Kept you waiting, huh?
It's finally here. After more than three years of on-and-off-and-back-again-and-family-emergency work, one of the most highly anticipated PlayStation tool-assisted speedruns is finally finished. I've had a long, hard, frustrating and fun journey making this, and I'm just so glad it's finally over and ready for the workbench!
!
What was that noise?
Oh, it's just some submission comments...
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
This memory card should be inserted into Slot A in order for the movie to sync. It was the memory card used to create this movie. However, I am told that it's not necessary to use this particular one, and that any card with a cleared game of
Metal Gear Solid already on it should work as well.
- Length: 1h31m49s (330,540 frames)
- Rerecord count: 37,499
- Number of restarts due to missing an obvious trick: at least three or four, I don't know for sure.
- Why the rerecord counter is so low: Lots of loading and cutscene skipping. If you take out all of that, you probably chop off a good 20 minutes of the run, making the rerecord count seem more reasonable.
Suggested screenshot: (frame 199,736)
Alternatively, there's this screenshot, which I love but doesn't actually show up in the run:
[dead link removed]
- Emulator used: PSXjin v2.0.2 sv0
- Acquires the BIG BOSS rank
- Aims for fastest in-game time (1:32:58)
- Plays on hardest difficulty ("Extreme")
- Uses predefined saves (in order to unlock "Extreme" difficulty)
- Takes no damage until 99% of the way through the run, absolutely infuriating the author
- Glitch abuse
- Manipulates luck
- Uses multiple controllers
- Contains minor speed/entertainment tradeoffs
- Repeats the predicate of every explanation in the form of a question ("A question?")
Top-secret and confidential
The following is a copy of the notes of cognitive psychologist Dr. Richard Doyle, PsyD., taken after his first psychiatric evaluation of David ?, military codename "Solid Snake."
This initial interview was held at the request of the subject's commanding officer, Colonel Roy Campbell, following a recent covert ops mission the subject had undergone in Alaska. According to the files I was given prior to this meeting, the subject had managed to prevent a nuclear holocaust at the hands of the subject's brother (???, code name "Liquid Snake"), but had done so with behaviour "unbecoming of a FOXHOUND operative", per Colonel Campbell. Campbell is a close friend of the subject and does not wish to place him in front of a military tribunal. He arranged these appointments in the hope that I will be able to gain a better understanding of his psychological profile and perhaps give him the help he needs.
The subject is a young man in his early forties, although his hair was beginning to gray ever so slightly. His behaviour seemed distant, and he proved prone to distraction and occasional outbursts. When I asked him how he felt about the upcoming interview and the events of the past few weeks, he murmured something about "box withdrawal". He greeted me cordially at first, but left the room after a minute or two and returned with a cardboard box tucked under his arm. He claims that he "hadn't seen (the box) in so long" and wanted some company to help him during our talk. According to my file, the subject had refrained from procuring a cardboard box during his mission in Alaska, and this appears to have caused some separation anxiety that may have interfered with his concentration.
When he could not give me details about his upbringing, childhood or parents, I proceeded to discuss the Alaska operation with him. I asked him to recount the mission in as much detail as he could remember, in order to perhaps gain a clearer picture of what had happened than the official files had done.
It seems that, upon arriving at the island's hangar via swimmer delivery vehicle, the subject was forced to wait several minutes for an elevator to arrive. Instead of keeping out of sight until the lift arrived, the subject proceeded to toy with the two guards stationed at the hangar, potentially compromising the mission before it had even properly begun. When I asked him why he did this, he claimed that he "couldn't stand just watching the credits for two whole minutes, could I?" When asked whether this justified, among other things, punching a soldier in the back and hiding behind a wall before the guard could turn around, the subject appeared to emphasize that he had not killed the guards and couldn't see what was wrong with his behaviour. Perhaps this outlook comes from the emphasis his brother placed on the subject's enjoyment of murder during their final confrontation. He also appeared to delight in being able to produce question marks over the heads of both guards at the same time. This suggests a sadistic streak, although it is too early to decide just yet.
Upon arriving at the helipad, the subject appeared to have regained his focus and concentrated on infiltrating the Shadow Moses complex. While he made a brief detour to collect chaff grenades in a risky spot, when he could have otherwise collected the grenades in a safer manner elsewhere, the subject appeared to be in complete control and expertly infiltrated the lower air ducts. It was lucky, perhaps, that the guard stationed outside the duct was sleeping, as the subject ran right past him without waking him up until it was too late.
The subject refused to discuss anything related to air ducts, so I skipped ahead to the main tank hangar. I noticed another disturbing trend in the subject's behaviour: he appeared to enjoy using the pain of his enemy to distract other guards. In this case, he threw a guard over his shoulder, causing the second guard in the room to investigate and buying the subject enough time to summon an elevator. When I asked him why he didn't just use one of his brand-new chaff grenades to create an explosive distraction, which would have been faster, he replied that he "needed" that chaff for something else. Potential hoarder? Must investigate.
The subject then ran through some corridors, and through another air duct (the subject appeared to be close to tears when I recalled this for him), then followed this up by accidentally killing the DARPA Chief (Donald Anderson, codename "Sigint"). The subject continued his impatience streak by running around the jail cell while waiting for the next plot point.
Upon meeting up with Meryl Silverburgh, the subject showed a highly proficient but slightly disturbing skill at manipulating people. While the subject certainly chose to partake in multiple murders during the ensuing gunfight, he also tricked Ms. Silverburgh into attacking enemies against her will, and even managed to persuade a guard to shoot one of his friends that the subject was holding as a meat shield. The subject claims he "didn't want to keep his hands dirty", which is blatantly false, but also said he wanted to keep his "kill count" low. Apparently, the subject was aiming for a specific FOXHOUND rank, "BIG BOSS", upon completing his mission, in the hopes that he would receive a promotion; according to my files, one of the requirements was killing less than 25 people. That the subject would treat his kills as a statistic, rather than a summation of each life taken, still haunts my memories to this day.
Following his physical and psychological massacring of the ambushers, the subject was tasked with locating Semtex explosives and detonating three walls in order to rescue the ArmsTech president, Kenneth Baker. The subject did so with surprising restraint and managed to perform his task admirably, although he refrained from picking up the grenades found in the storage area next to the C4 until after his encounter with Revolver Ocelot (Adamska (?), alternate code name "Shalashaska").}}
???
The rest is illegible. Perhaps more of Dr. Doyle's will be recovered soon...
DarkKobold: Uh oh, the TAS has started to be accepted. Solidly.