Post subject: Rampage world tour
Chamale
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This game is like 200 levels long, so it could be a REAL challenge to keep it entertaining! I've heard that most levels can be skipped, so that could speed it up. I don't know if items can be manipulated. If they can be, that could be REALLY fun, with world tours and powerups at every turn. If this was TASed well, it would look like something sweeping over the landscape and owning it. For it to be truly impressive, though, it would need all 3 monsters. So the question is: Do any emulators support 3 controllers? If they do, it could be a crazy run. If not, only fairly good.
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Mupen does allow up to 4 controllers. So yes, a 3 controller TAS is feasible, but sounds extremely difficult. There is a Genesis Lost Vikings 3 player TAS, so my guess is that it's not impossible. Just very, very, very, hard.
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I would say that this is too repetetive to be too interesting. Manipulating flags and VERN drops would be the only thing separating a tool assisted run from a console run.
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Post subject: Repetitive?
Chamale
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I don't think it would be repetitive. A good TAS has the crowd going "How the F--- did he do that?" the whole way through. I think you could take out buildings in seconds, and cities in around a minute. If there was a case where nothing could be sped up (IE, where there is one building left and there is dynamite in it) the monsters on the ground could fight, or dance or something.
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More like "how the fuck did he knock down that building? Oh, right, he climbed while punching, followed by smashing the roof. Didn't I do that with my sister when I bought the game? Yeah, I did. Man, this is getting really repetetive..."
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Post subject: repetitiveness
Chamale
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I've figured out that it can be done in an ABSOLUTE MAX of 90 minutes. If you can manipulate to get dynamite, more like 40 minutes. In fact, if you can manipulate for world tours and "going west" and stuff, it might be doable in something like 46 levels and 30 minutes. THAT would be a fun speedrun.
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I do not know. To me, the Rampage games are rather boring, so even a TAS that lasts 30 minutes would be too long. But, hey, don't let me stop you.
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I say, prove us wrong that it's not entertaining! Give it a shot, see what happens. More than just producing runs is making test runs of games to see if they're good TAS material.
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Chamale
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I did some tests on my N64. The fastest time I could beat one level with 1 character was 40 seconds. Logically, with 3 you could beat a level in about 15 seconds. That's without any dynamite at all. It seems that I was wrong when I said the game can be beaten in 46 levels. It looks like it'll take about 60. There's about a 10 second delay between levels, so with 60 levels and 25 seconds each that gets you a run of just 25 minutes. About entertainment: Zurreco says this is too repetitive. However, there are various ways to take out buildings, and they vary by level. I think there are 13 levels, maybe more, with V.E.R.N. bonuses*. This means that 1/4 of the levels will involve simply finding the bonus, and pwning everything. * A V.E.R.N. bonus turns whoever gets it into a demon who can take out small buildings in one hit. Arguably the best power-up is Death Breath, which destroys multiple buildings at a time. Another good bonus is Hot Loogie, which burns down 1 building. Several levels contain "power-up" bonuses which let the character who gets them destroy large sections of buildings at the same time. Yet another bonus is pepper, which makes the character sneeze, blowing out a level of the building. Another trick which could be very useful is hijacking. You can hijack planes or tanks, and shoot out several buildings very quickly. Some buildings have an item in them, such as dynamite, a fireplace, etc. that destroys the entire building when activated. Quite a few could be leveled that way. Sometimes, though, it will be necessary to take out a building with regular abilities. Sometimes it will be faster to punch the sides with 2 monsters. However, there's a trick. It seems that there is no limit to the punching speed of the monsters when on top of a building. Basically, if there's a tall building that needs to be destroyed, one monster climbs up and punches the top at 30 hertz, taking it out within a couple seconds.
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Chamale wrote:
I did some tests on my N64. The fastest time I could beat one level with 1 character was 40 seconds. Logically, with 3 you could beat a level in about 15 seconds. That's without any dynamite at all. It seems that I was wrong when I said the game can be beaten in 46 levels. It looks like it'll take about 60. There's about a 10 second delay between levels, so with 60 levels and 25 seconds each that gets you a run of just 25 minutes. About entertainment: Zurreco says this is too repetitive. However, there are various ways to take out buildings, and they vary by level. I think there are 13 levels, maybe more, with V.E.R.N. bonuses*. This means that 1/4 of the levels will involve simply finding the bonus, and pwning everything. * A V.E.R.N. bonus turns whoever gets it into a demon who can take out small buildings in one hit. Arguably the best power-up is Death Breath, which destroys multiple buildings at a time. Another good bonus is Hot Loogie, which burns down 1 building. Several levels contain "power-up" bonuses which let the character who gets them destroy large sections of buildings at the same time. Yet another bonus is pepper, which makes the character sneeze, blowing out a level of the building. Another trick which could be very useful is hijacking. You can hijack planes or tanks, and shoot out several buildings very quickly. Some buildings have an item in them, such as dynamite, a fireplace, etc. that destroys the entire building when activated. Quite a few could be leveled that way. Sometimes, though, it will be necessary to take out a building with regular abilities. Sometimes it will be faster to punch the sides with 2 monsters. However, there's a trick. It seems that there is no limit to the punching speed of the monsters when on top of a building. Basically, if there's a tall building that needs to be destroyed, one monster climbs up and punches the top at 30 hertz, taking it out within a couple seconds.
From the sounds of that post, it seems it would be an interesting watch with all that possible variety. It would be nice to see a W.I.P, perhaps the first 5 levels?
Chamale
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After the pokemon Red run is done, I'll get right on it. But I want to make the Pokemon red run ASAP because I'm worried someone else might impugn on it. Progress will go pretty fast once I get the Gengar/Nidoking/Nidoqueen to level 100, but until then it's hard.
Chamale
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I'll start working on it if someone helps me out with my Mupen problems... thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2934&start=400
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i've never heard of a mac version of Mupen.
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laughing_gas wrote:
i've never heard of a mac version of Mupen.
Mupen exists for Mac, but it's a long way from usable. The best emulator for N64 is sixtyforce, although it only works with roughly 40% of the N64 ROM library (see my post in the Mupen discussion theard for a bit more info, link two posts above).
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Chamale
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Well, I suppose you'll have to wait until at least after April Fool's day... I'm planning to send in my Pokemon Red run then, so everyone thinks it's a bad joke when they see how much shorter it is than the current record.
Chamale
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Never mind THAT. I've disowned Pokémon Red, having discovered that I hate luck-manipulation. I'll make a little WIP of this, covering a couple levels.