Rule 1 for racing games: Never trust the displayed stats!
You will have to use the emulators tools to find the optimal vehicle.
Something strange I noticed is that the PS2 and GC versions of the game use entirely different displayed stats, though the cars still perform the same.
PS2:
GameCube:
The GameCube stats are actually wrong (which explains why the PS2 version accurately describes the Supercar as being the fastest, which it is.)
This isn't a TAS, but it does use the same glitch that I'll end up using for all levels where it's possible. Yeah, this glitch is pretty crazy XD
Link to video
Okay, now I'm not so sure about doing a TAS of either of the Championship modes, for this reason:
"Many racing games, particularly those where there is an obvious optimal route; the precision can trim off a fraction of a second compared to expert players, but for casual viewers the difference is largely unnoticeable."
Unlike F-ZERO GX or Mario Kart 64, there aren't really any game-breaking speed exploits or lap skips or anything like that. In Crash, however, there is quite a lot of stupid stuff you can exploit (the bus-flipping glitch immediately comes to mind :P) to get insane damage.
For reference, here is the fastest run I've found of the regular Championship (which is apparently the 2nd best time in the world. Video contains some swearing just so you know :P)
http://www.twitch.tv/deathnite11/b/527987893
EDIT: I'll be going back to school tomorrow, so I won't have a lot of time for TASing :/
Rule 1 for racing games: Never trust the displayed stats!
You will have to use the emulators tools to find the optimal vehicle.
Hmm... so I managed to get the memory address for the vehicle speed and did some tests to see what the speeds were, and this is what I got:
Custom Roadster - 155MPH without boost, 162MPH with boost
Supercar - 160MPH without boost, 165MPH with boost
(These speeds don't account for speed increases in mid-air etc.)
It's an incredibly small difference, but a difference nonetheless! Guess I shouldn't trust the in-game stats after all, then :P
And I should probably add that even if the Custom Roadster does in fact have better acceleration, the quick-start/boost-start will account for that difference anyway. Control doesn't matter when a super-human is playing XD
Thanks! Though, I have to wonder.. what is the actual fastest car in the game? The Supercar or the Custom Roadster? The Custom Roadster has the best in-game speed and acceleration stats in the game, but everyone seems to use the Supercar for speed-runs. Even the Burnout wiki claims the Supercar is the fastest.
or
?
I love this game. I was thinking about running it in real time.
I remember that there are various places to go OoB, some are even abused by runners to get lower IL times. You should try to find information about this, as I'm sure a TAS could abuse these OoBs even more.
Btw, what would be your goal for a TAS? Beat all championships? Doing a 100% would certainly be cool, but as this would include crash mode, it would probably be a bit too long. 100% without crash mode would be arbitrary, but it would make for a better run in my opinion. For a separate crash mode category, I would suggest starting from a save to use the optimal vehicle for each level.
Do you know of any videos where these glitches are used? Cos I can't seem to find any :/
Btw, what would be your goal for a TAS? Beat all championships? Doing a 100% would certainly be cool, but as this would include crash mode, it would probably be a bit too long. 100% without crash mode would be arbitrary, but it would make for a better run in my opinion. For a separate crash mode category, I would suggest starting from a save to use the optimal vehicle for each level.
I'm aiming to beat all the championships, but I definitely agree with you that Crash mode deserves its own seperate TAS. If I ever get around to doing a Crash mode TAS, it'd be fun to casually destroy all of those precious world records XD. (Especially being able to get the flying truck glitch every time.)
Decided to make a thread for this game, since there isn't one already.
The odd thing about this game is that there doesn't seem to be a single full RTS of it in existence, nor are there any videos showing off glitches (pretty much all of these focus on Crash mode only, which there are real-time runs and world-records for.)
Here's my newest WIP:
Link to video
Any contributions/help would be very much appreciated, as 3D racers are a bit harder to TAS than other games.
I'm not sure (as you can probably tell by the title) whether I should go ahead with a TAS of Lego Star Wars for GBA that I'm doing. It's going smoothly so far, but I don't think the game has much to hold in terms of entertainment. There aren't even any real opportunities to make the much-needed speed/entertainment trade-off.
Work-in-progress run here:
http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=362134#362134
Most, if not all of the levels involve the same sluggish hack-and-slashing, one-dimensional platforming and point-A-to-point-B-trekking with the occasional boss fight (most enemy encounters can be avoided entirely, although this could further take away from the entertainment side of things). The worst part is that this goes on for a full three episodes, although the run does not aim for 100% completion.
Should I go ahead with the TAS? Or should I try another game?
Thanks in advance.
GameCube:
The GameCube stats are actually wrong (which explains why the PS2 version accurately describes the Supercar as being the fastest, which it is.)
or
?