Those crazy people over at SourceRuns. It seems like only yesterday that they released
their catchily named Half Life 2 DWaHMoV speedrun of the game, where they hopped, glitched and
exploited their way to victory in record time. But now they’ve done it again. And they
haven’t just shaved seconds off their time; they’ve obliterated their previous records.
There’s been a bit of a history to the Half Life 2 speedruns. The first was ‘Half Life
2 Done Quick’ which completed the game in 1 hour 37 minutes. This was achieved by the
HL2DQ team back in 2006. In 2013, Sourceruns did their Half Life 2 Done With a High Magnitude
of Velocity run, which shaved 10 minutes off the original time. But there was another change
with this run as well- it used the newer, updated Orange Box engine, which fixed a number
of previous exploits. This video nicely demonstrates the differences between these two versions.
More recently still it was discovered that one of the speedrunners from the original
‘Done Quick’ attempt had cheated, which encouraged Sourceruns to attempt the run again,
using the original engine and all of its many bugs. These include the usual speedy jumps,
but also the controversial escape-from-the-world-and-bypass-the-level void exploits as well. And not just once or
twice, but for most of the levels. Is this going too far?...
…Judging by the ratings for this new video and the visible down-voted portion, possibly.
I don’t know how to feel about this. It’s heart-breaking to see such an honest, hard-working
video get casually downvoted by us mere mortals who struggle to comprehend the skill required
to accomplish such a feat. Who are we to downvote a masterpiece that we don’t even understand?...
…But at the same time, it’s certainly not as entertaining as the previous runs to
watch. Whereas before, Gordon Freeman at least humoured the rules of the game, this time
he downright ABUSES both the game and engine it’s based on. He’s a God, passing through
and around the levels as though they’re nothing. But remember, this wasn’t intended
as an entertaining video. It’s a speedrun. And it does this brilliantly. Check out the
full video here: I’m now going to go through some of my favourite bits, comparing them
with their previous run. Sadly, as a viewer, I’ve been spoiled. As
incredible as every second of this speedrun is, I end up taking for granted the hundreds
of perfected bunnyhops and weightless landings. It becomes common-place to watch people teleport
when hit on the head with random props, or to climb a staircase by using a gun turret
that’s still SHOOTING AT THE PLAYER. The speedrunners must facepalm when I seem more
entertained by a glitched setpiece than from the awesome technical ability shown during
the Nova Prospekt section that probably took them weeks to perfect. But I can’t help
it. After all, what’s there not to love about
bypassing areas, leaving floating, unactivated combine police in your wake? Or starting the
level next to misplaced Barneys? Or the way Alyx casually drives her face through a plank
of wood, or when they decide to make Eli look senile because they got bored waiting for
a setpiece to end? Indeed, at points, the speedrunner’s talents seem better used to
showcase hilarious bugs, making Gordon Freeman look like even more of a social outcast than
he is already. It’s fascinating to compare this run with
the older ones and to see what’s changed. Gordon was a right perv in the previous attempt,
lewdly gawking at breasts and bottoms during the game’s setpieces. In this new speedrun,
Gordon instead breaks free of his chains and procrastinates by performing acts of hardcore
parkour, avoiding opportunities for schoolboy humour. For the most part at least. It’s
also great to see Matmo return as one of the few people who have played a part in both
recent speedruns. Time to look at some of my favourite parts.
Impressively, they’ve now managed the whole airboat section without using the vehicle
at all! This does mean that we lose a lot of the incredible boat flipping segments.
But sacrifices have to be made for the shortest times, I suppose.
And how about the other vehicle part? I was excited to see the coast sections because
I couldn’t imagine how they could have improved upon their times from the old speedrun- and
it turns out that they couldn’t; the new speedrun is slower in every single one of
the coast levels. I stop the old speedrun at the end of every stage so the new one can
catch up. That way, at least a split second at the beginning of each map, they’re in
sync again. Now I want to stress that I’m not criticising the new speedrun at all- the
speedrunners are likely just as skilful as those in the older run. It’s just that the
coast levels are the one part of the game which massively favours a glitch with the
newer engine version that lets people bunnyhop backwards at ludicrous speeds. All in all,
this entire segment of the game takes 33 seconds longer in the new speedrun.
Next is Ravenholm. The old speedrun took almost exactly a minute, mostly at just 1 HP! An
incredible achievement, but from the word go you see it getting beaten by the newer
run, with Centaur1um fluidly bunnyhop-dodging obstacles early on before taking a more direct
path through the air to the far window near the end of the level. This section’s so
fast-paced that I’ve decided to run it at half speed just so that you can make out what’s
going on. The majority of the time saved is in this very first part of Ravenholm.
Surprisingly, despite two very different approaches, the two runs manage the second half of this
stage in almost identical time but the newer speedrun manages to finish this part on a
more respectable 85 HP, which should make the parts to come a bit easier. As I said
earlier, these two runs through Ravenholm are using different versions of the Source
engine so you can’t exactly directly compare the two. I am surprised that a game that I’ve
played through so many times over the years without encountering even a single bug can
be broken so much, though. Years ago when I saw a speedrun for the first Half Life,
I remember feeling a little disappointed that Half Life 2 wouldn’t be anywhere as interesting
because most of the glitches would be patched. Thank you, Sourceruns, for proving me wrong.
Doctor Freeman? GORDON FREEMAN?!?!? IS THAT YOU OMG WTF U R SOOOOO FAST LOL
Yeah, Gordon! You sure got there quickly. But just how much faster than last time? I
guess it depends on when you start and stop the clock. I decided to go with the last time
Alyx saw Gordon till the moment he steps into Black Mesa East. Even this was difficult to
record since THIS was the last time Alyx saw him in the latest speedrun before he disappeared
through a wall. But any way. Previously, it took him 13 minutes
and 14 seconds. In this speedrun, just 7 minutes 26! Not bad going, Gordon. Who needs teleportation
any way?! The end of the game has always been entertaining.
Speedruns seem to take great delight in ruining this bit as much as possible. If we look at
the old one, Matmo manages to get over a barrier and spends some time staring at Doctor Breen’s
ass. Later on, another runner, ‘S.’, takes cover from a gunship behind Alyx before she’s
mowed down in the final scene. How could the new speedrun one-up this?!
Well, for a start they escape the starting room not once but twice, first to place a
prop somewhere that will help later on, only to then return to the first room again to
speed Alyx up. Traderain then gets a bit of the world itself to shield him from a glitched
gunship, before revealing Alyx and Dr Breen stood in a room together, watching Dr Breen’s
supposed death and the G-man’s last visit. Oh, and he manages to end the speedrun on
a single point of health. Incredible.
Thanks to Sourceruns and to all of the heroic speedrunners who made these videos possible.
Check out the original videos here and support them if you enjoyed this content!