Submission #2269: nineko's Arcade OverTop in 05:14.90

Neo-Geo OverTop, a racing game, played as fast as possible.

This is a Speedrun of OverTop, for the Neo Geo, entirely played in frame advance mode (except for the tunnel cutscenes since there is no input there). This game consists of 7 levels, with different kinds of pavement and variable weather conditions. There are 8 cars (or rather, 7 cars and a motorbike). Each of those cars has strong and weak points. The Ferrari goes very fast on good pavements, but it sucks in the desert; the Jeep vice versa doesn't have a very high top speed, but it's the best vehicle on bad pavements. I play with the "ASUN Dominator" which is a balanced car, it doesn't have an incredibly high top speed, but it keeps a reasonable average speed throughout the whole game. 8 colors are available; the color of choice will also set the background music. I play with the yellow car because the number of key presses to get there gives me a starting grid with cars I like. Not to mention that the yellow car gives me the best background music, so it's a win-win. The controls are rather simple, there is a throttle (obviously used and never released while in-level), a brake (never used), a horn (useless and never used), and two directional arrows (left and right, guess if I used them or not, lol). Anyway there is a collision bug in this game that can give you ridiculously high speeds for some seconds if you collide with other cars in a certain way. Manipulating the starting grid served for this purpose, I soon collide with the pink car and the truck, giving me a speed of 300+ km/h (while that car can't normally go faster than 210 km/h on that kind of pavement). So let's start talking about the levels. I don't know the official names for them (I doubt they even have official names to begin with) so I'll just give descriptive names.

Collision bug used at the start as said above, and a few seconds later with the pink car again. This is a simple level, without shortcuts, and just two curves, probably it serves to get confidence with the controls. I crash a couple of road signs near the end just for the sake of it.

In this level there is a shortcut, taken by going right when it says to turn left at the beginning. The shortcut is faster than the normal path, and I exploit an useless bug while I'm at it, jumping through the trees without breaking them (see suggested screenshot below)

This level has a couple of shortcuts. One of them is the exact same as the previous level; the other one isn't good for me because it goes through the sea. Only the jeep can successfully take that shortcut, other cars will go painfully slow. This level features interesting curves, played as frame perfect as I could.

A very good shortcuts allows me to cut like half of this level. This level also features slippery roads. Those curves are (almost) impossible to be played in real time at full speed.

This level also features a shortcut that cuts half of the level. While I'm there, I destroy a skeleton

This level features several shortcuts, I take only the ones that better suits my car. The rain at the end isn't a major bother, but the aid of tool-assistance helps me to take the best path between the curves.

A nice shortcut with haystacks, and frame perfect curves, in a level somehow linear for the most part.

<Explain here things the audience would probably like to see>A racing game with shortcuts and full speed on all the curves. <Explain also things that could be improved in your movie>For sure, not the shortcuts. In levels where two paths were possible, I was sure to take the fastest one (tested). Maybe some curves which looked frame-perfect to me are improvable. I can't think of anything major, though. I'm happy with it as it is. <You may also suggest screenshots.>http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/3470/932.png

mmbossman: A very uninspired racing game without much going for it. I don't think this makes a very good TAS no matter which car is chosen. Chalk this one up to poor game choice. Rejecting.