I worked on this game a little bit and did up to 1-2. Tiger- had a nearly perfect first stage (he was one frame slow on the intro), but I can't say I find shooting enemies as soon as they're onscreen is the most entertaining thing. Sooo.... I spend some time playing around with the enemies.
"BUT OH NOES" you might say "THAT WILL MAKE IT UNOPTIMALZ"
You would be right in other games, but thankfully not this one. Each enemy is on a level timer, so if all lag were reduced, they would appear at the same exact time no matter what you do, and how many enemies you kill. Therefore, I let most of the enemies live at least long enough for me to shoot one of their bullets midair to help increase my Vulcan meter (since it is the most kickass gun in the game). I also end up manipulating a grenade launcher 3 times in the level, because the only thing more awesome than cowboys and robots is cowboys and
exploding robots. Oh, each enemy that is killed takes 1 second off the clock, so as the level ears the end, I concentrate more on simply demolishing enemies as soon as they show up, to get to the boss faster.
Unfotunately, because the grenade launcher causes some desplosions, if there is too much going on onscreen at the same time, some lag is produced. But I'm not worrying about that because the extra help from two grenade launchers and Vulcan will offset much of the time lost from lag.
Anyway,
here is my WIP. It is only 51 frames faster than Tiger-'s run (due to said lag), but is 822 frames faster than Nightcom's published run.
EDIT: Meh, if anyone cares I'm through the level 2 boss and am 80 seconds (yes, seconds) faster than Nightcom, plus I've added some fun little messages and games during the waiting times that pop up now and then.
