I know, it's slightly frowned upon as a game, but I decided to TAS it anyway. I'm at the end of the game with a total of 35 secs of improvement over Glitchman's rejected run, but now I've ran into a serious difficulty: the second driving stage.
It's an unwholesome mess of sub-pixels, illogical street planning and the Terminator acting like a jerk. The first driving stage was harrowing as well, but in the end I cleared it pretty admirably with only 4 lost frames compared to Glitchman's attempt (after having re-done it three times...). The second stage, however... it's longer and more complicated by a long shot. Imagine my surprise as I finished the level for the first time and found out I had lost 200 frames in comparison without even noticing! I forced myself to redo it, and now it stands that I lose "only" 59 frames. As the end of the run is in sight, would it be a too deep a neglect to just let it be and finish & submit this? I'm feeling like I'll never want to play this game again for a long time now as I'm writing this.
~of course, if someone wants to take a look at this mess, I can post the .fm2
EDIT:
After trying this level for the third time, losing 20 frames at the first friggin' part of the stage already (very surreptitiously), I've come to the conclusion that it is probably of the utmost importance to keep Terminator and his bike out of the screen as much as possible. I think that "invisible lag" or some other factor makes you lose time without a good reason if Terminator is present... what an evil villain! Not to mention it makes the car control as if the steering wheel was made out of jelly and Reese was steering it with a cocktail stick that is bulky and fresh with olives.
That said, while messing around, I came about a strange glitch which makes the Terminator become stuck for potentially thousands of frames. However, I don't know what makes it happen. If it could be controlled, plenty of time would be saved...
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/778720100/Terminator%2C%20The%20%28U%29-1.fm2
EDIT 2: finishing this run tomorrow. Now the second driving level is better as well (although it still doesn't match Glitchman's). Whoever tries to improve this run next ought to concentrate on manipulating the bike glitch to happen, because that is the best hope for gaining a good time in this level... if I'm correct.