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.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2720: GlitchMan's NES Contra Force in 12:23.63
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Really cool TAS. Your lag reduction was so competent the slowdown didn't bother me at all! Also, I already forgot how cool the music was in this game. While a well-deserved yes vote is heading your way, what will be your next project?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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moozooh wrote:
Really cool TAS. Your lag reduction was so competent the slowdown didn't bother me at all! Also, I already forgot how cool the music was in this game. While a well-deserved yes vote is heading your way, what will be your next project?
Thank you moozooh! :D I am glad you really liked it!! :) My next project will be Hook on the NES!
Noxxa
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GlitchMan wrote:
My next project will be Hook on the NES!
No Mega Man 6? :(
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Experienced player (619)
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Mothrayas wrote:
GlitchMan wrote:
My next project will be Hook on the NES!
No Mega Man 6? :(
Sorry, Mothrayas. That's not going to be until I get all these other games out of the way! I will work on MM6, along with RM3 (MM3), starting January 2011 (or whenever I get all my other TASing projects done). :D I think I might tackle Mega Man 4 next. :D
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GlitchMan glitches yet again! Yes Vote. Trivia: 20% of this movie was lag frames. ;)
MarbleousDave
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What does the movie say about the lag frame counter?
Experienced player (619)
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9192 frames of lag have occurred throughout the whole movie (from the start of the game all the way to the epilogue). Would you believe that less than 1/3 of those lag frames were the first 3 stages while more than another 1/3 were stage 4 and the last 1/3 came from stage 5? Talk about lag getting harder to manage as it progresses! Apparently the developers not only made the stages progressively harder, they also made the lag!
mklip2001
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PikachuMan: IT'S OVER 9000!! (That's what you were expecting, right? ;-) ) I remember seeing this game back when I still had Nintendo Power. You made it look really entertaining despite all the lag, and that's saying something. Nice going! You've run some pretty awesome games lately.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Experienced player (619)
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mklip2001 wrote:
PikachuMan: IT'S OVER 9000!! (That's what you were expecting, right? ;-) ) I remember seeing this game back when I still had Nintendo Power. You made it look really entertaining despite all the lag, and that's saying something. Nice going! You've run some pretty awesome games lately.
Thanks! :D
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GlitchMan is glitchman,who always brings miracle!Thank you for your awesome tas.Yes Vote:)
work hard
adelikat
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A decent movie I guess, but there was a bit too much lag for me to vote yes, so I went with meh.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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I welcome an encode.
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fruitbane wrote:
I welcome an encode.
Oh, I second that request! :D
BigBoct
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Thirding encode request, preferably in MP4.
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Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
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I thought it was well done and watchable - I'm surprised that this game was so short in the # of levels. Perhaps they added all the lag to make it longer? Anyway, I gave it a yes vote.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 3/28/2005
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Thanks for the encode. Well done TAS, but the game is pretty disappointing for Konami. Even then, though, they were a large company and produced a few less than impressive titles. I will for Yes for the quality of the TAS.
honorableJay
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Looks optimized, nice glitch abuse. Pretty funny how badly the bosses got owned. Avoiding the lag in this game must've been a bitch. This is definitely a game where you wish you could "overclock" the emulator to completely eliminate it.
Experienced player (619)
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honorableJay wrote:
Looks optimized, nice glitch abuse. Pretty funny how badly the bosses got owned. Avoiding the lag in this game must've been a bitch. This is definitely a game where you wish you could "overclock" the emulator to completely eliminate it.
Oh, yeah (about the lag)! XP
Player (88)
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Good run and great overall lag reduction. Voting yes. I hope you keep churning out these quality movies dude!
They're off to find the hero of the day...
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GlitchMan: I just got through watching this. It's smoothly laid out and everything. I'll probably watch this again before I determine my vote. And good luck with NES Hook. [Y] edit: I watched it again, and I like the pausing glitch, ha. My vote is casted.
Do I look like someone who really cares what God thinks?! "GI Joe: The Atlantis Factor" - May be improved in the future.
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That was pretty cool, Yes vote. Dailymotion YouTube Playlist Part 1 Part 2
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throw in another yes from me !
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true TAS! "yes"
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.