Contra Force on the NES
Emulator Used
FCEUX 2.1.2-interim
Priorities
- Aims for fastest time
- Abuses programming errors in the game
- Takes damage (or commits deaths since one hit kills you) to save time
The Characters
Character - running speed (in hexadecimal) - jumping order
Burns - 1.38 - Highest jump
Smith - 1.30 - Second lowest jump
Iron - 1.20 - Lowest jump
Beans - 1.3F - Second highest jump
Jump Glitch
If you are in the air and you go to the pause menu then unpause while you hold jump, you can jump again while in mid-air. Only drawback is if you try it and you are below a certain point in the screen it will not work.
Slowdown
I think that the people who have played this already know that there is a lot of slowdown.
- Sometimes even if it is just your character on screen there will still be lots of slowdown
- Switching to two players causes even more lag
- Pressing the A and B buttons causes lag
- Sound effects cause lag as well (music causes lag but not much can be done about this)
What reduces lag?
- Killing enemies (preferrably sending them off screen to avoid the "death animation")
- Walking on the ground or facing the right (this is useful on one-screen areas such as boss fights)
The Contra Force TAS
Stage 1
I picked Beans (since he's the fastest) for this stage. I commit suicide at the first pit to get myself to the right most side of the screen. While the character is still invincible the screen won't move horizontally.
Stage 2
I commit another death in the ocean at the beginning to get myself to the left most side of the screen. That way I won't have to make the screen scroll to the left and I can avoid enemies (less lag).
Stage 3
I found an awesome glitch in this stage which allows you to jump through ceilings. There are two requirements for this to work:
- You have to be at the top of the screen
- There should be no floor at the bottom of the screen you are on
How this works: The graphics actually loop from the bottom of the screen to the top and if the bottom of the screen is just air the game thinks you are jumping in the air instead of the ceiling.
Be careful with this glitch because if you jump up too high and you land on the platform above you at the wrong time you will die.
Stage 4
This was the hardest stage of this game to TAS for several reasons:
- The clouds always appear on the screen at certain points
- The screen always moves left or right depending on which horizontal direction you are going
- The enemies are placed in the worst places and the level structure makes it almost impossible to avoid them
I committed a death at the beginning so that the group of enemies in the first storage room won't appear. There is another way to get at the top of the screen without killing yourself but that only happens if you reached the end of a plane and another one is coming so I needed to kill myself at the beginning of the stage to get to the top of the screen.
Stage 5
I get 2-player mode here again to get to the top of the screen and jump through the ceiling.
Final Comments
I would like to thank Xipo for making his own TAS of this game and I would also like to thank everyone for inspiring me to make an awesome TAS of this game! I think this TAS will be a great addition to the TAS videos (especially for a game with tons of slowdown).
I hope you enjoy the movie! :D
Contra Force: May the Force be with you! :D
adelikat: I'll be handling the judging of this submission in the upcoming days. I'm hoping for some more feedback to get a better gauge of audience opinion.
adelikat: User feedback was solid, accepting for publication.