I know I said I'd be done with this tomorrow, but I ended up finishing tonight. Yay!
SS Anubis Done
This was WAY better looking than Goldwood. And I loved making it way more. But, I know I'm going to hate Tawfret.
Some notes about the level:
(SPOILER. READ THIS AFTER VIEWING.)
First note: EVERYTHING that I do is done for a reason. I'll explain the major ones.
There's a lot more squarish rooms, and not long winding passageways like in Goldwood. Therefore, the fastest way is to make straight lines between each "goal" i.e. enemies to kill, stuff to collect, etc. which I was able to do most of the time. I combine straight running segments plus strafe cornering (my term for when I strafe in a circle to round a corner) in order to get to places as fast as possible.
For rooms where I have to kill drones, they do hide. Specifically in the room with 5 headshot drones. I chose the fastest path from one drone to kill to the next, and occassionally I'd pass by one and go back to kill him. This is done for a reason; no fastest path to that hiding drone could be found.
First room: Right off the bat jump up crates to get to ammunition and gemini health upgrade. You get to see through the floors, but it goes by fast so you'd probably miss that unless you were looking for it. Corners were rounded perfectly.
2nd room: I had to redo this room 3-4 times in order to get everything perfect. I shoot the first drone, and make missed shots with the machine gun so that's it's recoil hits the big one earlier. (you'll see that a lot in this run.) I then snipe the two sniper drones (I initially missed a snipe shot, so had to redo that), killed a drone with an explosive barrel, then aimed and killed the last drone so that I don't have to run over to him. Then run and turn a sharp corner to get the perfect angle to deactivate the door cell, then grab some ammo because I was a little low.
3rd Room: Huge room, I was running from one drone to another with perfect head shots until I realized one drone was hiding. There is only one frame where he peeks behind a corner, then runs away again, and I headshoted him before he could hide again. So, this room is very solid, although took some damage that I wouldn't have liked. But meh, I gain that back with a health upgrade later.
4th room: This one looks like a huge mistake, but bear with me. Going right, killing those three drones, getting the tribal and dismantling the door cell block was done the fastest possible. (note: all 3 drones were killed in time with the music. That was unintentional.) I then tried to haul ass to catch the moving platform, but I tested this IMMENSELY and it is impossible to get. So, I shoot the two other cell door blocks (the sniped one from far away looks bad, but: I have time to spare, and I could not get the perfect angle except for what I did because it is so far away. It takes a little while to aim at the block, but I got it, and it doesn't really lose any time.)
I was playing around with the edge, and discovered that I could practically be standing on mid air. So I have fun sniping the block below me, then procede to roll around and have fun on mid-air. All this playing around is because I have to wait for the moving platform.
I jump on the platform, and angle Juno to look at the audience. :)
I then jump onto the next platform at the optimal time, and shoot the 3 out of 4 drones (the yellow one I don't have to kill.) when rounding corners one of the drones is "suffering" (couldn't be helped with the way I was optimally strafing), so I put him out of his misery without losing time. (sorry PETA.)
5th room: I was going to shoot the cell door block first, but forgot. I instead hauled to the left to get to the cell door block on the left very fast. (and dodge some mines that aren't actually visible. eek!) I then get the gemini health upgrade, and go through the second glass window. This glass window, and the platform I turn around on is required to trigger the flying drones. I shoot them quickly, then run to the bottom, getting a slight boost from the treadmill (jumping on that treadmill first doesn't give me a time saver, unfortunately.) I then run towards the now open door, and shoot the cell door block up high that I was going to shoot first. Time wise, it saves a bit of time, because getitng that block last makes it on the way towards the door.
7th room: Freed the tribals at optimal times. jumping into the cell and out again while turning direction was very difficult, while keeping the c buttons held down for strafing, so it's optimal.
some of the cutscene with Vela was black, similar to a cutscene in majora's Mask. So it won't turn up in the AVI either I don't think.
phew. That was a VERY fun stage, and really fast. Only took two days to do as well. Beats the SDA run by ~1 minute. Could've saved more if I could've grabbed the moving platform, but I couldn't grab it in time unfortunately.
(not the exact model, but close enough.)
If you get them as a USB controller you don't need an adapter, and they actually have software included to install and in Mupen under input settings it shows up as an option.
And don't forget that there's the TAS input plugin, which for some N64 games can completely replace a controller.