Crossroads II (Compute's Gazette)
It's been a year since you've come to the crossroads, and things haven't gotten much better. In fact, it could be said that things are significantly worse. New gangs of creatures have moved in. They've smarter. They're faster. They're more powerful.
"Crossroads II: Pandemonium" is an arcade-action game that will pull you out of your seat and onto an action-packed screen. Race down the halls. Shoot the bad guys before they shoot you. Outrace the creatures to pick up spars and build up your shields. Corssroads II features more action on your 64's screen than you've ever seen.
The article for this game can be found on page 38 of Compute's Gazette Issue 66 (December 1988)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 61st TAS from this series.
This is the absolute best game ever published by the magazine. It is so good, that I still play it today! Instead of me laying out the details of this game, I'm going to let this gamer do it for me. She does a great job and demonstrates how hard it is to play....even on the beginning level.
Game Difficulty and Ending
There is a selection of difficulty, but it only starts you off later in the game. According to the rules, this would be skipping content, so I start on the first level and play through to Level 20. On the final level, the last increase of a character occurs. The magazine article backs this up...so I decided to play it safe and stop on level 20.
Effort In TASing
I have spent about 1 1/2 years TASing this game. I've manually TASed, I've BOTed, I've tested strategies and routes...and now here is the final effort. The biggest issue is controlling RNG, which in this game...is EVERYTHING! You move one frame...RNG changes. You should a bullet...RNG changes. Pick up a spur...RNG changes. In fact, I dropped BOTing this game because I couldn't come up with any automation to assure the best optimization. I'll just say that I used every tool to get these results.
Special Thanks.
Thanks to DrD2k9 for the talks, over the past year or so. It certainly was a long process of determining what was going to work. This was a game that I wanted to get right. I feel like I have achieved that...so here it is!
Human Comparison
ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: Accepting for publication.
despoa: Processing...