Posts for Dromiceius

It has a sort of hypnotic feel. Very dull, yet it's relaxing instead of tedious. You go from one area to the next, fighting wave after wave of three clones of the same guy trying to kill you. I suppose the music makes or breaks a game like this, and it's got a nice soundtrack. So it's boring and I don't know why I'm still playing, but then I wonder, is it worth it to get the knuckledusters? Should I butt these guys, or line them up and shoot them? And then it becomes apparent that if I had been more liberal with the rifle, I could get a refill halfway through the level... I guess it's at least marginally interesting to TAS, however perverse it might be as entertainment. If anyone decides to work on this and needs memory addresses, let me know and I'll see if I can help you out. As for glitches, I found nothing significant. I thought I managed to get hit and die as I finished the last boss, but I accidentally re-recorded over it and couldn't do it a second time.

Posted: 1/27/2008 9:07 PM

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Dromiceius

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Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332

I set out to do just that... and broke the damn game! Edit: but not in a useful way.

Posted: 1/27/2008 4:19 PM

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

They play fairly differently, even though they're both 2-player platformers. Unless my memory has failed utterly, the levels are all discrete and serialized, and hence there's no backtracking in the SNES version. I'd say they constitute two games as separate as SMB and SMB2j.

Posted: 1/27/2008 4:08 PM

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

I made a very sloppy demo of 1-1. It seems I should have slowed down to kill turkeys as I saw them, instead of getting ahead and waiting them catch up. I think you get a sense of why this could be entertaining.

Posted: 1/26/2008 4:09 PM

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Dromiceius

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I watched the WIP just now. Wasn't expecting to like it, but it was surprisingly good. The use of hills to gain speed and the fact that you'll have to find another way to warp to world 8 are kind of interesting.

I still want to get an idea of how I can improve when it comes to TASing in general.

IMO, your aesthetic choices were impeccable, and the movie looked flawless to my un-expert eyes, but this is because the "walkathon" gives you less to work with than a normal speedrun. If you want to improve your skills at TASing, I'd recommend improving an existing run that's been around for a few years. Faxanadu for example is known to be improvable, IIRC. PS:

If the day before the day before yesterday is three days after Saturday, what day is today?

Caturday. ;)

Posted: 1/26/2008 3:46 PM

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Dromiceius

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I rented this when it was new. I remember the difficulty ramping up to hellish levels toward the end, even though it's easy at first. Playing it recently, I beat the first two levels with a quasi-broken controller, without savestates... or even trying, really. So I could be wrong. The gameplay (IMO) lends itself to TASing very nicely. Without the limitation of human skill, a TASer could have theoretically maintain infinite dodgeball ammo from re-catching shots, which is hard to do in realtime. I'm also convinced from playing it again recently that the engine is rushed- it looks like Iguana pooped out a half-assed version of Turok for the sake of cashing in on the South Park license. There could be sequence breaks aplenty, but if not, I think it would still be solidly entertaining. It's a fun game.

Posted: 1/26/2008 12:16 PM

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Dromiceius

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Ha ha ha. "Someone else can save these hostages! It's time to DANCE!" Great improvement, well played, Yes vote.

Posted: 1/26/2008 11:02 AM

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

Emptyeye nailed it, single-segment, in an hour and 20. I haven't seen the SDA run, so I can't comment.

Posted: 1/26/2008 10:43 AM

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. I finished reading it yesterday, and highly recommend it to anyone. The symbolism is interesting without being laid too thick, or obtuse, or pretentious. The narration is clever, literate. The book shines most strongly through its characters. It's a classic for a reason.

Posted: 1/26/2008 9:11 AM

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Dromiceius

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dartht33bagger wrote:

The save states problem is still largely holding me back from going any father with the run, because it freezes a lot.

Just a hunch, but do the freezes happen with other RSP plugins?

Posted: 1/24/2008 6:18 PM

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Dromiceius

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While the game made for some good viewing, the video itself didn't look very polished. What's up with all the missed shots? Were those hitting enemies off-screen, or maybe for luck manipulation? I notice the rerecord density is relatively low, which suggests that time could be saved through greater precision. Those possible problems notwithstanding, I actually enjoyed this run quite a bit. It's fast-paced, and Rambo runs around ruining everyone's... pants. :) Tentative Yes vote. I hope the quality of play is up to snuff.

Posted: 1/24/2008 9:18 AM

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Dromiceius

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Floogal wrote:

Granted, Glide64 is designed for Voodoo cards like mine, but it comes with a wrapper that lets it work with any card (at the cost of a lot of speed). But if my 450 MHz computer can run the game at near 100% without sound (most of the time -- it slows to a crawl at Sushie's Tidal Wave, although the move itself looks perfect), then a modern computer can handle the slow-down that comes with the wrapper.

The fact that you were using a different emulator aside, that sounds promising. I have the wrapper, but haven't been able to configure it properly. I hope someone else is willing to test it, if no one has already done so. Linky.

Posted: 1/24/2008 8:22 AM

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Dromiceius

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Very cool. The game is better than what I was expecting from GBC, and I couldn't spot any mistakes in the video. Looking forward to act 2.

Posted: 1/24/2008 12:04 AM

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Dromiceius

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But I'll keep on training and see if there are any better wrestling games to TAS through. Thanx for advice, guys! =)

Dude- check out the WWF: Attitude video I posted in the "just be funny" thread. My suggestion is moot unless you can reasonably emulate N64, but I think there's potential for a 2-player Royal Rumble, or an unthinkably difficult exhibition match as concept demo. There are actually a handful of WWF/WCW games for N64 which, as you may be aware, had its heyday at the same time as pro wrestling. If you can't do N64, I'd recommend WWF: Raw is war for the SNES.

Posted: 1/23/2008 6:20 AM

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Dromiceius

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I... sort of... got it working. It flickers in fullscreen mode, and has problems in certain scenes in either mode. These might be fixable if you do some trial and error with the "frame update" and "n64 frame buffer" options, along with switching between Jabo's and hacktarux's RSP plugins. Use antids-mupen and rice 6.1.4 (or 6.1.1; it probably doesn't matter) with these relevant options: *Frame update at the first CI change *N64 frame buffer Write back and reload *Rendering to texture: basic render-to-texture *primary depth hack & near plane z hack should be checked. Some of the render to texture options freeze the game when Bowser's megazord thingy flies out of the ground. AVI recording shouldn't be a problem if the kinks get worked out and this actually gets to the publication stage.

Posted: 1/23/2008 3:47 AM

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Dromiceius

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Yegads. I didn't watch the WIP till just now... I have to be honest, a run of this game probably won't be publishable. It's way too long and repetitive.

Posted: 1/22/2008 10:25 PM

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Dromiceius

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There was one little problem during the playthrough though... there is no way to manipulate luck into what type of match that Mr. McMahon will put you in.

Do you mean that it's randomly determined but set very early, or that it isn't random at all? If the former, we can probably find a memory address that predicts which type of match is going to be assigned.

Posted: 1/22/2008 10:25 PM

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Dromiceius

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I used to play keys fairly well, but now I'm more of a dilettante. I could develop some serious talent if I weren't so busy procrastinating... and, y'know, if I still had a keyboard. Actually, I had the idea earlier today to buy a harmonica and start a group of VG musicians whose gimmick is to play songs on seemingly counterintuitive instruments. Just imagine- Aria de Mezzo Carattere on a fucking harmonica. Seriously.

Posted: 1/21/2008 10:31 PM

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Dromiceius

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I'd rather see the N64 version... but since that probably doesn't even emulate properly in Mupen, I'm looking forward to this. :D

Listen, people... it takes longer to wear down your opponent for a 3-count than it would take to throw him out of the ring and try to win by count-out. So winning all matches by count-out will be my strategy for this game.

Indeed. Not only is it faster, but getting the quick count-out will also leave Austin more energy for beating up his wife after the match.

Posted: 1/21/2008 10:30 PM

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Dromiceius

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It is doom already sayed?

Ha. IIRC, the consensus on Doom is that it's best left unsayed on SNES. There are runs of the PC version that are more or less TASes.

Posted: 1/19/2008 1:31 PM

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

I just threw together some of the stuff in the kitchen that was about to spoil: field greens in a hotdog bun with ranch dressing... It was better than an actual hotdog, believe it or not. My ideal sandwich is grilled cheese with bacon in it, though I'm not that particular about anything I eat.

Posted: 1/17/2008 2:34 PM
(Edited: 1/29/2008 12:55 PM)

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Dromiceius

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Posts: 1332

VANDAL wrote:

Anyway, Here's the Play Through, enjoy (that is, if you can.)

That opening cutscene was pretty cool... you'd rise from the grave too if they misspelled your name on the goddamn tombstone. I played through a star cup in Mario Kart 64. No slowdown or other such villainy was employed. I used toad on 150cc. It tickles me to hear Toad shout "I'M THE BEST!!" while hitting himself with shells. Oh, and note my shenanigans on the big hill in Wario Stadium. Great fun.

Posted: 1/17/2008 8:02 AM

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Dromiceius

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So what if the trick is just avoiding lags caused by 2 players? I've found several games very likely to lag when there are two players.

Using two players in a laggy game is usually done for the sake of entertainment anyway, (River City Ransom, for instance) so just being faster wouldn't necessarily obsolete it. It probably wouldn't stop a well-received 1-player run from being published along side the 2-player version, though.