Sno-Cat (Compute's Gazette)
The Sno-Cat is super-powered turbo-driven tractor that can go zero to fifty in less than second. It has minor problem, however: It shifts its own gears. It starts in second, shifts into third automatically after ten seconds, then into fourth after fifty seconds. It can't go any higher, but it doesn't need to. It's difficult to maintain control in third gear, let alone fourth.
Fortunately you have brakes, very powerful brakes that will slow you down to almost zero in tricky situations. To stop overuse, the brakes (controlled by the fire button or space bar) cause the distance meter to stop as long as the brakes are pressed. But the timer still runs, so your time may be impaired by using the brakes too much.
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 23rd TAS from this series.
I'm not sure about this, but I think I overlooked this game for sometime because I was more interested in typing in Balloon Blitz, which was in the same magazine. I can't remember much, but I remember it being rather difficult in the end. I think I spent half the time braking, because I was so scare to hit a tree. Well, now the brakes have been removed!
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):
Game Ending
This game has a clear ending, where you will reach a destination at the end of the slope...designated by a flag.
Effort In TASing
Along with Balloon Blitz, I stashed this TAS away until I was able to determine how to control the RNG affecting game play. Well, because it was written in BASIC, it used the common function "RND(1)". Well, this prompted me to try something completely different, where I tried to end input early.
Controlling the input to end early, would actually come from a different technique than I have used on any other TAS. Here, I played the game through about 10 seconds from the end. During this process, I record where each tree was spawned, using F12 to create screenshots. For the first time, using Bizhawk's screenshot function paid off for more than having something visually admire! This time, it helped me to identify the hole for me to drive through, that wouldn't have any trees in the way. No matter what effort I tried, the trees were always in the same spot, during the time of its appearance...so this final effort led me to using the left side of the screen, which helped me to extend my best effort by 30 more frames.
Human Comparison
Can't find one. Sorry.
