SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) [OUTDATED]

I recommend this channel in general. He has extremely deep knowledge of the inner workings of the game, and presents it in an approachable way. Other classics: A 3 hour 45 minute deep dive into the game's infamous invisible wall bug (useful for understanding the linked video): link His most famous video, a summary of the extremely involved and complex methods required to beat a particular level using the lowest number of A button presses - in this case, 0.5 : ▶ this video

I could see how this could be confusing. SM64 does distinguish between before a release and after a release, so technically the game itself doesn't care. I think what they were trying to say is that there really isn't any benefit in speedrunning the game to keep track of releasing (and this can be confirmed in the video too: ▶ this video ). I think it's possible that if the next level requires .5 a presses but, for example, you are falling with a wing cap in the current level, you have to decide between bumping that half a press into a full a press or losing time when falling with the wing cap. I just don't think it's a common case though because you could use a different route where the held A won't affect you. It looks like in the A Button Challenge (ABC), there are only 5 half a presses: link

I kind of lost it at the point where he "builds up speed for 12 hours". AHAHA ▶ this video His mind is so clear. I love how there's so many super super smart people on the internet! :)

I highly recommend watching this video, which explains floats in the context of Mario 64: link Games are a great way to explain floats because they're so visual. Specifically, check out 3:31, where the game has been hacked so that the possible float values in one of the movement directions is quite coarse. (If you're curious what a PU is, and would like some completely useless knowledge, this video is also an absolute classic and very entertaining: ▶ this video )

If you're using the shift key, then "Tesla" is 6 keypresses whereas "TSLA" is only 4.5 (.5 since you don't technically have to release shift, which you can take advantage of in certain cases [0]). [0] ▶ this video

This video goes into something vaguely related with how the coordinate system works in Mario 64: ▶ this video There's a lot of interesting problems that arise when making a 3d game vs a 2d one.

This was interesting. I used to whine about doing this kind of glitched run, but it's just a different category of speedrun. Amazing to have that level of precision, though of course he must have done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times to get it right. If you like this kind of explanation be sure to watch the "0.5 A presses" Mario 64 speedrun video, which is equally interesting as far as getting into the hidden guts of the game: ▶ this video

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well link SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the interesting stuff done to abuse the game The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has pretty much been a history of "and then a quicker way to corrupt the game was found". It's not always about going fast either, challenge runs also get a lot of very interesting results from a lot of dedication. Super Mario 64's A Button Challenge (try to beat the game with as few A presses as possible) has tons of outrageously complex tricks with amazing explanation videos. One in particular caught people's attention to the point it became a meme ▶ this video though it's not actually the most technically impressive to come out of that endeavor.

At 5:45[0] in that video, he makes a reference to one of the greatest weird explanations of video game things ever: the explanation[1] of how to beat the Watch for Rolling Rocks level in Super Mario 64 with only half an A-press, which is highly worth a watch if you like this stuff about geometry. And if that was interesting, I also recommend the history of any percent speed runs for Super Mario Sunshine.[2] [0]: link [1]: ▶ this video [2]: link

For anyone else interested in similar tricks, here is an in-depth video where someone talks about getting a star with half a button press. It starts out straightforward enough, but eventually gets really interesting when they start talking about parallell worlds that you can only access by abusing bugs to reach unrealistic speeds. ▶ this video

You might enjoy speedrunning, especially older games like those for the Nintendo 64 or the original Playstation. In addition, there's the Super Mario 64 0x A Button challenge, an effort to beat the game while avoiding the use of its main mechanic. It's not a speedrun, but the themes of exploiting every glitch possible is the same. It's also the source of the infamous "0.5x A Presses" video. ▶ this video

There are Let’s Plays that I think are better than others, but I don’t think any of them, even the best of them, are popular enough to be part of gamer culture. However, the gameplay video that I think comes closest to leaving “a mark in history” is this single video by pannenkoek2012: ▶ this video “SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated)”. That’s the only video I’ve seen referenced in comments on videos of completely different games. The references are to “parallel universes” and “0.5 A-presses”, terms that are explained in this video. I don’t know if you could call this video a Let’s Play, though, since the commentary is recorded after the gameplay, it’s not part of a larger playthrough of the whole game, and the video has custom-made animations to aid in explaining the game, not just raw gameplay footage. It’s quite interesting, though, especially to a programmer. Among popular Let’s Play series, one I recommend is the Achievement Hunter Minecraft Let’s Play series: link . (Yup, they snagged the username “LetsPlay”.) In each episode, members of the Achievement Hunter group of players play some custom-made activity together in Minecraft. I don’t like the personalities of the players/commentators that much, but the immense creativity of the challenges and the players’ occasional funniness make it worth it. After 100 episodes it started getting repetitive though. A few other lesser-known Let’s Plays I recommend: • Cryaotic’s Undertale playthrough, Pacifist

Did you ever see this one? ▶ this video This guy literally has a PhD in SM64. It's insanely complicated, and surprisingly lucid.

For a specific example of something like this being important, remember the (very impressive) Watch for Rolling Rocks in 0.5 A presses video from a couple years ago? ▶ this video (For the uninitiated, this video presents a TAS of Super Mario 64 which beats the level Watch for Rolling Rocks without pressing the A button outside of keeping it held from entering the level.) It turns out that the route presented in the video actually fails console verification, since the crazy things he does trigger some annoying FPU crashes on console, but not on emulator. There is a happy end, though: a fixed route was published after this was discovered, and it passes console verification just fine (assuming the inputs dont desync over the 13 hour run)

This video [0] has definitely made the rounds here before, discussing how to complete a level in Super Mario 64 with less than 1 full A press and in the process discovering parallel universes in the map. [0] ▶ this video

Pannenkoek2012 is both genius and crazy awesome at the same time. Its video "0.5x A Key Presses" provoked a riot in video game circles some times ago: ▶ this video

Pannenkoek2012 does great breakdowns of SM64: ▶ this video If you like this sort of stuff, reddit.com/r/speedrun can be fun to visit.

If you're at all interested in speedruns, this is a great video that takes it to the extreme for Super Mario 64: ▶ this video

This[1] was mentioned in its other thread. Not related to programming but the amount of thought process went into it is just amazing. [1] "SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated)" : ▶ this video

Depends what kind of info you're looking for. Are you looking for information on the current middle east geopolitical situation? Then not really. Same deal if you're looking for some sort of longform investigative journalism like the recent one about one of the Truecrypt founders. But if you're a web developer or programmer looking for information about the latest Javascript frameworks or what not, then yes. You're going to find better information in blogs and on social sites that on a mainstream news site or publication, because the former cares about the specific subject and the latter has to try and cover a wide range of things to less of a degree. And in gaming... well, the 'professional' journalism is terrible quality to begin with. The only sites that cover anything remotely interesting are fan or volunteer run, and the most interesting sources for gaming related media are indeed social media sites. You're not gonna find anything as in depth at this on most sites: ▶ this video Even for more normal 'news' stuff, there are usually tons of free and fan run alternatives. For example, no one tries to get news about Pokemon from a mainstream source, because they've got other things to focus on and don't know a lot about gaming in general. Instead, they go to one of the many fan run sites, like Bulbanews or Serebii.net. This holds true for most gaming related niches, where there'll be a few sites that provide it directly (hours ahead of the mainstream media) then a flood of copycat