Okay, I'll vote Yes again, but don't expect me to write a different reason for my vote. Here's my lazy copy & paste "hopper votes Yes because" job.
Holy crap!
In retrospect, falling through the floor immediately after entering the sewer seems obvious, but then again, in retrospect the theory of the atom seems obvious, so good job figuring out how to nuke this game. Running across thin air was an unexpected twist. This continues to be the weirdest TAS on the site. Easy Yes vote.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Holy crap!
In retrospect, falling through the floor immediately after entering the sewer seems obvious, but then again, in retrospect the theory of the atom seems obvious, so good job figuring out how to nuke this game. Running across thin air was an unexpected twist. This continues to be the weirdest TAS on the site. Easy Yes vote.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Brilliant.
The way you bounce off the switch block, up the stairs, then jump over the pipe to get the star before fighting Bowser is just incredible. Actually, that whole level is incredible. Getting the 8 red coins barely slows you down at all. I like the way you got the camera right in Mario's face after the fight.
The Vanish Cap level is unbelievable. After that terrific fall, you launched your way through the moving platforms to collect the last of the red coins and activate the star, then launch over the walls without getting the vanish cap. Brilliant.
As for Big Boo's Haunt, what can I say? It's my favorite level, so I can't help but be impressed. You got the first star after defeating the Big Boo without even waiting for the stairs to rise up. Awesome use of the haunted merry-go-round as a blue coin dispenser at the end of the 100 coin star. This is my best level, so I recognize quality. I can't wait to see the rest of this.
There aren't enough honors to award to the completed version of this run. A star simply doesn't cut it. This will be the defining movie of the site.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
You're f*&@ing kidding me. I got up this morning and went to work, thinking that nothing unusual was going to happen in the world today. I come home and find out that some guy just destroyed the Excitebike record by, like, 30 seconds, and it's already published. Then I watched you wraparound the screen several times in a row, move so fast that the background broke, and completely, utterly break the game, with your engine cooling the whole time. That was the starworthiest movie I have ever seen. Unbelievable.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Right now i'm trying to get the "eye-to-eye in the secret room" star without the vanish cap. If i can't do it, i'll go to the basement, get the vanish cap, and then enter either hazy maze cave or shifting sand land, depending on MIPS' movement. Probably SSS.
The Ghost House is my favorite level. I can't wait to see you kick that level's butt. Good luck. You're an inspiration to us all.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Absolutely awesome. You did a terrific job in the first Bowser stage, especially the way you launch yourself off of the switch and up the stairs before fighting Bowser.
The gameplay is excellent. The only thing I could possibly comment on is the choice of camera angles. When you use the backwards long jump technique to send yourself rocketing up the mountain to fight the big Bob-omb, it looked really cool with the stationary camera at the base of the mountain, so I was kind of disappointed to see that replaced with Lakitu's chaser camera. Also, you used the stationary camera when Mario wall jumped up to the next level of the mountain in the next star, but the camera seemed too distant to get a really good look at it. I think the rapid wall jumping would have looked cooler (and less expected) if the camera had followed him. As soon as the camera becomes stationary, we know that Mario is about to do something cool, but we don't get a very good look at it that time. The gameplay is just excellent, so the only thing left for us to talk about is to play film critic and talk about the stylistic choices and camera angles, which are also pretty excellent. Great job!
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
I'm thinking Kirby, because watching a pink marshmallow eat little animals and steal their powers has got to be trippy. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, because it has a dinosaur carrying a baby and shooting eggs at things, especially when Yoshi kills the pirahna plant before Magikoopa can cast a spell on it. Sonic because it moves really fast, which has to be fun for people with diminished reflexes. Any of the Rampage games because monkeys and lizards smashing buildings, stomping on tanks, eating pedestrians and belching fire is going to be even more entertaining on a reduced IQ. Also, A Boy and His Blob because, well, that game is an acid trip even without drugs.
The ultimate game, though, is Food Fight for the Atari 7800. You run through a room full of food and throw it at chefs who are also throwing food at you. Two players can take turns shouting obscenities as they waste chefs and get force fed pies. This game is a blast for players and spectators alike while sober, so imagine it drunk or high.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Okay, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and listen to someone badmouth the Simpsons.
Homer: Kids... how would you... like to go to... Blocko Land!?
Lisa and Bart: Meh.
Homer: But ... the TV gave me the impression that ...
Bart: We said "meh".
Lisa: M-e-h.
Hungry Hungry Homer" (Season 12, Episode 15)
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
adelikat, I have been waiting to congratulate you on this day for months. You said that this took a long time, but when I read that you were about to face Necrosaro, I had exactly the opposite impression. I can't believe how quickly you did this. You could have taken another three months and I would have been impressed that it only took a year.
The time also has to be considered amazing. When I got this game for Christmas, I played it non-stop until I finished it. It took days! Two hours? Unfreakingbelievable.
I know I'm voting Yes, but I have to watch it first, and I don't have two hours to spare right now. It's the only thing on my to-do list for tomorrow.
Congratulations, man. You are truly insane, and I'll gladly testify to that effect if you ever need to plead insanity. I can't believe you TASed a game this big.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
I appreciate your dedication, FODA.
I just watched Spezzafer's 16 star run again and, with what has been learned about Whomp's Fortress (such as not needing to blast away the wall in order to get Blast Away the Wall) and the warping trick to get behind the gate in the first stage, it looks like there are enough improvable areas to warrant a new run. Is anyone planning one?
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Any%/warped rarely obsoletes 100%/warpless or vice versa. The two things people tend to want to see the most are: "how fast can a game be beaten?", and "how fast can it be beaten from beginning to end?"
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
I hate to be a thread bumper, but FODA's 120 star run is just such a terrific movie I can't help but inquire. Have you had any time to work on this since the last update?
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Ooooooookay.
Ever since seeing Genisto's run I've been hoping someone would make a warp run, just to see how quickly the game could be beaten, but I didn't see this coming. You guys found the right frame to release the ball in order for the computer to get the laser, then the right frame to drop a power-up to make sure that ball missed the paddle and died in the computer demo. That was... weird.
It's pretty short and doesn't play the game from beginning to end, which is what I had been expecting, but this is just strange enough to deserve special recognition. You did, technically, beat the game as quickly as possible, and you might as well be allowed to use every trick that's available to you. This gets a Yes vote.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Just a quick note about the brute force discussion. Bisqwit posted some extremely large numbers to explain how long it would take to test every possible input for a game of this length, which looks like it isn't possible and never will be.
We assume "never" because we assume that computers will only double in power every 18 months or so because of Moore's Law. To be sure, "general purpose" processors really do only double their performance in general benchmarks every 18 months or so. When someone decides to make a specialized processor, or add specialized instructions, it's often possible to improve upon the performance of a general purpose processor -- on that task -- by dozens of times. Via, for instance, decided to add a dedicated decryption unit to their processors a few years back, making them several times faster at decrypting certain algorithms than AMD and Intel processors at the time, despite significantly lower general purpose performance. Ageia has developed a dedicated "physics processing unit" which they claim will allow 20 times as many objects to be tracked versus a general purpose processor (let's not debate that claim in this thread). Intel has now announced that their next architecture after the Core architecture, which is due in Q3, will be massively multi-core, using dozens of small general purpose cores, with additional dedicated cores for tasks that need the extra power.
So... that means that, if someone chooses to create dedicated circuitry for whatever kind of processing this sort of brute force test would need, it's entirely within the realm of possibility that that specific task could be sped up exponentially, or even geometrically, while general performance continues to merely double. I'm not saying that it's likely, or that any of us may live to see the day, but it's at least possible that there will someday be enough processing power to write a program to play a perfect TAS of a game like Monopoly.
You might want to freeze yourself while you're waiting for it.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
But my point is, How can a movie be entertaining if it doesn't add anything really "New". If it LOOKS like the previous movie, how can that be considered entertainment. No doubt, 19 frames is a great improvement, but that isn't the question.
I don't follow that logic at all. If the first one was entertaining, and the second one looks the same, wouldn't the second one also be entertaining? Publish the second one.
Oh, it's not entertaining because it isn't different from the old one? Okay. So what about the people who haven't seen either one? Two movies look the same but one is faster. Which one will we publish for them? The second one.
We're supposed to be showing the limits of what can be done. If it's true that they look the same, show the one that comes closer to the limit. I don't understand why we would do anything else.
Oh, and I completely agree with schneelocke that the waiting period should be to see if anyone is going to make a run that would immediately obsolete the submission, not out of some "entitlement" on the part of the previous publisher. I would be very disappointed if that was the real reason for waiting periods.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.