Submission #6303: Lobsterzelda's GC NFL Street "NFL Challenge" in 1:23:53.28

This is a TAS of the NFL Challenge mode of NFL Street. NFL Challenge is the main single player mode of NFL Street, where a player is given an initial team of amateur football players to start off with. You are supposed to complete challenges to gain skill points for your players, and then, when you are ready, challenge NFL teams to games. Each game has a "first person to get 36 points wins" format, and there are no kickers or field goals in the game. In order to beat the NFL Challenge mode of the game, you must beat each NFL team, a team of all-star players from each division, and a team of all-time NFL greats called the NFL Legends team, which combines for a total of 41 games. In each game, the player is able to taunt their opponent via styling, make extremely hard hits, dive 10 feet for a touchdown, juke past opponents, stiff arm opponents, and lateral the ball to their teammates.

This play-through of the game takes heavy advantage of the fact that the play that the computer will call for the next play is determined by what frame the previous play ended on. As such, using save states I was able to complete the pass for the 2 point conversion for each play on the exact frame needed for the computer to call an option play on the next play. Then, I would blitz the computer on the side where the quarterback was about to lateral the ball, intercept the lateral, and return it for a touchdown. Additionally, this run takes advantage of the fact that the computer will be likely to deflect a pass from your quarterback into the air if your receiver is far away from the ball. This is used to make the computer bat the ball down the field for me, so that I could catch the ball right at the endzone for a touchdown.

The goal of this TAS was to beat NFL Street's NFL Challenge mode as fast as possible, while also providing an entertaining experience for the viewer. This TAS was also intended to be cathartic to the viewer, since NFL Street is notorious for the amount of rubberbanding it has and for the fact that the computer is able to make almost frame perfect laterals whenever they are about to be tackled to keep a play going. This TAS punishes the computer for these actions, by using the computer's propensity to lateral as a means to quickly intercept the ball and rack up touchdowns. The game also features some styling and a lot of impressive dodges of defenders that will be sure to entertain viewers.

Completing this TAS was made difficult due to 3 main issues. The first of these is that the team you start off with is really bad, and without wasting time doing the challenges to gain skill points, it's difficult to even score against the opposing teams, let alone to beat them. The second issue is that the game has a huge amount of rubberbanding. Once you get up by 24 points, expect every tackle you try to do to miss, and for every pass you throw to be intercepted. Only through precise play and many re-records can this issue be overcome. The last issue is that the CPU picks which play it will call on the next play based on what frame the previous play ended on. Things like input after the end of a play, delays before selecting the next play, or choosing different plays do nothing to affect what play the computer will call. Thus, if the computer didn't call for a lateral play on a given down (which was most plays, since lateral plays only happen about 10% of the time or less), it was necessary to redo the previous 2 point conversion try and throw the ball one frame later and hope that the computer would call for a better play next time. This was made more tedious by the fact that whether or not a pass will be caught by your receiver or not is not fully in your control. On certain frames of throwing the ball, no matter when you hit catch or where you move before the ball is thrown, your receiver will always drop the ball, and there is nothing you can do about it. This becomes especially common when you are up by 22 or more points, and can result in hours spent attempting a given 2 point conversion trying to get the right RNG seed for the next play.

Overall, this movie manipulates the computer into helping me beat the game as fast as possible, and features a lot of quick, frame perfect dodging and maneuvering around the computer to score points, which is sure to impress the viewer.

Additionally, this is the first TAS of NFL Street to have ever been made since the game was released in 2004. With a final RTA-Time of 1:23:20, this game beats the current any% world record by a human of 5:40:01 by over 4 hours!

Fog: Down! Set! Judging!

feos: Replaced the file with the one that reaches the credits (and cleared the false-positive "save anchor" flag).

Fog: With the sports rule cleared up, as well as the proper input file finally being provided, I can finally judge this submission.

This run is full of AI manipulation which makes the CPU team act like a bunch of idiots the majority of the time. However, it's still a sports game, and all the manipulation in the world can't save this run from becoming stale rather quickly.

There isn't any issues that stand out which would prevent this from being published, and it beats a known record by over four hours.

Accepting for Vault.

feos: Pub.