Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Here is the second version of the G.I. Joe run I am working on, using FCEU. It is 1:31 faster than my first, mainly due to better boss fights. http://www.filespace.org/Ferret_Warlord/GIJoe1-ferret.fcm I can see a couple of places that need fixing before it is submittable (some loose shots, perhaps a better route in 4-2), and I'm thinking about using the best puncher Gridiron, but 3-1 is going to need to be overhauled. My next run is going to be mostly pacifist there (grab my upgrades and leave it at that). Suggestions would be appreciated. It's going to be a while before I work up enough patience to take another stab at it, though. Also, does anybody know the conversion rate between the punch and gun strength values? The punches are numerically lower, but are far more powerful than any bullet. I would just like some specifics. The interweb isn't very helpful here.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Was it something I said? Mayhap it was something I didn't say? I hate to bump this, but I deserve at least one comment.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 706
Location: Elyria/Oberlin, OH
I would say something, but I know absolutely nothing about this game and thus don't really feel qualified to help. Maybe find an enemy that has a ton of HP to figure out exact strengths...*shrug* -Josh
but then you take my 75 perchance chance of winning, if we was to go one-on-one, and then add 66 and two-thirds ch...percents...i got a 141 and two-thirds chance of winning at sacrifice
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (978)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3109
Location: Sweden
I have never even heard the name of this game, which doesn't happen a lot.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I'm going to be picking this project back up soon, probably tomorrow. I have yet to start on version 3 (the Cheetahmen II run was something to do in the interim, something to give me time to build up my patience to take another stab at it), although lately I've been perfecting techniques used and rehearsing some boss battles. Heck, I've made several videos showing these off! These are going to be the big differences: -Greater precision (I'm actually going to use the frame advance! w00t!) -More punches thrown between shots -A different route, and possibly strategy, for 4-2 -Skip four powerups in 6 -A smoother looking 3-1 -More punching instead of shooting to cut back on slowdown -Better handling of the Boar, both its attack and navigation -Better menus and cut scenes -End it a little later to handle one last cut scene I should be able to shave off an additional 15-20 seconds if I pull this off right.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Ambassador, Experienced player (708)
Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE
Say, can't you put in a password in the beginning to access tougher second and third quests? Have you considered trying a run of them?
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Yes, actually, but I'm not quite familiar with them. Maybe a later run.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 32
Location: USA
I'm kind of amazed that people have never heard of this game. As for me, I'd owned both games for the NES, and I still have them. As for your run, Ferret Warlord, it does need some more tweeking, but I did enjoy it, as I had fun playing this game when I was younger.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
30 seconds in and I'm already approaching 600 reloads. Good grief, this is going to take a while... It seems that I can't go pacisfist on 3-1. Three enemies, walking around and shooting, with a bunch of missiles hunting me down would hold the game up a bit. What can I do to make that level more interesting?
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Right now I'm at frame 2000. I'm about, oh, a second ahead of where I was at at this point in my last run, due in part to better jumping, but mainly because I cut out two pauses. I've done some testing on the gun power and I'm greatly confused. Things just aren't adding up the way they should be. There are two conclusions to be made with my tests: 1. Power increase is non-linear. It slows done the higher the number is. 2. The power is an abitralily assigned number based on certain qualities, and there are two classes of strength: weak and strong, strong being twice as powerful as weak. If only I had a decompiler and I could read NES ASM... Either way, I'm sticking with Rock & Roll. This game also has some wierd luck manipulation.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Progress Report: I have gotten all the way through 1-3 and beaten the boss, but I'll have to redo all that: I went back and cut an additional 20 frames out of the second boss fight, which was already significantly improved over my last version. I've also discovered a glitch that causes the graphics for the "mission intro" cut scene to disappear while the scene is still playing out. It's just a black screen with the music playing. Unfortunately it (a) doesn't work with all missions (b) isn't of any use and slows me down some. I'm liking how this is turning out so far, but it's going slooooooow. It doesn't help that FCEU likes to crash on me almost everytime I go out of pausing while I've slowed the game down. I don't think I'll be able to get this out before year's end. Stats: Frames: 4539, 21 frames short of exactly 1:16 Reloads: 1535, 256 more than the total for my first version, and I'm still in the first mission. Ai-yai-yai...
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
My fourth post in a row... Come on, I need suggestions for 3-1! I just beat the 2-1 boss. Goy, was he a pain! The problem is the number of explosion sprites that are on the screen cause the game to slow down a bit, and when the game slows down, there are frames where input isn't accepted (I call these "dead frames"). This, as you could imagine, makes doing frame-by-frame precision stuff really hard, especially since things don't seem to go right even after adjusting for the dead frames. And some of the other bosses are going to be worse (I am dreading the next one!). But I beat him, and I beat him a bit faster than my last run. My brother is coming in today to visit for the holidays. I hope I can get him to set up a Filespace account that I can use, so you guys should be able to see my progress before Saturday. Frames: 8954, six frames short of 2:29 Reloads: 2156 Edit: Nevermind. I just tried him again with a different strategy that wouldn't cause so much lag. Not only was it much easier, but I cut 26 frames from the battle.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Fifth post in a row... wow. I've revived this project and have gone on to complete the second mission. I haven't timed things yet, but I'm guessing I'm 10-12 seconds faster than my second version at this point. I also discovered a neat little graphical glitch that would be easy to apply to other games. I finally have an idea what I'm going to do with 3-1. It's the next level in the game, so I hope I can get it right. I'll get to that on Monday.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
ventuz
He/Him
Player (125)
Joined: 10/4/2004
Posts: 940
sound good.
Post subject: GI Joe - The Atlantis Factor
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
I have been toying around with the game, and have completed a test run of the first level. I this feel should be about the same quality/action as the rest of the run should be. One can find it here. Now for some quick explantion of what is going on. The reason I head left instead of right off the start is to pick up three Pow powerups hidden behind the pillars. These powerups can be used to make your weapons stronger. In the first level there are just enough to give you level 3 of your fists or the base machinegun. The power levels of those two weapon are as follows: Fist: Level 1: Normal punches Level 2: Can uppercut after a series of punches Level 3: Can jumpkick, and kick. You can jump while kicking also Level 4: ??? Don't need it anyways Machine gun: Level 1: One shot Level 2: An additional shot with an angle of elevation of about 30 degrees Level 3: An additional shot to level 2, but at about 45% aoe Level 4: An additional shot to level 3, but at about 60% aoe I choose to level up the punch for two reasons: speed and damage. In this game jumping is faster than walking, and jumpkicking is faster than jumping. Thus, if I wanted to get through the level as fast as possible I would need jumpkick. The fact that you only get it at level 3 power is why I don't use it from the very beginning. As for damage: A normal punch does the same amount of damage as normal machine gun shot, or 1. Adding additional machine gun shots adds additional hits, proving your close enough to the enemy for all shots to hit, can do a maximum of 4 damage. The kick moves (level 3 fist) do more than the normal punch, either 3 or 4 damage I haven't calculated it specifically yet. With both attacks there are delays between each attack to attack again. With the machine gun it's based on time, while with the punching it's based on the sprite's animation. This canceling ability is where the majority of my decision comes from: It is possible to cancel the punch animation by moving. In the air it's as simple as tapping forward for a frame, on the ground you must duck because the attack freezes your horizontal movement on the ground. This lets me attack extremely fast, similar to Ninja Gaiden. This is how I managed to kill the mini boss so quickly. Other tricks: -Changing from the machine gun to the fist mid air causes you to punch. This unfortunately also makes the projectile, if you fired one, dissappear. However if you can time it right, and are close enough to your enemy, you can switch from the machine gun to the fist and score two hits instead of one. I use this in a few places, such as against the first floating eye thing, and against the mini boss. At the miniboss the main use for it is when I get hit. Each time I get hit I acually deal 4 points of damage: One from a punching pain animation, one from switching to a gun and shooting him point back, another switching back to fist instantly and hitting him again, and finally again when I shoot him running back up to him. Watch it frame by frame to see them all :) -I avoid the items in the beginning and collect them all in a group to save time. This DOES cause a little bit of lag, but because you would normally need to wait around for almost a second to pick up the item right away it saves time. Plus there isn't much lag, and it's kinda funny to watch me tearring through stuff with a wave of items behind me. Other Information: - You can't seem to skip the first two screens - Those two blue guys, one of which I take a hit to get past, are more or less invinicble to me. To kill them you must knock them over 3 times, which takes 3 hits while they are standing normally. Of course you can see me wail on the second one as I pass him (probably about 10 times before he hits the ground) and watch him get back up. Now i'm at the planning stage of this run where I must choose which route to take. I'm not sure which items to get, or if I acually need to save anywhere, but for now i'm planning on taking the lower route to get the lazer gun and then head up to cobra headquarters. This might take a while, as I was never any good at this game when I was young and didn't get very far, so I will need to play through it a few times.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
Ah, a sequel to my run, huh? Better get cracking on my own then! :P I didn't like this game as much as the first one. Don't know what it was, but one problem is that the characters are more specialized and less nuanced. Plus General Hawk goes from kicking all kinds of butt to absolutely sucking.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
By the way, you can cancel punches in the first game too, not sure if that helps you or not.
Skilled player (1409)
Joined: 5/31/2004
Posts: 1821
I really liked this game, so a while ago I recorded the first level aswell. The movie looks pretty much the same. I decided not to continue since there are so many routes, characters, weapons and upgrades that it's nearly impossible to get a perfect run. About the Fist: Level 1: 3 punches in a row > damage 1,1,1 Level 2: 3 punches in a row + uppercut > damage 1,1,1,4 Level 3: jumpkick and groundkick > both damage 3 Level 4: attack straight down (performed while jumping by pressing down+a (I think)) > damage 8 I think this also goes for scuba, and probably some others, but the ninja's for instance do damage 10 by doing the level 4 down attack. The guns are the same for everybody, but when I tried to make a list of the guns and their levels and the damage, I noticed that some guns are better against some bosses then others, so it's hard to really make a table of that. I would love to see a complete run of this game, but it's is too hard (well it would take to long) for me, good luck
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
For some reason I thought the down and a thing was just for the ninja, but you are right about it working for everyone else too. It does have limited use, as when you hit a boss with it you bounce backwards, BUT it could be used while fighting the hammer type minibosses to hit them with right before you get hit and bounce back anyways. Thanks for that information, it makes thing alot easier. Can you confirm for me that the laser gun is the most powerful against Cobra Commander?
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I've actually been using the punch cancelling technique for a while. Takes many bosses down real quick-like. How do you do it? In the first game at least, punching, looking up for a frame, and then punching again actually isn't the fastest method to use; you need two frames between punches instead of one, otherwise a punch won't come out. Is it the same in this game? [Edit]I just did some testing on the punches and it would indeed seem you can throw a punch every other frame. No fair.[/Edit] I always thought the missile launcher was the strongest weapon. After all, when you get it they say, "Use this against Cobra." What's your primary character going to be?
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
Yeah, as you said I can do it ever other frame. So for the beginning it is alot better than shooting with your little piddly gun. Punching is not best once you get level 4 lazer, which completely destroys bosses. It acually says use the missle launcher to destroy the rest of the cobra base, or some such. Also I have tested the weapons against Cobra and have some results. The middle launcer MAY be SLIGHTLY more powerful, but the laser gun can shoot MUCH MUCH faster. Infact if your are right up to an enemy it can be shot once ever other frame. These tests were done with level 4 laser and rockets, and I don't think there are enough Pow to get rockets between when you get it and cobra to get it to level 4 without going out of your way. Hell, there might not even be enough without backtracking levels. My current route is as follows: Go south at the first choice to get the laser rifle. After that head north. At this point I MIGHT to one level to the west to get Gung-Ho, as he can be used to get valuable ammo if I need it. After that it's just a straight run towards Cobra ;) The only problem with this route is the level after you get the laser rifle is all up hill, and I think it might take a long while to do. The fastest route I beleive would be heading east at the first choice and just heading straight towards Cobra Commander. Of course you end up with the Pulse Rifle that way, and I remember that being a slightly useless gun... The character I was going to use was just General Hawk. I don't see why I would need to use anyone else?
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
Never mind, heading directly east wouldn't be fastest, I forgot you have to go through that bomb planting mission :/
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I was just curious about the character. I'm using Rock'n'Roll with a bit of Snake Eyes thrown in for my run. Good point about the rockets, though. There is a way you can power them and every other weapon up fully without the power ups, but it's a bit out of the way, and considering your argument for the laser, is very probably worthless for a run. Good luck, can't wait to see it.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Former player
Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
Well General Hawk starts out with a fair amount of HP, and if I only focus on him with the powerups he will have alot by the end ;) Unlike the first one there is no need for using different characters. The all have the same weapons in this game; well except for the ninjas, but they are way out of the way so i'm not going to use them. Also I won't even be using Scuba, as it's faster to skip along the top of the water.
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I was just thinking, how feasible would it be to get Duke? He's the only one who can aim up, so you could stand beneath Cobra while jumping and keep a more consistent onslaught with the laser.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.