SGDQ Raises Over $3m For Charity – Our Pick of the Speedruns!

SGDQ Raises Over $3m

Well, Summer Games Done Quick (or SDGQ) is over and as one of the years biggest gaming charity events draws to a close, the news is good. The event has confirmed that they have, again, broken their records by raising over $3m for Doctors Without Borders.

To celebrate this achievement, we make our pick of some of our favourite runs of the event!

Super Mario Bros 3 Race

Having a popular game at SGDQ will always get a bit of hype, seeing 4 people simutaniously racing each other to the end, however, take this to a whole new level!

Resident Evil 2 Remake

SGDQ surprised many by including the Resident Evil 2 Remake in the run roster. Largely because it’s a very graphical game with more than a little swearing. Two things that the event has steered away from in recent years. Seeing Bawkbasoup beat the game in the same time that I probably spent avoiding Mr X, however, is simply amazing!

Punch Out!! (Wii) – BLINDFOLDED

Beating Punch Out!! is a pretty tough gaming achievement in itself. Managing to do it while blindfolded, however, is simply ridiculous!

Runner Zallard1 is no stranger to blindfolded Punch Out!! runs. He’s done more than a few and not only at SGDQ events. This time, however, he decided to showcase the Wii version with highly-impressive results!

Castlevania (DOS)

I must admit, while I am aware of a number of Nintendo games getting (shoddy) MS-DOS ports, I didn’t know that Castlevania had received this ‘treatment’.

As you might expect, the game is awful running at only just over 8 frames per second. For what is clearly a clunky game, however, the run was more than a little entertaining!

Castlevania Symphony of the Night

Sticking with Castlevania, many would consider ‘Symphony of the Night’ to be the greatest release in the series. For me, Super Castlevania IV just edges it. In terms of just how optimised a games run can get, however, this one from SGDQ 2019 will certainly be an eye-opener for anyone who has played it!

Super Mario Bros 2

Having first played Super Mario Bros 2 in (circa) 1992, I never actually completed the game until something like 2014. Watching this speedrun, however, makes me question whether the game was tricky, or if I was just bad at it!

Red Alert 3 – Soviet Hard Mode

Playing in co-op mode, this pair manage to complete the game in just over 1 hours 30 minutes. That annoys me for 2 reasons. Firstly, that this time included all of the cutscenes (thanks to a donation incentive) which by proxy increased that time hugely, but also because I spend longer than that on just 1 single mission!

The Legend of Zelda Randomiser

Randomisers runs have become more than a little popular in recent years. Put simply, these rearrange the locations of a games items to effectively make playing it (and routing your way to the end) far more difficult. You have to watch it to understand, but these are amazingly fun and fascinating runs!

SGDQ 2019 – What Do You Think?

Having watched all of the highlights, you can check out the full YouTube listings channel via the link here! – You can, in addition, still donate towards the event via their official website here!

Raising over $3m, however, is simply fantastic and we salute all those who participated and donated to what is clearly a very fun and good cause!

What do you think? Which was your favourite run of the event? – Let us know in the comments!