Men in Black: The Series is a game for the GameBoy Color, based on the animated series based on the movie based on the comic series of the same name.
Game Objectives
- major glitch abuse
- uses death to save time
- takes damage to save time
- uses hardest difficulty
- genre: Action
- genre: Shooter
Difficulty
Hard mode just places more enemies around and gives certain enemies and bosses slightly more health. Not that that’ll matter so much in this run.
Movement
In a word: clunky. Perhaps, janky would work too.
- Normally Jay will walk extremely slowly. By double-tapping forward Jay will run.
- Jay can only shoot while running when in a specific part of his animation cycle.
- By holding turbo forward Jay will stutter in the first few frames of his running animation, this makes it easier to manipulate when Jay shoots.
Glitch description
The thing I was trying to make happen when making my Last Action Hero TAS, little did I know, was applicable here.
The biggest glitch used in this run is what I call “ActRaisering”. This is possible due to a two of things:
- As mentioned, by double-tapping forward Jay will sprint. This can be done by also pressing turbo forward.
- The game has a mechanic in which if you, say, want Jay to grab a ladder he’ll snap onto it, even from a distance – the same is true of the tires in the sewer stage. This is to make these situations less tedious and precise.
By mashing into a wall – or any solid object – and turning away from the object for a frame, Jay will be… well not ejected, I suppose, but “injected” sounds a bit odd. In any case, he’ll be pushed 5 pixels into the object. By maximizing how far Jay is pushed into the object Jay will be able to jump up the wall. From there the course of action is different by stage as I’ll explain. Address $01F9 is Jay’s X level position, which is fairly important for this.
MIB HQ
The glitch here is simple since this level is divided up into sections. The end goal of each room is to wrap around the stage to reach the door. Wash, rinse, repeat. The tricky part is getting Jay to that 15 pixel X value that would allow him to clip into the walls in the case of this stage. The issue comes in when trying to manipulate what pixel Jay starts running on. In 3 of the 4 rooms Jay starts on pixel 64, which is obviously an even number. Jay runs at 5 p/f; odd number intervals. As such, to put Jay on an “odd” pixel I would need him to walk for a frame or two beforehand. This is also largely affected by what position the game puts Jay in during the loading transition. Basically, you can have Jay start to turn during the black screen parts, but the game may alter what part of the turning animation Jay is in once the stage has loaded depending on whatever it feels like doing that day. The point I’m getting at is a lot of experimentation was needed to clip Jay into these walls. The same is true throughout the game.
Manhattan
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a way to glitch this level – or at least a way that was of any use. This level’s OoB treats a lot of area’s like they’re bottomless pits, plus there’s no real way (that I know of) to underflow the level X value to wrap around to the final checkpoint as you’ll see in the next stage. As such I have to play this stage normally. This stage hosts our first “Treblor” encounter (big cape-y man at the end). The best way to handle him is to gain higher ground, as this will avoid all of his projectiles. In Hard mode he’ll be more likely to aim directly for Jay more so than in the other difficulties.
If you’re wondering about pattern manipulation, well, I don’t know of any way to do that. I think his pattern for the most part is set depending on when you enter the stage (I believe this is true of all of the bosses, actually). Loading him sooner, moving differently, shooting differently from different positions et cetera, basically every classic thing you do to manipulate luck didn’t affect him other than when the stage itself was loaded.
Sewers
The way that the level loads causes it to loop around after you get a certain distance out of bounds. This allows me to hit the second to last checkpoint flag in the level easily and kill myself as soon as I can. I’m not completely sure what kills him but I think I might’ve put him into a pit. The doubt only comes up because he won’t die until I jump at a certain point which goes against that idea slightly. Unlike the last stage, OoB pits aren’t too big of a problem in this stage for some reason. Regardless, this is the fastest way I could find to loop the level’s loading and find a means to die.
The checkpoint places Jay not too far from the stage boss, the unshelled Skraaldian. This guy is easily taken out with the Noisy Cricket. The Noisy Cricket is supposed to send Jay flying back, but crouching and shooting while moving negates this. The Noisy Cricket only last for three shots, unfortunately.
Aerodome
I’m kinda proud of this wrap around glitch. For some reason jumping above the stage, underflowing the level X and then jumping causes the game to eject Jay out of the stage, moving him on to the next. As a bonus the game doesn’t even give you a password if you do this for some reason. Maybe it couldn’t load it? I don’t know.
Rooftop
Unfortunately the Aerodome glitch does not apply here.
The best that can be done is simply run over the top of the stage – avoiding all of the enemies, ladders and jumps along the way. Once at the end of the stage, Jay can fall downward while out of bounds. For some reason, though, he won’t fall back inbounds, but rather to the bottom of the screen.
This leaves me with a couple issues. Jay can’t shoot the stage bosses and complete the level and the only way to get back inbounds is to die. Thankfully, Treblor is there to accommodate. I need him to kill Jay as quick as possible. The only issue is that bullets will not damage something off screen. Out of sight; out of mind. This includes if Jay is off screen. This is why Jay can’t shoot upward to kill the bosses, and why he has to jump to take damage.
After that it’s a simple straight shot at defeating the two stage bosses.
Forest
This stage’s OoB is much worse that Manhattan’s. I literally can’t do anything without it putting Jay into a pit. Which is odd considering, unlike Manhattan, this stage doesn’t have bottomless pits. Regardless I have to do the stage like normal.
The only things worth noting is that the Noisy Cricket’s knockback came in handy momentarily. Treblor reveals himself to be “Buzzard” (although if I had let Kay speak before the level, he would have told me that) and he’s one hit kill – which doesn’t matter too much seeing as Jay only has one HP as it is.
Unlike the rest of the game, this Noisy Cricket has infinite ammo, making this boss fairly easy. After the boss is dead Jay has to shoot the cocoon with Kay in it to end the game.
GoddessMaria: Judging.
GoddessMaria: This movie, while it exploits a major glitch to beat the game as fast as possible, was also very shaky in the entertainment department due to the game itself. The audience response was overall very so-so for the the movie also due to the nature of the game and the glitches only strengthens the run slightly. Even so, the optimization level is solid and doesn't look to have any glaring errors in it.
Accepting for Vault.
Guga: Processing...