s way)

Wouter Jansen: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (w000000ter)

Ryan White: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (2.2 CRUISE CONTROL like a boss)

Ryan Koch: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (Nicely done, d00d)

Guilherme Alberto: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (great job passing Shawn Johnson!)

David Witten: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (Keep it up, Dwit!)

Karl Jobst: Bunker 2 Agent 0:24 (my prediction for the guy that actually gets 0:23 first)

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.

Jungle Love – It’s Driving Me Mad, It’s Making Me CRAZY!

OK, so the title seems a bit silly – it’s a 1977 song from the Steve Miller Band – but its title applies to recent events lately. Have you checked the rankings? One should note that only three days ago, there was only one untied sweep; now there are two!

Former champion and current #2 player Rayan Isran has historically owned Jungle, having 300 points on there for as long as one can remember. Rayan has had Jungle SA 0:53 untied since June 12, 2008 – the 2nd longest standing GoldenEye untied of all time – and an Agent tie of 0:51 complimented by a 00 Agent tie of 0:55.

Not anymore, however. Rayan has achieved an unreachable time on NTSC with Jungle Agent 0:50. Just because 0:50 was achieved on PAL does not mean this time is any less than perfect, however. With 8 boosts, and a PERFECT warp, Rayan nailed 0:50 and made 4 other players lose a record in the process. 0:54 00 Agent was just a perfectly smooth PAL run* with all the mines being blown up just before Xenia to reduce overall lag. Marc Rützou with 0:55 is the only player who loses a record there.

*PAL players can normally blow up the last 2 drones and the ammo dump no problem, whereas NTSC players will have grenades shoot through the floor after the ammo dump due to lag.

The December Update – Twitch is the Lifeblood

With the passing of November, a large chunk of the Elite was getting over a historical presidential election, and passing through to the month where Winter officially begins. Historically, the Winter months have proven to be the most dead time of the year within the Elite; with the recent addition of Twitch.tv and flurry of activity however, this will most certainly be the busiest December in years. Lets get right to the best of November!

Starting at the very top of the rankings, David Clemens is feeling the heat from his closest challengers. In just a few short days, Clemens posted an insane Control 00 Agent 4:08 – an untied that made the #2 ranked player Rayan Isran lose a precious 3 points in his own personal journey to perhaps regain the top spot.

Rayan “Ace” Isran wasn’t quiet this month either. Seemingly out of the blue, Ace posted a slick Caverns Secret Agent 1:19, becoming only the 3rd player to achieve this time. Along with that, Ace also posted a smooth Surface 1 Secret Agent 1:48 (also being the 3rd player to get this), and a very good Aztec Agent 1:28. The Aztec run was highlighted by a fairly lengthy stuck on the glass prior to the final mainframe, long enough to probably cost him the world record.

Marc Rützou, perhaps the most active and prolific player of the month, achieved a jumbled mess of records that has him on the heels of the podium. Marc is one of the Elite’s most popular streamers; combine that with his outrageous skill, ability to grind out records, and ridiculous amount of time available to play – suddenly you have a deadly combination ready to take it to the very top. Marc’s first record was Aztec 00 Agent 1:40, a tied record which features Marc’s 5 minute decision to go the “slow or the fast route” at the pause just before the final room. Marc also posted a pair of Egypt 0:46s, both world records, in route to getting 295 points there. Finally, he dominated Control by posting a slick Control Agent 3:58, claiming it was “relatively easy” and has failed a few 3:57s live on stream! Marc’s “regular PRs” would include Cradle 00A 0:37, Egypt Agent 0:46, Control SA 4:08, and Control 00A 4:11.

Next up on the December update is the promising Jimmy Bauer. Jimmy only posted 3 PRs this month, but they were still enough to take everyone by surprise. Firstly, Jimmy strut his stuff by posting a sick Bunker 2 Secret Agent 0:47. Although not a record, it’s a 4th place time highlighted by a 2-boost ending which got quite the response. His other times are featured by his first ever untied record – Statue Secret Agent 2:18 – breaking the heart of Statue superstar Bryan Bosshardt. The best part of that 2:18 was the sweet $45 bounty that went along with it, congrats on taking my money, JB! Jimmy wrapped up the month by posting Statue Agent 2:19, also a record.

Posting a pair of single records on the month, Ilari Pekkala posted a Cradle Agent 0:34 in an ultimate troll action to Marc Rutzou, who is currently struggling for the record; and yours truly Jimbo Barrett posted a pretty snazzy Bunker 2 Agent 0:24. Credit to all the top players for taking me by the hand in helping me getting my 25th career record; it certainly helped that 0:24 included the fastest warp of the 11 total players who have that record. I am currently about 25 points out of the legitimate top 15*, thanks in part to several streamed PRs this last month.

While not posting any records, Ryan White “Goose” and David Witten were not quiet this month either. David destroyed his former Train PRs and now has 1:04/1:31/1:59, a solid combination that puts him 9th on the Train leaderboard. Ryan posted a Caverns 00A 1:34, a 3rd place time on the legitimate rankings*, and Depot SA 0:43.

Rounding out the update, we have the only notable piece of news from the Perfect Dark world – the end of Attack Ship 3:12 being the longest standing untied of all time. Bryan tied this record when the bounties started encouraging other players to finally challenge the record.

Hopefully by the next update, we’ll all have made it through the December 21st doomsday, Marc will have finally gotten Cradle 0:34 and Control 3:57, Clemens will have safely made it back from his month-long stay in Indonesia, Ryan Koch’s stream will be up and running, and I will be in the top 15. Keep playing guys, because Twitch is the greatest thing to ever happen to the Elite.

*Legitimate rankings are stated because of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the indefinite banning of Henning Blom. All stated rankings are assumed that Henning is active and unbanned.

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 October Update – Controversial [banned] strats, and….?

Well folks, September was pretty boring. Upon looking at the time history for September 2012, I found a total of TWO new world records, both in Goldeneye. The big topic of the month though centered around the new strat veteran Trent Hovis managed to find through game rage and unorthodox experimentation, and here is a basic explanation of how it works:

It involves taking a 2nd controller apart and plugging it into the 2nd controller port (using whatever style you want, 1.2 for example). If you press on the circuit board a certain way during the fadeout, it freezes the game by making all objects disappear and completely freezes the mission timer while countdowns CONTINUE. The flip-side to this glitch is that anything with a countdown to end the level can be advantageous because “unfreezing” the game as the level fades out will give you a completion at whatever point you froze the level using your controller originally…

It’s basically the equivalent of stomping on your N64 a certain way to get the mission timer to stop at 0:09 and calling it a glitch. This would only be useful on Facility A/SA/00A and Train SA/00A, Aztec 00A for a no-armor run so you don’t have to go back to the vents.

The controversy began when Trent posted some untied records on Train and left us all hanging as to how he pulled off these miraculous untieds (1:22 SA and 1:49 00A). With some whistle-blowing detective work from David Clemens, it was found that hardware manipulation was used to get these times (including Facility Agent 0:43) and subsequently these times were immediately removed from the rankings.

See this topic for more details on everything.

The big new time of the month comes from Marc Rützou, who landed a cool Silo 00 Agent 1:22; David Witten also posted a sweet Archives Agent 0:16, a record I will always be biased for.

On an end note, the Virginia 2012 compilation video is complete and uploaded! The video can be found here.

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.

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