A closer look
Playing a thirty-year-old Nintendo game for the ten-thousandth time isn't just a nostalgic hobby; at the highest levels, it is a literal cardiovascular event. When legendary speedrunner Darbian was battling to shave mere milliseconds off the Super Mario Bros world record, he hooked himself up to a heart rate monitor for his Twitch viewers. As he approached the final frame-perfect jumps in World 8-4, his pulse casually skyrocketed past 170 beats per minute, proving that the psychological terror of losing a perfect run triggers the exact same biological panic response as a physical footrace.
