I wonder how hard it this would be to program. Unlike button presses that TAS use in order to fully play the game it would to be able to beat it starting from any savestate. Imagine sometime in the distant future a computer that can make a perfect TAS of any game ever created.
Since there are only a finite number of savestates, it is possible to create a TAS that would beat all possible savestates that can be beaten.
To show this is possible, order the savestates. Create a TAS that beats the first savestate. If the second savestate is not already beaten by this TAS, add button presses to the end of the TAS that would beat the second savestate. Continue likewise, so if the TAS does not beat the nth savestate, add to the TAS so it beats it. Eventually the process will terminate at the last savestate. The TAS now beats all savestates that can be beaten. Of course, a TAS constructed this way would be too huge for even a supercomputer to construct at this point of time.
We're assuming that there is a definite point where the run can be said to beat the game and cannot be "unbeaten". Also we should only consider savestates that can be beaten, although legitimate savestates (non-hacked savestates) are usually beatable.
I think it would be possible, but not perfect. TAS runs depend mostly on intelligence not on skill. It's like chess - you have to find the best move-combination for the fastest possible result at the end. Its not always the "move forward without stopping" case. Also extremely manipulating of luck would be hard for a programm to find.
Joined: 6/28/2004
Posts: 219
Location: Raccoon City
It was very short lived, and i believe it was only sold with the system. it was named "R.O.B.", and it only played a few games. Very few. They fetch a pretty penny on ebay.
Yeah. We know. We had a long discussion about this in the IRC channel. Sorry for not alarming all the info here.
As a matter of fact it only played two games, Gyromite and Stack-up.
I thought it was funny when I read that Gyromite was called "Robot Gyro" on the title screen because Nintendo didn't actually make a North American version of it; they just stuck the Japanese ROM into the cartridge with an adaptor.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
maybe what the robot did was simply playback a movie file of the game..... which was played by a human with re-record functions!!
in that case, one could "easily" change the files for the TAS and then he would play the TAS in the real nes :D
Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 29
Location: Calgary, AB
ROB manually pushes the buttons of the controller that he holds. ROB is in no way connected or plugged into the NES, so how would he send anything electronically?
Joined: 11/20/2004
Posts: 236
Location: United States
. . . R.O.B. was an actual limited AI being?! That can't be right. . . No, that can't be right. How the. . . How the Hell. . . Okay, okay, what. . .exactly. . .did R.O.B. do? What was his function?
Edit: Okay. I've found R.O.B./Family Robot information. It's not much, and I don't know how accurate it is, but here it is. . .
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/nes/peripherals/rob.html
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Oh ok then. he plays only his own games and even so, he needs your help :P
Another completely accurate information provided by some brazilian magazine at the time, was that this robot could finish any game and even discover it's "secrets" by analazing how the game works! heh.. they would put anything just to sell magazines
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
What ROB did was respond to signals from the screen. I played Gyromite many times and when you played alone, you had a button that would signal ROB to lift/drop these plastic things in front of him which would then raise/lower barriers in the game. Your character would look out (breaking the "fourth wall") and there would be a flash. ROB would then respond.
Of course, ROB didn't move very fast so it was a hell of a lot more fun to have a second person just operate the barriers on the 2P controller. And I bet those flashes of light drove epileptic kids nuts.
"Nintendo didn't actually make a North American version of it; they just stuck the Japanese ROM into the cartridge with an adaptor."
They did that with many games. You can actually use the adapter to play Jap games on a US system, or so I have read.