- Goals: None.
- Colours a Dinosaur: Probably.
- Entertainment/Speed tradeoffs.
Blades of Steel holds an esteemed place in my heart. It's the best hockey game on the NES as long as you don't consider Stick Hunter: Exciting Ice Hockey, Ice Hockey, Wayne Gretzky Hockey, Ike Ike! Kekketsu Hockey-bu: Subette Koronde Dairanto, or Pro Sport Hockey, and even if you do, it should rank in the top six, at least. It also has the only version of Gradius that I can consistently beat on one credit, so it's got that going for it.
You see, there's a 50% chance with any game of hockey in Blades of Steel that the advertising between the second and third periods will let you play a short, advertisement version of Gradius. The other half of the time, you get to watch some sort of bear creature wind up and take a slap shot, in a wholly uninteractive manner. So, in order for this run to work -- oh, right, the branch for this run is Gradius %, where I get the Gradius minigame to show up, and then beat it --, I need to ensure that the Gradius minigame comes up during the setup game. To do that, I seed the RNG by turning the console on.
I choose 2 Player mode because I really didn't want to try to track down computer decision making in the code, and I figured that controlling both players at the same time could make things more entertaining. More entertaining than what? That's for you to TAS and find out. 2 Player mode is also faster because there is less menuing. I choose Minnesota and Montreal, since I played a lot of Blades of Steel against my stepdad and those were the teams that we played: me, Minnesota; him: Montreal. Picking Montreal costs a few frames, but we sacrifice frames for entertainment, and in order to make this run happen, I needed to be entertained.
For the first period, I really wanted to showcase fights and penalty shots and scoring goals and all of that, but since all of that wastes time with the stoppage of play, and the loading of other scenes, I forgo all of that and have the two teams chase each other around the rink with the puck, in what I hope is a delightful dance of skilled play. I realized part of the way through that passing the puck actually generates lag frames; my guess is that loading the "makes the pass" sound effect is causing that issue, so at about the 11 minute mark I stop passing and rely on long shots to move the puck across the ice. There's no way around the goaltender's pass, but that doesn't seem to cause lag. There are a few moments where the puck teleports to someone's stick, try to find all of them! Also, the puck crosses the goal line as the period ends, leading to neither team scoring any points.
For the second period of play, I was inspired by John Cage's 4'33", the only song that I can play on any instrument I am handed; I think it raises the hockey game from simple performance to art form. Watch the two centers blink at each other aggressively, who's going to flinch first?
Finally, the end of the second period heralds the start of the advertising, and the entire point of this run. Will my 50/50 coin flip turn up in my favour? I'm pretty sure it will. Gradius gets offered in every odd-numbered game when you do not skip the advertisement; since this is game one -- guaranteed by turning the console on and playing -- luck is on my side and I get to spend 340 frames (
00:05.66) of input playing the game I set out to play from the beginning. With the final shot fired on frame 23231 (
06:26.55), input ends, mission complete!
This movie almost certainly colours at least two dinosaurs: Blades of Steel came out in 1987, and the teams chosen are Minnesota and Montreal. In 1987, Minnesota player Terry Ruskowski was a Left Wing, and being born in 1954, he would be 68 years old today. Dinosaur age! Montreal Defenseman Larry Robinson was 36 at the time, now 35 years later, Larry Robinson would be 71! Those positions become the active player at least once during the game, making it reasonable to suspect that dinosaurs have been coloured in this run.
...instigating a fight against the Big Core?
