The annual Awesome Games Done Quick speedrunning superstream kicks off this weekend and it's going to be musical. Events will include a player defeating a series of Elden Ring boss battles using a saxophone as a controller and 16 minutes of Crazy Taxi with a live backing band playing while the driver collects his fares. Other notable events will see two players tearing through The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild while sharing a single joypad, and a loving attempt to eliminate “all romances” in Fallout: New Vegas in 30 minutes. Wait, there are romance options in New Vegas?
Oh, I totally forgot that there are eight named characters in Bethesda's radioactive wasteland that you can do the horizontal hip hooray with. Including a robot named “Fisto.” Well, you can expect it on Thursday. The festival of refreshing nonsense begins on Sunday the 5th and runs until Sunday the 12th. A whole week of saxy shenanigans. You can see the full schedule on the Games Done Quick website.
Crazy Taxi's appearance during the speedrunning festival could be inspired by news of an upcoming reboot. And the musical accompaniment may include some old favorites from the original soundtrack. Long-toothed taxi drivers will remember that the Dreamcast and arcade versions had a punk rock soundtrack with lots of Offspring and Bad Religion, but those songs were removed in later editions of the game due to licensing rights.
However! You can watch the band scheduled for Awesome Games Done Quick perform Offspring's song “Way Down The Line” in this performance video, which they performed alongside a replay of a player's previous speedrun. They even change some of the lyrics to make a humorous reference to speedrunning. And I enjoy the way they cut off abruptly every time the game timer runs out and the menu appears.
As for the jazz side of things, you may have already seen saxophonist “Dr. Doot” completing an Elden Ring no-hit set in his own time. This time you will face a group of “controlled” bosses. It's very satisfying to hear the clanking noises as you calmly walk away from danger.
Some newer games are also on the list. Alan Wake 2, Windblown, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and the Silent Hill 2 remake will see speedruns of various types. Some ambitious people also plan to visit UFO 50, and the organizers will dedicate 50 minutes to the retro collection. Does that mean they will spend one minute on each game? Or maybe they are planning to complete as many games as possible in the build? I don't know. But it could be interesting.
Games Done Quick organizers regularly raise millions of dollars for charities at their biannual events. This year they once again support the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Last year's Summer Games Done Quick (the beachy sibling of the classic January event) saw a Sekiro player interrupted during a speedrun by that most baffling of Windows interruptions: sticky keys. But that didn't stop the shinobi cut from pushing the event over the $2.5 million mark.