(Link to video)

Game Description (By obishawn)

The game is loosely based on the movie. They are both set on Fury 161 at the prison, there are aliens running around, and Ripley is bald. As far as similarities go, that's about it. Unlike the movie, Ripley actually has weapons, there are many, many more aliens roaming around, and you, as Ripley, have to fulfill certain objectives before moving on to the next stage. Long story short, if you are looking for plot consistency for the over all story, do not rely on this game. At certain points in a stage, you will find a computer terminal from which you can choose from different objectives before you can move on to the next stage. The layout of the walk-through will be divided by stages, then those will be divided by each mission objective in each stage. -Description by obishawn

TAS Commentary

The link below is a Twich Stream of the TAS with commentary from Aran;Jaeger (Chat), Worsel, and DrD2k9. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/904242739

TAS Details

This is a highly optimized version of Alien 3 that is roughly 33 minutes faster than the current WR by Media Pool, which has been added below for reference. Media Pool's run is certainly good...but there are some mistakes that are very clear to bring up. Below is a list of things found that are unoptimized parts, from most to least:
  • Routing
  • Order of tasks within a mission
  • Mission order

WR Speedrun (For Comparison)

Goals

  • Any%
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Exploits movement mechanics

Tools Used

  • lsnes rr2-B23 Emulator
  • Ram Watch (Ripley's Position, flame fuel level)
  • Lua Scripting (used for logging stats and hitbox display)

Addresses Discovered

  • 0x14ce: Ripley's Position (Horizontal)
  • 0x14d0:Ripley's Position (Vertical)
  • 0x15d4: Bullet Packs
  • 0x15d2: Bullets
  • 0x96: Door Transition
  • 0x15e2: Flame Fule Unit Level
  • 0x15e4: Flame Fuel Units
  • 0x15da: Grenades
  • 0x15dc: Grenade Packs
  • 0x7e1868 - 0x7e17e6: Alien HP Ranges, in steps of 50, that hold status for each random assignment

Tricks and Techniques

  • Ladder Boosting: There is a certain proximity, where pressing up or down will "snap" you to a near-by ladder. When performed at the furthest point possible, it is capable of cutting 6 frames. The same can also done to push Ripley away from a ladder, when you are at the closest point to the center. In passing a ladder for forward progress, this can cut a total of 12 frames (in normal cases)
  • Rapid Ammo Switching: There is a cool-down between grenade shots that keep you from shooting them rapidly. The cool-down can be canceled by firing regular bullets. When doing so, you can fire multiple grenades within 18 frames. This becomes very useful in destroying aliens very quickly.
  • Enemy iFrames: A problem that I didn't recognize, early in the making of this TAS, was noticing that ammo was being wasted without any affect. Every shot successful shot causes an alien to have about 6 frames of invulnerability. Once I determine this, enemy kills were more efficient and ammo was preserved to keep movement from stopping. I addition, this helped to make better routing choices to prevent extra ammo collection.
  • RNG: This is the most horrendous game I have ever seen for RNG manipulation. The two techniques that are possible for changing RNG, are shooting bullets or frame delays (which wasn't used). Oddly enough, I never found enough support for changing RNG by shooting flames or firing grenades. Most notably, shooting ammo before entering another room was probably the best RNG alteration...due to the room changing dramatically, rather than to manipulating immediate issues.
  • Moving Platforms: Originally, I thought that these objects moved with a static pattern, on entry of a room, but it turned out that they are activated within proximity. This became useful for manipulating their patterns to get the fastest pattern possible. Some cases still proved to be difficult and were not changeable, but most areas had something to gain by playing with proximity.
  • Jumping: All jumps, that fall as high as Ripley reaches, will endure a 4 frames of "Stun" before being able to move. If Ripley jumps up to a higher platform, this effect will not occur.
  • Welding: When repairing a junction box or pipe, Ripley has to squat. Coming out of the squat position, takes time. One exploit is to jump out of that position, which can be observed in almost every situation through the game.

Special Thanks

This TAS would not be as optimized, if it hadn't been for the genius effort of Aran;Jaeger (EternisedDragon). His determination in solving game problems has helped many people, and especially this TAS. Little did I know, ED was studying this game and was intending to TAS it eventually. After he discovered my attention to this TAS, he shared all his knowledge. To my surprise, he confirmed all the mechanical movements that I found. What made the difference, was his knowledge on producing maps and discovering the difficult memory addresses that eluded me. There is no way to truly know how much his efforts contributed to the reduction of time, but I can say that it was significant. Thank you ED!!

feos: Feedback was uncertain, and I don't think people unfamiliar with the game will want to invest 2 hours if they haven't done so in a month that it's been there, with the commentary stream. Even with the highlights of this TAS, such as demolition of eggs and bosses, there's still too much of the same content in this game, and what it has is not always memorable. Execution was great, but I have to send it to Vault. Accepting.
fsvgm777: Processing. EZGames69 is handling the encodes for this one.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14772
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #7024: nymx's SNES Alien 3 in 1:50:30.46
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3941)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
I'm claiming this for encoding
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Joined: 9/12/2014
Posts: 535
Location: Waterford, MI
I haven't finished the movie, but damn I didn't know the snes version was so long compared to the others! The moving platforms was pretty interesting.
nymx
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Skilled player (1585)
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 798
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
InfamousKnight wrote:
I haven't finished the movie, but damn I didn't know the snes version was so long compared to the others! The moving platforms was pretty interesting.
Yeah, that is one of the drawbacks. If the game was going to be that long, then I would have preferred more variety. Things repeated over and over. But...one thing that I really love about this movie is the fact that the Egg scenes are probably the highest entertainment, followed by the quick destruction of the Mother Aliens.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX
Player (183)
Joined: 12/24/2010
Posts: 144
Location: Brazil
Seems well optmized, a bit repetitive, yes, but still the good, the weapon management makes it entertaining enough for me.
My main objective here is to TAS the most obscure games titles!
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
Monotonous gameplay, slow pace, repetitive environment, music with no memorable melodies, and also lasting for 2 hours... Even live commentary has to become casual talk most of the time, because there's not so much to comment in this game, it's basically repeating the same few cool tricks once in a while, otherwise it just feels too bland. Voted No.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3941)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2701
Location: Michigan
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14772
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4416] SNES Alien 3 by nymx in 1:50:30.46
PCachu
He/Him
Joined: 10/1/2009
Posts: 166
Not allowing you to do everything that needs doing in one pass is a silly and infuriating design choice. You need to check in, fix all of one type of thing, and then check in again to start fixing the next type of thing? That's crazy, and not in the good way. Especially when you end up covering the exact same territory running back and forth just to play Mother May I with the terminal. At least no fall damage means that gravity is almost always your friend when you're in a hurry.
nymx
He/Him
Editor, Judge, Skilled player (1585)
Joined: 11/14/2014
Posts: 798
Location: South Pole, True Land Down Under
PCachu wrote:
Not allowing you to do everything that needs doing in one pass is a silly and infuriating design choice. You need to check in, fix all of one type of thing, and then check in again to start fixing the next type of thing? That's crazy, and not in the good way. Especially when you end up covering the exact same territory running back and forth just to play Mother May I with the terminal. At least no fall damage means that gravity is almost always your friend when you're in a hurry.
In the beginning, I did try confirm that very same concern. I was hoping that I might be able to trick the game some how...but in the end, it was ludicrous to have to go back so many times over the same areas. So...yeah, I share the same frustration with you.
I recently discovered that if you haven't reached a level of frustration with TASing any game, then you haven't done your due diligence. ---- SOYZA: Are you playing a game? NYMX: I'm not playing a game, I'm TASing. SOYZA: Oh...so its not a game...Its for real? ---- Anybody got a Quantum computer I can borrow for 20 minutes? Nevermind...eien's 64 core machine will do. :) ---- BOTing will be the end of all games. --NYMX