Pikachu's smile induces insanity after 72 sleepless hours

Speedruns evoke a special kind of excitement in most gamers: the unbridled thrill of seeing highly trained controller-jockeys doing what they do best, coupled with the shame and resentment felt when you witness someone accomplish in hours what you spent months of your childhood working on. Well here's a marathon gaming event we haven't seen the likes of before - a group of gamers attempt to capture all 493 pokemon in 72 hours.

Playing their little cotton socks off under the banner of 'The Speed Gamers', this intrepid bunch are (at the time of writing) nearly 60 hours into their epic quest, and have bagged a massive 428 Pokemon. The last few are going to be trickiest however, so make sure you watch the final few hours if you possibly can. According to the SpeedGamers website:

"During the Pokemon marathon we will be raising money for Ally’s House while trying to catch all 493 Pokemon. There will be a counter so that the viewers can keep track of how many Pokemon we have caught.
Donations will be gathered using a chip in widget; debit, credit cards and paypal can be used to donate.

Gaming Rules:

All Pokemon must be caught within TheSpeedGamer’s house, no trades will be done to outsiders,
All pokemon that are only attainable through events only will be pre-loaded onto one of the carts.
Games being played: Fire Red, Leaf Green, Heart Gold, Soul Silver, Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, Pearl."

Sounds pretty hardcore. There's no word yet on whether they've bagged the legendary dogs, or how they'll be using their Master Balls. You can watch a live stream and chat with the gamers over at TheSpeedGamers. We here at Nintendo Life wish them all the best of luck!

[source thespeedgamers.com]