Explanation

The third Atari run submitted to this site. In this game, you control Superman for less than a second before becoming --AVERAGE CITIZEN CLARK KENT-- who must repair the bridge destroyed by Lex Luthor, capture Luthor and his criminal underlings, enter a phonebooth to turn back into Clark Kent, then return to the Daily Planet in the shortest amount of time. To slow Superman's Kent's progress, blobs of paintKryptonite has been released by Luthor. If hit by paintKryptonite, Superman loses his abilities to capture criminals and fly. To regain them, he must find and passionately kiss Lois Lane. Fortunately, with the power of HAX, our AVERAGE CITIZEN prove that sometimes, human skills are just enough. ;) I make short work of an already normally short game.

Actual Explanation

The glitch I abused involves pausing the game, which after a while, goes into this "Demo" mode where it loops through the whole game (kinda like a preview of it). If you move, normally, it would unpause the game and put you back to where you were. But if you were on a door, it glitches and allows you to enter.
I take the subway (yes, that's what the yellow room is) and go to the daily planet to end the game. Note: if the bridge collapse is triggered, you can't win by going to the daily planet. You must do all that crap I listed instead.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: BizHawk 1.2.0
  • Fastest time
  • Low score
  • Best Superman TAS evar
  • Abuses glitches
  • Proves that human skills are just enough

Comments

If such a crap game like "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial" got accepted, why not this? This was reviewed by the AVGN after all. Anyway, this TAS is comparable to The Amazing Spider-Man TAS by nitrogenesis since you're not supposed to do this in normal gameplay. But since playing legit knocks people to sleep, I drastically shorten the game!

Stage comments

I move two steps, paused the game, wait past 2 screen transitions, and walk left to finish this game.

Screenshot

Frame 597

Noxxa: Replaced submission with a three frame improvement by the author.

adelikat: Claiming for judging

adelikat: Poor viewer response but sufficient tech quality, accepting for publication to the Vault

Brandon: Publication underway.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3728: jlun2's A2600 Superman in 00:11.42
Skilled player (1742)
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Reasons why this should be accepted: - Glitchy - Half the length of ET - A normal run would make people fall asleep - Short enough for an Atari run - I fly as an average citizen:
Editor, Experienced player (570)
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Hm, let's apply E.T. Yes voters' logic: "So short it's entertaining. Sure it's a bad game, but it's also infamous, and will draw so many people to the site. Bad game does not equal bad game choice. Yes vote for the reasons provided." Now let's see how this one's judged, since it's basically the same situation as the E.T. run.
NitroGenesis
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TOTL VOTE YEZ!!! IZ MIEL ZTOAN!!! IZ GAIM ON ATURI!!! MAI VAJINA IS WET!!!!! Actually I voted no because this run is significant about as entertaining as taking a dump and staring at the result for 10 hours. inb4 it is accepted unfairly.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
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I've updated the text with more information about the game.
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
well... what the hell happened ?
Player (210)
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How does one normally beat this game, and what glitch or method is being used to beat it faster? It's not clear.
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Kirkq wrote:
How does one normally beat this game, and what glitch or method is being used to beat it faster? It's not clear.
From Wikipedia:
The player(s) takes control of the DC Comics character Superman, who must repair the bridge destroyed by Lex Luthor, capture Luthor and his criminal underlings, enter a phonebooth to turn back into Clark Kent, then return to the Daily Planet in the shortest amount of time. To slow Superman's progress, Kryptonite has been released by Luthor. If hit by Kryptonite, Superman loses his abilities to capture criminals and fly. To regain them, he must find and kiss Lois Lane.
The glitch I abused involves pausing the game, which after a while, goes into this "Demo" mode where it loops through the whole game (kinda like a preview of it). If you move, normally, it would unpause the game and put you back to where you were. But if you were on a door, it glitches and allows you to enter. I take the subway (yes, that's what the yellow room is) and go to the daily planet to end the game. Note: if the bridge collapse is triggered, you can't win by going to the daily planet. You must do all that crap I listed instead.
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
CoolKirby wrote:
Hm, let's apply E.T. Yes voters' logic: "So short it's entertaining. Sure it's a bad game, but it's also infamous, and will draw so many people to the site. Bad game does not equal bad game choice. Yes vote for the reasons provided." Now let's see how this one's judged, since it's basically the same situation as the E.T. run.
No, it's not the same situation. There's almost no gameplay here.
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ
Post subject: Re: #3728: jlun2's A2600 Superman in 00:11.47
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TASVideoAgent wrote:
I move two steps, paused the game, wait until the screen moves twice, and walk left to finish this game.
Voted no for this. While this is a cool glitch showcased here, anybody can reproduce this sequence of events very easily. It would just take a couple of attempts to reproduce this by hand with frame-perfection.
Post subject: Re: #3728: jlun2's A2600 Superman in 00:11.47
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SmashManiac wrote:
TASVideoAgent wrote:
I move two steps, paused the game, wait until the screen moves twice, and walk left to finish this game.
Voted no for this. While this is a cool glitch showcased here, anybody can reproduce this sequence of events very easily. It would just take a couple of attempts to reproduce this by hand with frame-perfection.
That also applies to most Atari games. :P Anyway, I made the run 3 frames faster + walks around a bit (instead of in straight lines): http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/2136420456955757 Can a judge or moderator please replace the run with the above file?
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CoolKirby wrote:
Hm, let's apply E.T. Yes voters' logic: "So short it's entertaining. Sure it's a bad game, but it's also infamous, and will draw so many people to the site. Bad game does not equal bad game choice. Yes vote for the reasons provided." Now let's see how this one's judged, since it's basically the same situation as the E.T. run.
Let's apply the viewers logic here. Somebody before me stated stuff that I don't know jack about, and now I use those words to represent my own opinion, despite the total lack of knowledge in the matter. Oh I forgot! This only applies when voting against something, or when suggesting games that are total train wrecks for TASing, like pornographic games or games that contains sequences of "running to the left for 5 minutes straight with nothing happening". It's obvious that a lot of you aren't even trying to be mature about A26-TASes.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
PJ
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I love that Atari 2600 was approved and now the runs are not getting yes votes because of lack of entertainment. Am I the only person that finds this amusing? The Atari 2600 is not an entertaining console to watch. That being said, someone should TAS Firefighter. IIRC, it can be beaten in like 6 seconds.
Active player (406)
Joined: 3/22/2006
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This is definitely entertaining to watch, but is this something that a player can easily do unassisted? Holding off on voting.
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
jlun2 wrote:
Kirkq wrote:
How does one normally beat this game, and what glitch or method is being used to beat it faster? It's not clear.
From Wikipedia:
The player(s) takes control of the DC Comics character Superman, who must repair the bridge destroyed by Lex Luthor, capture Luthor and his criminal underlings, enter a phonebooth to turn back into Clark Kent, then return to the Daily Planet in the shortest amount of time. To slow Superman's progress, Kryptonite has been released by Luthor. If hit by Kryptonite, Superman loses his abilities to capture criminals and fly. To regain them, he must find and kiss Lois Lane.
The glitch I abused involves pausing the game, which after a while, goes into this "Demo" mode where it loops through the whole game (kinda like a preview of it). If you move, normally, it would unpause the game and put you back to where you were. But if you were on a door, it glitches and allows you to enter. I take the subway (yes, that's what the yellow room is) and go to the daily planet to end the game. Note: if the bridge collapse is triggered, you can't win by going to the daily planet. You must do all that crap I listed instead.
. due to poor game design and console limitation, the games of that times were far from perfect, as trolly as the submission is, the glitch looks good, the run is short and the game quality is in the "standards" for the atari games... i'll give a honest yes but i fear that soon we will be flooded by a lot of glitched runs of atari games and some done like this one just to prove a point / troll the shit out of us... maybe we should modify the voting calculation to add a "console factor" ?
Noxxa
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CoolKirby wrote:
Hm, let's apply E.T. Yes voters' logic: "So short it's entertaining. Sure it's a bad game, but it's also infamous, and will draw so many people to the site. Bad game does not equal bad game choice. Yes vote for the reasons provided."
Your strawman might have the slightest bit of a point if this game was anywhere near as popular or notorious as E.T.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
NitroGenesis
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PJ wrote:
I love that Atari 2600 was approved and now the runs are not getting yes votes because of lack of entertainment. Am I the only person that finds this amusing? The Atari 2600 is not an entertaining console to watch.
It's very amusing that a console that isn't entertaining is getting no votes for not being entertaining? LOL
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Guga
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Why so mean? :<
PJ
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NitroGenesis wrote:
PJ wrote:
I love that Atari 2600 was approved and now the runs are not getting yes votes because of lack of entertainment. Am I the only person that finds this amusing? The Atari 2600 is not an entertaining console to watch.
It's very amusing that a console that isn't entertaining is getting no votes for not being entertaining? LOL
It's more the fact that the console was approved and people were excited about it, yet seem to just now realize that the games are not good to watch.
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I did not know that it is possible to pause Atari games, interesting. anyways, we spend much of our time looking for flaws in the games we TAS, of course there are glitches and "glitches", but generally I enjoy this kind of run, so my vote is Yes.
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PJ wrote:
It's more the fact that the console was approved and people were excited about it, yet seem to just now realize that the games are not good to watch.
Until someone rolls out Pitfall II. Now that was a fun game! Mind you almost anything Activision touched was fun. They knew how to push this poor console to its limits. Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
RachelB
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Voting yes. It's way better than the other two atari submissions we've had so far. I think if this gets published, i might rate it a 1.5 for entertainment.
Joined: 2/20/2011
Posts: 11
I am wondering, why is entertainment value a criteria for speedrun of games? The idea of a speedrun is to complete the game as fast as possible, why should we care if the game is interesting? sure this game isn't very pleasing to watch. It does however beat the game in the fastest way possible we currently know. You could make multiple categories of which some are more entertaining, but not publishing a speedrun because it would not be entertaining enough is bogus. The main focus should always be the fastest way a game is completed not the most entertaining way.
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CoolKirby wrote:
Hm, let's apply E.T. Yes voters' logic: "So short it's entertaining. Sure it's a bad game, but it's also infamous, and will draw so many people to the site. Bad game does not equal bad game choice. Yes vote for the reasons provided." Now let's see how this one's judged, since it's basically the same situation as the E.T. run.
The difference is that E.T. is most-decidedly infamous, and is entertaining due to its infamy alone - just like Cheetahmen; it's like having so many categories of runs in SMB1, just because of what game it is (ie min-presses, no "B" button, etc), when those categories in most other games would not be accepted. Superman on Atari, on the other hand, is a game that very few people know about, so the non-entertaining run just ends up being pointless when all is said and done. So yes the rules apply to different games in a way that is a bit subjective, but exceptions for very well-known games can and should be made for the entertainment of both casual and more frequent gaming fans. Therefore, I vote no for this game, even though I voted yes on E.T.
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no idea what i just watched, but voting yes because the fasten-seat-belts chime at the end was kind of nice
Oh, play it cool. Play it cool. Here come the space cops.