Submission #10068: somyeol's PSX Sled Storm "Open Mountain, Maximum Handling" in 11:06.577

My most likely final Sled Storm Tas that shows the potential of this game.

This Tas starts from a savestate. This is the verification movie that would get you to where the tas would start: https://tasvideos.org/UserFiles/Info/639003793454730573

Why does it start from a savestate? Well, i never really thought that i would be submitting this tas to Tasvideos because of the cheat, but recently there was a post regarding playground changes so i thought: Why not?

The savestate starts in the menu on the character selection. The difference now is that i did not turn off the music and the ingame code for the Reverse Tracks was activated. This does not make a difference at all, though when i tried to hex in my inputs from the bk2. file i submitted into a new file that starts from SaveRam, it would not work for some reason (maybe it is the Reverse Track Code that messes up things, but the start of Pine Valley is consistent for 1-2s...).

If i would have been able to make this work then this tas would start as Saveram and load from the save i made in the verification movie. But it doesn't, so the Tas just starts in the menu with Jackal selected and a bit of waiting time before everything begins. Sorry about that.

The Address 0D8A4C is poked to nine 9's, so 999999999, and then frozen for the whole tas.

What is this Address?

The address is apparently responsible for the handling speed of your sled. If the address is poked and frozen at high values, the handling speed increases, but not in the way you think. The cheat only activates if your sled is standing still on a somewhat flat surface. Any sort of left or right input, even for 1 frame, will result in abnormaly jittery movement. Its incredibly difficult to control and when you look at the inputs in Tasstudio you will see that all of the inputs are almost always random.

90% of the time the sled will just flip over and Jackal falls off, so a lot of Rerecords had to be used in order to get the best possible outcome. There is no controlling in where the sled will go, its all random. I've been making lots of tases and always been patient, but tasing with this cheat must have been the most frustrating experience for me. Sometimes i would just sit for hours on end trying to get a single jump to work but nope, the sled is slightly on its side and Jackal falls off. It's also the reason why i set the lap counter to 2 instead of 3.

There are a lot of new things that the Tas shows that could not be shown otherwise, like checkpoint manipulation and out of bounds shenanigans. Lets get into the tracks and what my thought process was.

Piney Valley was the level i experimented with the cheat the most on, so there are not really a lot of flashy things happening. Pine Valley is a simple level with not much to do honestly and in my previous tases i've shown the possible skips already. What i haven't shown yet was the possibility of jumping over the finish line and making the lap count. This is only possible with the cheat active. Before the lap counts though, i need to trigger the first checkpoint of the lap and then jump over the finish line to the last checkpoint, then it works.

After i jumped over the finish line i get into a weird backwards wallride that does not need any input. it's sometimes hard to tell where your sled is at some points, because you are either going so fast with the handling cheat or you are out of bounds, making you question the existence of a camera. The cheat does not work when you are driving your sled normally, so you can always decide when you want to use it.

I submarine into the cave shortcut after a big jump, because i wanted to see what i could possible get out of it. Other than getting on top of the cabin, there wasnt anything. I spent a lot of time on the next part, because there was just nothing to do except for kicking the rabbit again. I initially wanted to jitter around until i hit the rabbit in a funny way, but no movement or inputs let me do it. By testing a lot of different inputs here, i managed to somehow get into the wall and out of bounds (how?) and noticed that i could get close to Jay, but i forgot i could not really slow down because of the cheat, so i just slide below his vehicle and do a big jump through the finish line.

Oh my what a start. I could not tell you how i managed to bounce the sled 1200 feet into the air, it just happened. Im on top of the track now and i want to make a big jump similar to Pine Valley, but i remembered that if i do that i would jump over the 1st checkpoint of the lap, making it not count. I still did the jump, but chained another slide after the landing to get back to the start for the "normal" lap skip. You know what's weird about this lap skip? Usually the lap counts when you are going through the finish line, but that didnt happen. Instead, i had to go for another jump which was one of the hardest to actually get. This jump gets me to where the 1st checkpoint of the lap exists and when i cross it, the lap counts. Incredibly weird.

The next half of lap 2 is normal driving around the track, with the addition of driving on a wall i havent been able to show before. When i want to get off a wall or do a big jump, i found it more consistent to let Jackal let a sort of slide and jittery movement, so he does not actually fall from his sled. This is one of the multiple big jumps in this Tas. You can make the camera follow the character much better if you hold either Up or Down, but it will mean that the outcome of the jump will sometimes not to your liking. Upon landing from the jump, i get a perfect bounce onto the rock, which aligns very nicely with the cave entrance. For the ending, i wanted to do something with one of the racers, but it was just impossible to get something without Jackal getting flung everywhere, so i went with this.

There are so many things you can do at the start of Hard Pack. One thing you need to worry about is the 1st checkpoint, because just like Kodiak, i cant really jump over it. When i finally do get the perfect jump, i go into a submarine and go below the shortcut entrance which looks easier said than done, because the camera would suddenly jolt upwards or downwards which i had to prevent for viewing experience. The jump over the log you can do in real time, but you need a perfect snake/submarine for it. Gawrit and i have always wanted to go below the icy water in the next section, and its done with a medium sized jump into a submarine. After getting out of the water, i jump onto small hill which you arent supposed to go onto. The next trick is shown here, and its one of the best: Checkpoint Manipulation. Well, atleast i think it is, because after getting flung into the air and crashing, Jackal somehow ends up in the shortcut much further in the track. This can only mean that the sled must have gotten thrown that far. I-frames can be abused with this kind of checkpoint manipulation aswell, because i dont need to worry about Jackal crashing thousands of times when i make inputs, it just works and im always happy to get the different outcomes and see what happens.

The gliding onto the bridge is one of my favorite parts, because its just so smooth.

For lap 2 i didnt really have anything in mind yet. When i got a good jump i landed in front of the entrance of the shortcut. Thats when i tried to make a jump happen to the end of the shortcut and just use the shortcut backwards. it's honestly amazing how it worked out so perfectly, it really looks like cheating. I finish the lap with a normal wallride,dropping down, and finish with a big jump again. I believe that i could have gotten a much better scenario with the slope/hill on the right side before the wallride, but i didnt think of it at that point. The last jump was difficult to make happen, it just takes so long to make it happen with random inputs.

The first turn to the left at the start of Eagle Ridge makes it quite difficult for any sort of cheated movement to look good. I decided to bounce around on the outer wall to get a better angle for this turn, just for me to stop and then throw myself into the sign for no reason. When i respawn i use the I-frames to make a very big jump ontop of the wall, you can even see the skybox. I was hoping to do some sled lifting with Jay, but he went ahead of me. The alternative was to make an upside down jump after landing on top of the rocks. Jackal somehow does not crash. Getting past the train section, i found myself at my wits end yet again with what i wanted to do. Luckily for me the random inputs i did made Jackal bounce around with his sled and then go into a big jump for a nice trick combo.

I wanted to have Jackal skip the whole cliff with the next jump, but invisible walls prevented this from happening unfortunately, still managed to make it look nice by wallriding up and then finally jumping over. The next jump was a difficult one aswell. Most of the inputs had Jackal go into the left side of the mountain and yeet him into the middle of the map, when all i wanted to do was get him up to the next layer. Jumping over the finish line is done again, because there is no other way to finish the lap, except for the weird movement near the end. I cant even explain how it works, there wasnt even input from my side that made him stop instantly.

This track will always be used for the upside down sled riding, its just perfect with the flat surface and ice. Funnily enough, when you do crash the sled will sometimes move on its own. I make all of the racers crash in a similar spot, so they respawn inside of Jackal. This makes it so Jackal has ~12s of i-frames. The more CPU's you are inside of while in those i-frames, the longer you will have them. The only problem with the upside down driving is that you cannot prevent crashing after the i-frames disappear. Im using the cheat though, so i can make Jackal turn his sled up again without him crashing, which was honestly very time consuming. I mess around with Tracey for a bit before going for another checkpoint manipulation, lets just call it checkpoint warp instead. When i respawn, i get the biggest jump in the entire game which crosses the whole section with 103mph. So faaaar. The rabbit spawned too, which makes Jackal say something fitting with whats happening.

Going for another wallride here. Im showing off the infinite trick glitch where the sled is both on the ground and in the air... on an invisible wall.

This chain of tricks can be done indefinitely, but its always frameperfect to do. No Footer into Parallel Can Can and vice versa.

The lap ends quite normally. The ending as always is difficult to get the inputs for.

Goat Climb step aside, its time for Goat... Glide? Either way its fast. I have something special for this track which not even i knew was possible, because im just a human.

I have always wondered if there was a way to skip the middle section of this track, and it is. It is not possible without the cheat though because the middle of the wall has a ravine inbetween, so you need to get an arbitrary jump over it. I approach the wallride of this incoming jump with the infamous rock that can sometimes suck you in and make you crash. There are so many things you can do ontop of this wall actually, it was fun to mess around with the inputs.

The 2nd largest jump is located on this track and i got lucky with how quick i got it.

For the 2nd lap i wanted to do a sort of Goat climb but with the cheat and on the opposite side, but what i got instead was really confusing. I throw the sled up on the next floor, get another jump which crosses the 1st checkpoint of the track, and immediately crash. This somehow spawns Jackal before the finish line and the lap counts... i dont understand how. It must be because Jackal never actually touches the 1st checkpoints line. If he were to touch the line and then crash, he would respawn in the vicinity of the checkpoint, but before the finish line? Thats mindblowing to me.

Obviously finishing the lap by jumping onto the next layer, annoying to actually get done without shooting over it.

I forgot what i actually did at the beginning of the 1st lap because its been so long, turns out it was very funny with how i kicked Gio into the wall, making him crash. You can see my intention for this track. The opposite side of the track is very close, but its not possible to jump across like on Goats Bluff. Invisible walls are a pain. Not all hope is lost though, because the invisible wall lets me wallride ontop. There are a few spots where you can respawn once you crash, you really need a specific spot to crash in if you want to respawn where Jackal did.

After respawning, i go for another wallride which is a very original idea... really. Because when i crash from this wallride on the opposite side of the track, it respawns me right before the finish line, because logic.

I wanted to do something near the side of the castle, so an upside down jump will do. Getting through the gate without breaking it too.

Easily the hardest track to actually finish, because the inputs required for every single jump to work are absurd. For the 1st skip of the track i use the wall to get ontop of the next floor. I think the 1st checkpoint is located right after the small slope that comes after, so this was fine. Jackals sled was facing the wrong way, so i had to an adjustment flip to get it to face the correct way. What follows next are a series of jumps over the ravine, with one jump even going in an unintended area you otherwise cant get to.

Finishing the lap with a deep snake.

The 2nd lap is the highlight of the Tas. The struggle with the cheat here was real, so much jittering and adjusting the vehicle, just so i can get to the next part of the track was hard. I made it. Cave shortcut is being taken, but i just submarine out of it and jump across the ravine with a superman.

This track is not in the file because i cut it out, its not part of the Open Mountain: Pine Valley - Lost Peak

Super Snocross 1 had a similar checkpoint manipulation as my previous Tas's Glacial Grind, where i jump out of bounds and fall into the void of the track, just to respawn before the finish line. The big jump i wanted to test on this track was the jump onto the bridge, which i knew had to be possible.

The lap ends ontop of the finish line, where it always should.

Im not sure how the judges will feel about this Tas using a savestate, but its better than starting over, thanks for watching. This tas covers the Open Mountain Tracks and not Super Snocross, Super Snocross are too simple without any shortcuts.