It's Cheetahmen II, one of the worst games of all time, so bad that it was never released. The only reason it can actually be played is that someone found a bunch of cartridges. 6 of the 10 planned levels are on these cartridges, but only 4 of them are accessible without using this patch or experiencing a very rare glitch that starts the game at these two levels.
This TAS is an improvement of 11 frames (0.19 seconds) over the published run by was0x.
Game objectives
  • Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.4.0 (syncs on 1.5.0)
  • Requires a patched ROM
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Takes damage to save time
Tricks used
  • Infinite Jump: The two melee characters can cancel their jumps by attacking in midair, allowing them to jump again. This can be repeated infinitely.
  • Enemy manipulation: By changing the frames to kill or jump, enemies will sometimes spawn differently. I not only used this to save time, but also to make additional enemies appear wherever it didn't waste time, so I can get a better score.
  • Lag reduction: This game isn't laggy, it should be called "Lag: The Game". Every second frame is a lag frame, you can't do anything about that, you can only try to avoid additional lag.
Level by level
Level 1
I wasn't able to improve this, it was already very optimized.
Level 2
2 frames were saved by reducing lag. No improvements found in the boss fight.
Level 3
This level was a nightmare to TAS. It has the most lag of all levels and I had to try random variations of input. 3 frames saved.
Level 4
6 frames were saved thanks to a new strategy for the boss. I start the fight with only 1 HP left, which alone saved 5 frames, and still gained a frame on the fight itself.
Level 5
When I saw was0x' TAS, I thought that the slowdowns in this level were due to lag. I was wrong. There just necessary waiting frames to survive the endless waves of enemies. Strangely, the last two levels have no extra lag at all, despite their massive amounts of enemies. So no frames were saved.
Level 6
Same here. I couldn't change was0x' strategies in the slightest or I would die. The boss fight is also unchanged.
Total frames saved: 11
Comments
I picked this horrible game up because it was short and I thought I could probably improve the last two levels. Ironically, I ended up improving only the earlier ones. Also, the whole thing was much harder than expected, TASing games with that much lag and limited controls can be very frustrating. Overall I'm very happy that I managed to squeeze 11 frames out of this mess of a game.
Thanks to:
  • Was0x for doing the old TAS. It was very optimized and helped me a lot as a reference.
  • Wingblade for testing out various things and providing me with memory addresses. He was also the person who commented on my WIPs.
  • The AVGN for doing his review of this game, without it I wouldn't even know about its existence.
  • The TASVideos community for being awesome and making my life a bit more nerdy ;)
Enjoy!

feos: Accepting for Vault and publishing...

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4058: andypanther's NES Cheetahmen II in 03:30.95
Joined: 7/28/2013
Posts: 2
it should be called "Lag: The Game".
inb4 You just lost The Game. Anyways, as mentioned under "Thanks to" I've been involved in this TAS a little too, so I've seen a couple of versions of it. And I definitely approve of it XD The fact that it's "only" an improvement of 11 frames is yet another good example for what I like about TASing (and also tthe thing I find most entertaining and interesting about this TAS): It's not even a second faster, not even half a second, but it's faster so it's better. Definitely a yes for me. (unfortunately I can't vote yet though...)
"You have found us, and with us my trust" -Wingblade 2052
Post subject: if I was antd what would he do
Spikestuff
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Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6324
Location: The land down under.
Create an over-the-top quality temp encode Link to video
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Editor, Experienced player (607)
Joined: 11/8/2010
Posts: 4012
Thanks for the encode, Spikestuff! Nice improvement, andypanther. I didn't find it very entertaining, though, so I'm voting Meh.
Player (98)
Joined: 3/20/2008
Posts: 466
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Was this game designed by a bunch of computer science dropouts?
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1093
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Sorry if the run isn't very entertaining, I couldn't do much more than killing as much enemies as possible and making extremely tight jumps. That's just how the game is.
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
mklip2001
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Posts: 2224
Location: Georgia, USA
As much as I love the Cheetahmen theme song, it isn't enough to make this super entertaining. The onslaught of enemies requires some fairly cheap strategies like staying on top of the blocks as Hercules (Apollo probably had the most interesting stages since the arrows could take out baddies more effectively). All things considered, though, it's a good exercise in health management and boss beat-downs, so I'm voting Meh instead of No. However, from a technical standpoint, great job! I would not have expected this game to be so tough to optimize.
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.
Active player (405)
Joined: 3/22/2006
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There's a lot of lag in this. I guess it's unavoidable but it's just really noticeable.
Editor, Skilled player (1936)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3239
The game is so badly programmed that the music hiccups every time an enemy explodes. At least it is a game, and we TAS games because they exist. :) Being only an 11 frame improvement says a lot about how close it is to optimization, so we probably won't see submissions of this game much more often.
Spikestuff
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Joined: 10/12/2011
Posts: 6324
Location: The land down under.
See, now I'm confused on the NO votes because it's an improvement. Is it No for Stars, Yes for Vault. Please explain.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Warepire
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Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
Spikestuff wrote:
See, now I'm confused on the NO votes because it's an improvement. Is it No for Stars, Yes for Vault. Please explain.
The votes only indicate how people thought of the entertainment. In my opinion this is a very cool improvement over the previous TAS, but neither this or the previous TAS is very entertaining. So I will vote No, but I still think it should be accepted and published in the vault.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [2450] NES Cheetahmen II "all levels" by andypanther in 03:30.95
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1093
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Thank you for your feedback and the encodes. I hope this will give me the motivation I need for future projects.
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4000
Shaving frames off of an already contested, heavily optimized run is impressive. Even if it might not be a viewer-spectacular experience, it will improve your TASing skills a lot to do :)
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Joined: 9/4/2013
Posts: 1
I'm glad you finally submitted your first complete TAS of a game. I could not fail to note that this is a whole lot of work! Be proud of yourself, you earned it ;) Looking forward to see more TASes from you! :D