Glad it helped! These aren't dumb questions by any means, btw. The fact that speedrunning is becoming more of an established concept is probably more mind-boggling to speedrunners than anyone else. It only started because some gamers finished Quake or Super Metroid or Mega Man 2 and for whatever reason thought, "I…

To answer that specific comparison, Mega Man passwords aren't considered the same as warps in Mario, because passwords are explicitly intended as a way of saving progress, and warp zones are treated more like secrets or shortcuts within the context of the game itself.

"Warpless" runs are usually considered the more complete and competitive category for games that have warps, though it depends on the individual game.

I dunno how long it's been since you've seen a Battletoads run, but that game has a ton of skips in it and definitely isn't static (though there are definitely still sections of it that are). That game is super broken these days.

Mr. K did a run of that at one of the speedrun marathons, and since it requires a long period of waiting, he ran Maniac Mansion as well right in the middle of it.

This is the reason I find RPG and Adventure Game runs interesting where a lot of speedrunners don't. The puzzle-solving of "what's necessary in what order, and how do I optimize travel time and menus to do it quickly?" is a lot of fun to follow and figure out.

There's definitely an arcade game community out there where the goal isn't to beat a game in record time, but to do it with one credit, or compete for high score, or other challenges like that.

The confusion (and inexplicable animosity, in many cases) that casual gamers have toward speedrunning is itself kind of bewildering to me. Imagine people who enjoy jogging or hiking talking shit about Olympic sprinters or marathon runners. "They're just blazing through it as fast as they can. What's the point?"

S7 actually does have some powerful "family" stuff going on with the cast, even as the separate orbits things remains true. It's not always well-done (they make an admirable effort to integrate a new cast member into the "family", but that's always gonna be a little weird), but there's a lot of great individual…

Agreed, they clicked way better than I was expecting them to. It's probably the best relationship in Trek (which I know isn't saying much, but it's still pretty strong). There's a small plot point with Garak talking to each of them during the final story arc that was really good and showed how well they understood and…

It's a really lovely concept, but she feels like more of a device than a character through a lot of it. She's exactly the kind of person she needs to be to teach the whole cast Valuable Lessons About Stuff. Still, I don't mind it.

I like Sisko's bemused "I hope he gets there" as he's digging in the sand.

@avclub-eb058ced22520c3a8f4e4a6e2fb16403:disqus There's a symmetry to it, but when the Cardassians wrecked the station, it WAS petty, because they weren't at war with the Federation. It was a "fuck you" to the planet they'd been occupying and the station's new caretakers, because they were mad about losing. When the…

I didn't say he invented the format, just that he changed what it was to people, and become the standard by which it's judged. MST3K didn't invent riffing on movies, they were just the first to create something popular in the comedy/TV world using it as a format.

CRUNCH BUTTSTEAK

If you were copying the spirit/cadence/persona of MST3K and its post-TV offspring, maybe, but "riffing on a movie" by itself is just a comedic format. It's one they pioneered and perfected, so it'll always draw comparisons to them, but late night talk shows inevitably draw comparisons to Carson, too. Using the format…

Me too. C'mon internet, do your stuff.

Well, we live in a post-descriptive world.

Look, it's early. I only just got coffee, give me time to wake up.

You can probably shorten that to just "purists", FWIW.