'Counter-Strike' pro nails four headshots in a row and other top esports plays

Image: nintendo

At the top level of competitive gaming, the best of the best give it their all to win big. On their way to victory, professional esports players will inevitably make some jaw-dropping plays… or epic fails. Each week, Mashable rounds up the most mind-blowing highlights in esports for your enjoyment.

Over the past week, Overwatch teams competed for spots in the Winter Premiere playoffs, the world’s fastest gamers showed off their speedrunning skills at Awesome Games Done Quick and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams battled at the World Electronic Sports Games 2017.

Check out our favorite plays from the past week below.

1. Overwatch Overwatch Winter Premier rounds up the best plays of week two

The Overwatch Winter Premiere is the first big Overwatch tournament of the year and the action is heating up as group stages wind down and teams battle for a spot in the playoffs. The tournament organizers over at NGE put together a video of the top five plays from last week’s matches, including the top pick showing Renegades’ Preston “Juv3nile” Dornon tearing through Immortals as Reinhardt with a perfect Earthshatter, Charge and followup with the Rocket Hammer.

2. CS:GO Snax the USP-S master lines up four headshots

Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski is one of the most accurate CS:GO players in the world, and in Virtus.pro’s match against Dark Passage at the World Electronic Sports Games on Saturday, Snax demonstrated why. With nothing but a USP-S pistol, Snax defended bombsite B against four of Dark Passage’s attacking players, nailing four headshots with expert precision to take the round and put the game back in Virtus.pro’s favor.

3. Speedrunning Two players use one controller to beat Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

Speedrunning by itself is impressive, but throwing limitations or weird curveballs at some of the best runners in the world can make it that much more interesting. The Japan-only sequel to Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was completed at Awesome Games Done Quick on Saturday with Big Jon and AndrewG sharing a single controller. Big Jon was moving Luigi on the D-pad and AndrewG was on the jump and run buttons. The game is even more difficult than the original, but the duo managed to make their way through the game in under 24 minutes. The entire run is a nail-biter.

Fail: Speedrunning Distracting audience silenced during Super Metroid race

This was perhaps the most awkward moment to come out of any Games Done Quick speedrunning event ever. Speedrunning requires quite a bit of concentration, and the audience watching the Super Metroid race at Awesome Games Done Quick Saturday was being very distracting, as exemplified by the loud Waluigi “WAH” noises heard at the beginning of the clip above. One of the game’s commentators on the couch behind the speedrunners was fed up and told the rowdy attendees to stand in front of a moving shuttle. The announcer quickly told attendees not to do that, and the remaining 15 minutes of the run was completed in near silence. Awkward.