Are You Pro? You Could Probably Be Better!

Did that statement offend you, oh professional one? Oh wow, you can get a headshot from a mile away while standing on the tip of a needle, with Yoda riding on your back. Aren't you special? Well yes, if I ever saw that happen I'd probably attempt to reproduce with that person, if possible. But could you ever do half of the things you are about to witness, dear reader? This is some truly crazy shizzle, my respective nizzle.

What I'm talking about are TAS's: Tool Assisted Speed runs. meaning these are run on emulators, and use savestates. But in all they are necessary for the things you are about to witness. If you want some more info or feel like browsing some vid's yourself I prefer watching TAS's from tasvideos.org, mainly because there's a little mario that runs across the top of your screen and if you try to catch him he'll always run from you. Entertainment at its finest, me thinks.

Well, that gives you the bearings of what a TAS is. now, for a couple of truly incredible videos.

Sonic used to be good, for this reason.

And as always, there's nothing better than a good run through of a mario game.

If you actually watch all of this, you should give yourself a cookie.

But TAS's aren't just limited to how fast you can beat the game, as I've come to find out. There are also giant communities built around doing challenges within the game, just for the sheer fact that they are challenging. These aren't your cookie cutter achievements that you're used to. These are challenges that entail you finishing the game without killing any enemies or leveling up, among other factors.

yes, I stumbled upon this challenge while prowling around gamefaqs.com, in search of how to get 200.6% completion in Castlevania:SOTN (for the XBLA achievement, however you can get your discovered percentage into the 400's I believe.)  I imagine it is but one of many challenges that involve emulators to complete. While it may not be a traditional TAS, it's in the same ballpark and if you're crazy enough it's definitely worth your time.

A walkthrough to aforementioned insane challenge can be found here.

I've begun this challenge, and let me tell you it's definitely not for the faint of heart. It requires extreme patience and an iron will to even begin to make progress. But it's surely fun and rewarding in its own remark, if not a tad demoralizing at times.

If you so desire a glimpse of this madness, you may view it now! Although, be warned. These guys make it look easy. P.S. it's not easy.

This shows the whole challenge, cut up into the crucial bits for quicker viewing.

Well, reader. This is just a broad overview of what cool things people come up with to push themselves to the limit, it's pretty impressive stuff and a bunch of props to the people who do this type of thing. I would also encourage any and all of you out there to give TAS-ing a fair shot, just to see how you fare, even though you won't get gamerscore or trophy's for doing it, you might just get recognition from an actual community, rather than "congrats, you killed X amount of generic enemy, 50G!!!" (Not hating on achievements, I love them myself.)