(Link to video)

Genesis Iron Man in 06:33.59 by Noxxa

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 1.11.6
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Manipulates luck
  • Takes damage to save time

About the game

Iron Man is an unlicensed bootleg Genesis game, made by a Russian developer team (best known as the Unknown Russian Developers, said to be known as Kudos or Kudos-Game) and releassed circa 2014. The same developers have made many bootleg Genesis games based off various licenses, including Mario 3: Around the World, Mario 4: Space Odyssey, Ben 10, Felix the Cat, LEGO Batman, Angry Birds, and many more. Typical trends in their game include having mostly original graphics and imagery (except for e.g. game over screens, ending screens, title screens, etc.), having original but not great gameplay programming, original level design, and music that's randomized every stage and stolen from online sources for Genesis music files.
Iron Man is a relatively original game by the Russian Developers' standards, having original gameplay and original in-game graphics, although its music is still stolen from online sources. However, while the gameplay is fairly original, it's also fairly primitive, with not a great variety in level graphics and only two different enemy types throughout its 20 worlds with 6 screens each. Despite this, the level design is pretty diverse and most of the 120 screens provide a decent challenge in their own right.

Notes

Overall notes

  • Iron Man has 2 hit points, and a few stages have heart symbols that can be used to replenish one hit point. This provides some opportunities to take damage to save time, but also limits it.
  • Iron Man can shoot a dinky little laser by pressing B. This can only be done while standing, leaves Iron Man standing still for about 20 frames, and it takes 4 shots to kill an enemy (far too long to be usable for this purpose). It does allow Iron Man to bypass enemies unharmed during their invincibility period, so it's still useful for that purpose, but only if it would take a long time (or be impossible) to pass them another way.
  • Generally, taking damage is 3 frames faster than shooting an enemy, but is of course limited by the hearts spread throughout the game.
  • There are two types of enemies throughout the game.
    • Hazmat suit guys. These walk left and right in a fixed pattern, and cannot be manipulated (except shooting them briefly stops them, and allows me to pass them for a few seconds while they're invincible). They can be jumped over without taking damage, but only if they're going opposite to Iron Man's direction.
    • Turrets. These are pretty interesting - they fire a shot as soon as the screen is loaded, and then randomly delay 60 to 90 frames before shooting again, and repeat. This random luck is manipulatable by random input. This means that their first shot is instantaneous, their second shot time is determined when the stage is entered, and the third (and on) shot is determined and can be manipulated mid-stage. This is very interesting for a TAS, of course, as it means I can manipulate their shots out of the way, such that I can almost always pass them without stopping. Do not try the strategies I'm using in real time, as the turrets will kill you very fast.
  • There are many gear pickups around the stages. Collecting 200 of them gives Iron Man a 1-up. As a side goal, I pick up as many of these as possible without compromising any time to do so.
  • The game music is pretty jammin'.

Run notes

  • For the first part, before I reach the first available heart, there are a few different areas where I can take damage to save time, but I have only one opportunity to do so. All of them ended up taking the same amount of time, so I just ended up taking the last one for no particular reason.
  • The second part (dividing by heart accessibility) had several parts where taking damage would save a particular amount of time, which meant a lot of testing and redoing to see which area was optimal to take damage on. It ended up being a room with a single Hazmat, which was particularly tricky to bypass because he would walk in the same direction I go to, which means that even just taking damage wouldn't allow me to get past him and I'd still need to way for some time before bumping into him.
  • From the second half of the run on, hearts get increasingly more out of the way. Typically they save less time than it's worth to collect them if they're out of the way, so I only end up collecting hearts that are directly in the way.
  • There's one forked path at about 5:25 in the run. I take the top route because it gives me sufficient room to jump over the turret, unlike the bottom route.
  • Most of the rest of the run is pretty straightforward. Just hopping (and occasionally shooting/taking damage) by every obstacle, screen by screen, for 120 screens.

Final comments

Screenshot suggestion: TODO
Thanks for watching!

Samsara: Thank you lord for this wonderful bootleg gift.
Samsara: Surprisingly technical bootleg with solid (oops, I meant stolen) music. Accepting to Vault.
fsvgm777: I can confirm there's stolen music.
Anyway, processing.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5105: Noxxa's Genesis Iron Man in 06:33.59
mklip2001
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Wow, that music is pretty fun. The game looks incredibly silly, but the stage design actually looks alright. On the one hand, the run does go by pretty smoothly. On the other hand, it's still fairly repetitive. The music really helped my enjoyment of the game. But I think I'm going to have to vote Meh here.
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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Great music, boring TAS. Meh vote.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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This hack looks like it was built in a cave! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
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I wonder why they didn't have scrolling. They could have just ripped off any other Genesis platformer for that code.
Noxxa
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theenglishman wrote:
This hack looks like it was built in a cave! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
It's not a hack.
Volcanon wrote:
I wonder why they didn't have scrolling. They could have just ripped off any other Genesis platformer for that code.
Considering the same developers had already made several previous games with scrolling (such as Mario 3 and Mario 4), I'm pretty sure they already knew how to implement scrolling. They just opted not to put it in this game for some reason.
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.
EgixBacon
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Sees sumbission title A Marvel game on the Genesis? Hm, this could be interesting. Sees thumbnail on encode Uh oh... why does this look like one of those 2D Windows games? Sees title screen "NAZHMITE KNOPKU START"? Oh, boy... I'll just say, I actually enjoyed watching this one. Voting Yes.
FanFiction|Youtube Still on Win7! Take that, Microsoft!
Personman
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Yes please.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
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. ---- [3132] Genesis Iron Man by Noxxa in 06:33.59
Editor, Player (120)
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Why the hell is this in the vault category and why are so many people saying it's boring? I for one found this TAS quite entertaining, without even knowing the game.
* http://tasvideos.org/ReadySteadyYeti.html - my user page on the TASVideos site * https://www.youtube.com/ReadySteadyYeti - my YouTube channel * My Discord username is "RSY#3799".
Samsara
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Ready Steady Yeti wrote:
Why the hell is this in the vault category and why are so many people saying it's boring?
Answered your own question there, mate. People saying it's boring = Vault. Entertainment is subjective, so there's no real answer to the second part of the question, but I'd wager a guess and say most people see the game as what it is: A fairly simplistic bootleg.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.