(Link to video)
This is a tool-assisted speedrun of RoboCop for Nintendo NES, released by Data East USA in 1989. It's the first part of RoboCop trilogy for NES and it's a perfect example of many first parts: gameplay is boring, music is boring, but difficulty is for pro-gamers! It's a typical sidescroller-shoot'em-up where you go from dot A to dot B while killing different enemies from robbers to helicopters on your way. Well, there are different ways to reach the dot B, but not many. At the end of each level you must kill the boss/bosses. As RoboCop is a policeman, he can't use weapons in "public" places (Which places in Detroid you can name public???), so we watch the gun pulling/removing animation each time we reach the "place".

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2, Android's calculator for counting frames
  • Aims for the fastest time
  • Take damage to save time
  • Genre: Shoot'em up

Comments

I used to play this game when I was 9, no-one of my friends loved this game, reaching the 5th level gives your a medal (but unreal), the game was never completed on the real hardware... Well, enough for memories. Many TASVideos' members told that it's bad to TAS this game because there was no vault on this site, but this game is pretty easy for TASing: I didn't even reach 500 rerecords! Calculator on my smartphone was used for counting frames of enemies' unvulnerability time after I shoot them.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1.

You go along the road to a warehouse. Robbers, dogs, motobiker, ninjas and even helicopter are welcoming you and running hard to give you a hand, but there is perfect blocking system: pressing Select button makes you invulnerable for next 32 frames (± 2 frames); if you take any damage, you'll get the same result. As a result, I didn't take any damage on this stage. Boss blocks all your shots, but perfectly takes damage from puncing (he takes 17 hits). As RoboCop always does another punch if you press A/B after he finished the action or 1 frame before he finishes the action, I used a turbo button.

Stage 2.

You go along the street, enter the building at the end of it and enter the 3rd floor to save the VIP. Some new enemies meet you, but our hands protect us from machine-gun fire and fire itself. At the 1st floor I entered a room to take a submachine gun. At the 2nd floor I enter the first door to cut the route (it wasn't discovered by Blublu who posted unoptimesed WIP in 2008). Fighting the boss was thrilling. Unfortunately, VIP managed to protect the boss from our first hit, but our hands were stronger! He died after the 5th hit.

Training room 1.

The usual target shooting. If you shoot more than 30 targets, you'll get an extra life (was unnecessary for me, just to show the perfect shooting).

Stage 3.

Another warehouse where we meet the pre-final boss for the first time. Some robbers trained to shoot from guns, but one of them really enjoyed shooting the wall. Another submachine gun was taken. Lift animations were so stupid and just wasted the time. Going down to the room with a sniper rifle takes much longer time than killing bosses with avaliable weapons. Shooting the boss while he was running away replaces all the taken damage to the middle guy which unfreezes first. All 3 guys jump down after certain time so there was no necessity in manipulating the fastest jumps. Submachine gun was used for faster killing the last guy (damage from his falling was taken for entertainment).

Stage 4.

We walk in the laborathory to destroy the final boss, security tries to stop us. Submachine gun was used again for faster destroying the flamethrowing machine. There was no problems with the boss, but we only destroyed his gun.

Training room 2.

Everything is the same as in 1st training room. Was lazy to shoot with the rythm of music and just copied the input in TAS Editor =)

Stage 5.

More enemies try to stop us. After I reach the end of non-public zone, I did some NPC manipulations to collect enough sniper rifles, but I think it was the most difficult part of my TAS because I have found only 1 address in RAM that really shows the right values of enemy HP (random enemy) - 058D, but it didn't show the value of blue snipers. Also they must fall down in the frame to drope the rifles. Boss was killed in 2 sniper shots.

Stage 6.

We go along the conveyor with explosive barrels, enter the building... In short, go to final boss. Destroyed another flamethrowing machine and a blue sniper on the way. The final boss ate all the 6 sniper shots and I even took damage to save the time. Equiping with a pistol is faster than waiting for an automatic equip. In the end, we killing a typical bad guy after destoying the giant robot with the devastating weapon.

Other comments

Game mechanics are stupid anyway. You can't pick up a weapon/energy/power and go down the stairs until the camera stops, even robber's knife punches your armour, you take damage from enemies' falling.

Damages and some enemies' HP:

  • Punch: 3
  • Pistol/Submachine gun: 2
  • Sniper rifle: 20 (inflicts double damage if the target is big)
  • Robber: 2; 3 (after the 2nd stage)
  • Wall (Stage 2): 15
  • Blue sniper: 10
  • Electo machine (Stage 3): 20
  • Granadier: 6
  • Flamethrowing machine: 40
  • Boss 1: 51
  • Boss 2: 15
  • Boss 3: 10, each of 3 guys - 30
  • Boss 4: 34
  • Boss 5: 60
  • Boss 6: 128

Possible improves:

I did all possible actions, but I didn't find how to skip sth animations, go through the walls, collect sth weapons twice etc, so any good glitch will improve the run!

Suggested screenshots:

6910, 7843, 11926, 16183, 19013, 26443, 29194, 29900

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Replaced submission file with a 8 frame improvement.
Noxxa: The game has little to offer in terms of entertainment, with overall movement quite slow (strolling right for justice) and many enemies easily blocked and bypassed. Accepting for the Vault.
fsvgm777: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #4679: Dimon12321's NES RoboCop in 09:49.68
BigBoct
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Run casually stroll (mostly) right for justice! A little on the boring side, but not too bad. Weak Yes vote.
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PCachu
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It's a run-and-gun, except you never actually run, and most of the time you're not allowed to use your gun. This is how game devs said "I hate you" in the 8-bit days.
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Wow, I like this game very much.Good job.Yes Voted.
work hard
mklip2001
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Are you supposed to be able to become invincible this often? It seems like that removes all of the difficulty of the run. The run is fine; it has a little variety. It's not very entertaining, but there's not much you could do to change that. I vote Meh.
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.
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mklip2001 wrote:
Are you supposed to be able to become invincible this often? It seems like that removes all of the difficulty of the run.
The time blocking is in effect is absurd. I'm guessing that they forgot to force the animation for the duration of it. Even in regular speed runs, it looks ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qsgk2VELAI
Dimon12321
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Tangent wrote:
mklip2001 wrote:
Are you supposed to be able to become invincible this often? It seems like that removes all of the difficulty of the run.
The time blocking is in effect is absurd. I'm guessing that they forgot to force the animation for the duration of it. Even in regular speed runs, it looks ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qsgk2VELAI
This run is actually completed with the help of frame advance and slow motion. At least, frame advance was used for the fastest blocks as the encode doesn't show some of blocking animations (just interrupts). If we watch this speedrun, which is completed in real time, we will see all the blocking animations because Fernando held the Select button more than 3 frames every time.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Spikestuff
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Was trying to fix this and to save some frames during the Walking Simulator up but when it to a bit of a desync at this fight: Seeing the 2 fellows: 7703 - Fix (+Desync) 7706 - Original Probably a few, minor input muckups in terms of optimality but still a very slow TAS to watch, Meh.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Dimon12321
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Spikestuff wrote:
Was trying to fix this and to save some frames during the Walking Simulator up but when it to a bit of a desync at this fight: Seeing the 2 fellows: 7703 - Fix (+Desync) 7706 - Original Probably a few, minor input muckups in terms of optimality but still a very slow TAS to watch, Meh.
What exactly should I fix? I have checked my input on the stairs, no improves - I start moving at the frame 6431 anyway.
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Spikestuff
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User movie #22482638497318581 Probably someone else can fix this better than me, but that's what I got out of it. Had to do a work around and change a bit to make sure that target practice was the same.
WebNations/Sabih wrote:
+fsvgm777 never censoring anything.
Disables Comments and Ratings for the YouTube account. These colours are pretty neato, and also these.
Dimon12321
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Spikestuff wrote:
User movie #22482638497318581 Probably someone else can fix this better than me, but that's what I got out of it. Had to do a work around and change a bit to make sure that target practice was the same.
Thanks!
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Does weapon ammo carry between levels? Otherwise, grabbing the sub in level 2 seemed pointless. Pointless Story Time! In a weird way, this was the game that lead me into accepting the idea of tool assisted speedruns. When I was a wee lad - I forget if it was eight or ten years of age - I remember being at school and thinking, How fast can a person beat a video game? My initial answer to that question was along the lines of, Well, as a person gets better and better at playing it, the time it takes will gradually get smaller and smaller. And my internal dialogue continued, That's absurd! That train of logic would mean a person could complete a game in zero seconds if the time it takes to complete it would "get smaller and smaller." And we know that's absurd because, for example, there are rooms in that Robocop game for the Nintendo that takes a few seconds to traverse, no matter what you do. So whatever happens, there must be a hard limit on how much time it takes to complete a video game. And thus my young self ended up back at square one with that thought. I didn't dwell on it much after that, but if we fast forward about ten years after that, Morimoto made that Mario 3 speedrun, and my younger self started thinking he just found an answer to his question...
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Dimon12321
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Ferret Warlord wrote:
Does weapon ammo carry between levels? Otherwise, grabbing the sub in level 2 seemed pointless. Pointless Story Time! In a weird way, bla-bla-bla.....
There are no pointless actions in my TAS. If I had a funny picture of a person that shoots himself in the head, I'd post it there!
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Tangent wrote:
mklip2001 wrote:
Are you supposed to be able to become invincible this often? It seems like that removes all of the difficulty of the run.
The time blocking is in effect is absurd. I'm guessing that they forgot to force the animation for the duration of it. Even in regular speed runs, it looks ridiculous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qsgk2VELAI
This run is actually completed with the help of frame advance and slow motion. At least, frame advance was used for the fastest blocks as the encode doesn't show some of blocking animations (just interrupts).
Your basis for these claims are what exactly? Because it's quite easy to just tap a button and Youtube's encoding will miss it. And the author explicitly says nothing like that was used. But sure, I guess he was lying and just left other mistakes and missed presses for fun.
Dimon12321
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Tangent wrote:
Your basis for these claims are what exactly? Because it's quite easy to just tap a button and Youtube's encoding will miss it. And the author explicitly says nothing like that was used. But sure, I guess he was lying and just left other mistakes and missed presses for fun.
My question about the route is remained unanswered and, according to his Google+ and Youtube history, he never replied to any comments and I don't care if he really answered your question! Compare our encodes! They are of course identical! He's just not carefully used the frame advance feature and "missing presses for fun" is bullshit. Sorry if said rudely!
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Does weapon ammo carry between levels? Otherwise, grabbing the sub in level 2 seemed pointless. Pointless Story Time! In a weird way, bla-bla-bla.....
There are no pointless actions in my TAS. If I had a funny picture of a person that shoots himself in the head, I'd post it there!
On the first boss you throw punches in the air two times after the boss dies... is this avoidable? if it is, maybe it is a pointless action. The normal walking speed makes this one a hard game to enjoy on TAS. Sometimes you can see the "defense animation" happening, i wonder if it can be avoided completely.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Compare our encodes! They are of course identical!
They're very obviously not from the very start. What the hell are you talking about?
Dimon12321
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chupapi wrote:
Dimon12321 wrote:
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Does weapon ammo carry between levels? Otherwise, grabbing the sub in level 2 seemed pointless. Pointless Story Time! In a weird way, bla-bla-bla.....
There are no pointless actions in my TAS. If I had a funny picture of a person that shoots himself in the head, I'd post it there!
On the first boss you throw punches in the air two times after the boss dies... is this avoidable? if it is, maybe it is a pointless action. The normal walking speed makes this one a hard game to enjoy on TAS. Sometimes you can see the "defense animation" happening, i wonder if it can be avoided completely.
"In TAS Editor we trust!" ( I can delete the excessive input if needed) Given that TASVideos accepts boring runs, I can submit everything I want (within reason, of course). ...
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
Dimon12321
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Tangent wrote:
Dimon12321 wrote:
Compare our encodes! They are of course identical!
They're very obviously not from the very start. What the hell are you talking about?
You don't what I mean, sorry. I'm talking about "defense animation". 1st stage is almost identical :-)
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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Dimon12321 wrote:
Tangent wrote:
Dimon12321 wrote:
Compare our encodes! They are of course identical!
They're very obviously not from the very start. What the hell are you talking about?
You don't what I mean, sorry. I'm talking about "defense animation". 1st stage is almost identical :-)
No. They're not. He frequently misses the presses and/or holds the blocks for technically longer than needs to so you can actually see them. By about 5 seconds in, he's already very noticably behind.
Dimon12321
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After 2 days of checking, I found no improves. Please change my movie with this one: User movie #22482638497318581
TASing is like making a film: only the best takes are shown in the final movie.
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. ---- [2846] NES RoboCop by Dimon12321 in 09:49.68
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Heh, RoboCop is listed on the Examples Of Bad Game Choices page. I think this run (and, for that matter, FerretWarlord's post) does a nice job of refuting that. (I turned up that page because I was searching to see if anyone had done a TAS of Chuck Norris SuperKicks on the Atari 2600 or ColecoVision. The reason given is "never ends" -- well, no, it doesn't have an ending, but the game certainly ends for all practical purposes when enemies stop showing up...)
AntyMew
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goldenband wrote:
Heh, RoboCop is listed on the Examples Of Bad Game Choices page. I think this run (and, for that matter, FerretWarlord's post) does a nice job of refuting that.
That page predates the vault; it was listed there solely for being boring
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Anty-Lemon wrote:
That page predates the vault; it was listed there solely for being boring
Oh, I figured as much. This run isn't boring to me, though (and anyway I'm on record as saying that entertainment should be a secondary criterion IMHO).