Awesome Games Done Quick 2018: Day 1 Schedule and Runs to Watch

It's a new year and that means it's time, once again, for the folks at Games Done Quick to get together to raise some more money for charity. Awesome Games Done Quick is an annual event, held in the month of January, where the world's best speedrunners come together to blaze through games of the past and present as quickly as possible.

This year, Awesome Games Done Quick has touched down in Herndon, VA. They will be raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The event is about to begin, so Shacknews is here to offer a look at some of the noteworthy runs from throughout the week that should not be missed. And with no Super Metroid this year, guidance is more vital than ever!

Here's the full schedule for Day 1, taken from the Games Done Quick website, along with a handful of noteworthy runs to check out:

9:00 AM - Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

About six months ago, Activision released the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and it was a wonderful nostalgic throwback to the PlayStation 1 era. It was also a reminder that these games were much harder than anyone remembered. So it's pretty neat that this year's Awesome Games Done Quick will kick off with a run of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. It's going to take JHobz a little over an hour to complete this one, which is partially a testament to how difficult this game is. That's why it's going to be fun to see how a speedrunner approaches this and makes the average player feel foolish in the process.

3:28 PM - Hollow Knight

Speaking of difficult, here's Hollow Knight, arguably the most difficult game to release in 2017 (Non-Cuphead Division). So let's see how Mickely3 approaches this wildly huge, wildly tough Metroidvania game. This is an Any% run, so viewers won't get to see all of Hallownest, but it'll still be quite the experience to see how fast Mickely3 is able to handle this game and its more intense sequences.

6:33 PM - Blaster Master Zero

Blaster Master Zero is the sequel to the old school classic, which released slightly under-the-radar in 2017 right around the time the Nintendo Switch first released. Anything you might remember about the offbeat platformer/adventure still applies to this sequel, 8-bit graphics and all. The original Blaster Master was the subject of some memorable Games Done Quick runs in the past and the same level of enjoyment is expected out of the sequel, which will make this run worth looking at.

Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 will take place from now through Saturday, January 13. For more, check out the Games Done Quick website and be sure to watch all of the action from Twitch.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?