Submission #2822: Mukki's Arcade Bionic Commando in 05:48.10

Q & A

• Why does this game not feel as slick as TASes of its successors?
  • There are a number of reasons. The most important being that you cannot use the bionic arm while in the air. This makes it more difficult to ascend quickly and it doesn't look as smooth. You cannot shoot while in the air either which means that more enemies need to be luck manipulated by inserting pauses etc. while playing. To a lesser extent the structure is quite different in that it is a linear progression of five levels rather than the map with numbered tiles.

• Why did you choose 'no deaths' as a goal?
  • Using deaths and damage to save time is interesting in games where lives and health is a limited resource. This is not the case in a coin-op as you can give yourself as many lives as you like. When you die in this game you respawn at the top of the screen and because most levels scroll vertically you can use this to skip many of the game's challenges. This is a very tough game and beating it quickly with no deaths is much more entertaining than otherwise. It also creates much more manipulation opportunities. By moving in certain ways enemies can be manipulated to kill themselves and spawn over bottomless pits etc. which, I believe, is always good.

• Why do you not beat the second quest?
  • Once you have beaten the game the end message plays and you are then taken back to the start. Once you have beaten the game a second time the same message plays and you are taken back to the title screen. The only notable differnce is that the second quest has more enemies. The site precedent regarding games with second playthroughs is ambiguous and there do not seem to be hard rules on the matter. Generally, my line of reasoning was this: Arcade Ghouls 'n Ghosts can be distinguished from this submission as two playthroughs were required to see the full ending, but in this game the endings at the end of each quest are the same making the second playthrough unnecessary; Genesis Ghouls 'n Ghosts uses a password to skip directly to the second quest, this was deemed acceptable, but no such password exists for this game; NES Ghosts 'n Goblins plays only the first quest with the general consensus being that the second quest does not offer sufficient variety to warrant inclusion and that, at worst, is detrimental to the entertainment value. The latter was most useful here and is the decision that I folowed when choosing my goals for this run.

• Items and guns are falling from all over the place. Why do you only pick up one weapon?
  • The weapon I pick up in level 3 is not the most powerful weapon, but it has a very useful property in that it has a long range and can pass through several enemies. This makes it very useful for destroying many enemies quickly and destroying the bosses. It takes a few frames to pick up, but it pays for itself in level 4 as I can use it to open the blast doors very quickly.

• Can you talk about how you optimised the use of the bionic arm?
  • Most levels in this game scroll vertically and so to ascend optimally the best way to go is straight up. If you swing to either side the 'swinging' animation eats a great deal of time and so it is only used where I really need to make X-position progress. Swinging yourself is not always faster if the arm does not give enough distance which is why some areas have more walking than you might expect. Use can also be limited by enemy positions i.e. if they get in your way or if the arm latches onto them instead of the platform.

Goals

• Aims for Fastest Time
• No Death