In an act of complete self-deprecation, I'm posting today about a speed-run clearly underscoring the fact that I suck at video games. In a recent blog article on Joystiq, there are series of seven YouTube videos that step-by-step reveal someone making Dark Souls their undeniable bitch. If you recall, I posted last week about the insane difficulty of a new masterful RPG released called Dark Souls, a sequel to an equally difficult Demon Souls. I accused fans of Dark Souls of having lot's of time on their hands (perhaps even being unemployed) in order to pour into the game the necessary number of starts, restarts, give-ups, and take-ups that it would require to beat the game. In fact, I even estimated that the point in the game in at which I quit, I was actually roughly 3-hours of gameplay into it. If that were true, and if I were the gamer SexyShoiko, I would have beaten the entire game... twice.

Speed-runs are a fantastic way for demi-godlike gamers to educate and entertain the rest of us pukes on how to thoroughly and irrevocably crush a game. I imagine designers look at speed-runs somewhat like classic painters might feel watching a Bob Ross episode or an iPhone-art app; utterly disgusted at their work being so undermined. That said, speed-runs are incredibly entertaining and are always a bit of a status-spiker for those amateurs that are able to intricately research a game that they are able to blow through it in seconds (relatively speaking, of course). That is exactly what it is to watch SexyShoiko's speed-run. In exactly nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, SS was able to complete roughly the same amount of game that I had completed in almost 8 total hours of slogging, dying, reviving, slogging, dying, repeat...

My question for SS, and all of the other uber-gamers out there that have developed such a systematic and crafted approach to a game that they can literally cruise through it with almost no impediment; how much time does it take to get to that point. In other words, how much is talent, skill, and understanding of game design, and how much is sheer trial and error? Do you do any slogging? Dying? Repeating?

Whatever the answer, speed-runs are nothing if not educational. I’ve already got my plan of action for the next time I get my hands on Dark Souls. This time I’m completing that same swath of the game in 9:30 too! Nine hours and thirty minutes…give or take.

See the entire SexyShoiko series at Joystiq.