It probably took me more than 20 hours to finish The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when I was a kid. This weekend, it took speedrunner Cosmo Wright exactly 18 minutes and 10 seconds to see the credits.

In this case, Wright's beaten his own time. Wright's last few records for Ocarina of Time have continued to drop: 18:56, 18:40, 18:29. In speedrunning, every second counts!

As someone who moves from one game to the next rather quickly, speedrunning fascinates me. What drives a player to jump back into the same game over and over, trying to perfect every dash, slash, and exploit? My assumption is a sense of power derived from breaking a game in ways never intended, and the respect that comes with being "the best" at a game not traditionally viewed as competitive.

Rather than just speculating, though, I'll have to report back with more information later.