The only thing I hate about FPS TAS's or speedruns, is most have to look at a certain angle to achieve optimum speed or cornering, so you basically miss out on seeing a lot of the environments and even enemies. It's up to you, but there not something I like to watch unless I've never seen the game beaten.
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
This is true. Fortunately (for me) the game I'm running is a combo between third person and first person shooting, and third person shooting shooting still gives a great view of the character and his/her surroundings.
For this game, I actually noticed Turok's strafe speed is so fast, that seeing a lot of the environment/enemeis is not possible. I had to stop watching like 3 times because I was starting to get a midl headache form the screen going by so fast. (in a good way most of the time.)
One more thing is entertainment. I noticed in nfq's run that the only nescessary enemies in the levels that he killed were the ones that triggered sequences or the ones in the caverns that he killed with the knife. Lots of kills he made purely for fun, because he could and not lsoe speed. Definetly go for that, and see if you can kill as many enemies on the side for entertainment as possible without losing ammo options for bosses.
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Ok, I found a useful glitch, except I can't for the life of me replicate it. On the climbing wall right before the second level key I was somehow able to skip Turok's climbing animation all together, which saved a considerable amount of time. If I could figure out how to replicate it more often it would come in very handy, but I have yet to succeed (I'm trying on the very next climbing wall, where the indispensable auto-shotgun is). I hope this isn't just a one time fluke...
See it here (using v1.2 ROM)
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/3123/2nd%20key%20%2821%20frames%20ahead%29.m64
I know I haven't gotten very far, but I'm just now getting to feel like the TAS input is second nature, plus I'm taking my time trying to match nfq's speeds as closely as possible (which are optimized up to this point, as far as I'm concerned). Hopefully progress will be much faster from here.
I noticed that you climbed the first wall slower than I did. You should try to jump as high as possible. Often it seems to help when you look upwards when you jump on a wall. The auto-shotgun wall can be climbed faster than in my run.
I was able to replicate the glitch. Pretty easy to do. It may work on some walls. Some walls are glitchy in Turok (that's why the walljumps work). I don't really know how to explain how to do the glitch, but you have to grab the wall as much left as you can and strafe left.
EDIT: oh, and there's a reason i skip the pistol. if you're gonna use my strategy you shouldn't take it because then pistol ammo will appear on the longhunter fight which lowers the probability for explosive shells to appear.
Joined: 11/18/2006
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nfq wrote:
I noticed that you climbed the first wall slower than I did.
Went back and fixed it, I now collect the first key a measly 3 frames off your run
nfq wrote:
The auto-shotgun wall can be climbed faster than in my run.
I sure wish I knew why I was having so many problems getting max height on my jumps to walls, it's been the most frustrating thing about this run so far
nfq wrote:
EDIT: oh, and there's a reason i skip the pistol. if you're gonna use my strategy you shouldn't take it because then pistol ammo will appear on the longhunter fight which lowers the probability for explosive shells to appear.
Actually, as long as I don't have any ammo missing for it then the game won't try to give me more at a ammo respawn point; it only spawns ammo missing from your inventory. However that backpack you grab right before longhunter would probably mess that all up... how easy it is to manipulate luck into what the ammo respawn areas drop? It looks like all you would need is 3 boxes of explosive rounds, so if that's the case I can probably manipulate that easily enough, however it may be worth it to go back and skip the pistol. I'm just getting really tired of the first minute of this game. (But my most recent attempt is 47 frames faster than yours, thanks mostly to the wall glitch, everything else is very similar)
Wow that's some nice pixelation, it looks almost like I'm playing on an SNES;)
I have an updated .m64 that's 47 frames ahead, but I'll probably have to redo most of it, since the more I think about skipping the pistol, the more I think it would be very worth it :( At least I got that damn first jump out of the way, I have no idea how nfq made it so fast, I tried nearly 200 rerecords and didn't get anything close (I ended up writing down the exact keypresses and just using those, which I hate since it feels like plagarism lol... but oh well)
EDIT:
Here is (I hope) my final WIP for the first two keys. Even though I keep getting better times, I'm ready to move on. BTW, this one is a 61 frame improvement.
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/3128/2nd%20Key%20%28-61%29.m64
Joined: 11/18/2006
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nfq wrote:
mmbossman wrote:
I have no idea how nfq made it so fast,
because it's easier to play with a controller.
That's the biggest understatement I've heard in a long time. I'm expecting a, *cough* slightly larger rerecord count than you got (and by slightly, I mean exponentially).
the run may seem better than it is, for those who haven't TASed the game. another reason for the low rerecord is that it's a simple game to TAS (you just run from place to place, not much shooting or accuracy required), and i didn't try to make it very perfect. maybe because it was too simple i lost motivation in the end (that's why the campaigner fight is so boring/stupid).
turok also has no desync problems like many n64 games have. too bad turok 3 desyncs like Hell, otherwise i would have TASed it and killed alpha fireborn with one razorwind slash in oblivion difficulty.
-
edit: btw, when i did my tas, i also did this little tas of the training level time challenge: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/3133/turok%20training%20134.m64 (it uses 1000 rerecords but its only 2 minutes, yet it sucks a bit)
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Well I've made some progress in the past two days, and I'm currently around 135 frames ahead, but I'm having particular problems at the first ladder after the explosive shells. I'm heading on a loooong plane ride to the west coast today, so as long as my laptop battery gives me a decent amount of power, I'll hopefully have a WIP with me proudly holding the 3rd key when I land.
Oh, and after playing around with it, nfq is right, it is an easy game to TAS. However it becomes much harder when you try to either match or beat a previous benchmark for each small section (ie from checkpoint to warp, or shotgun to top of the two ladders). I got the 3rd key yesterday afternoon but realized I'd lost nearly 100 frames in the process so that I was only ahead by 50. And since I'm a damn perfectionist, I decided to just plug along nice and slow
I bought an N64 the day it came out, and my friend and I played Super Mario 64 after school every day until we had 120 stars. Mario 64 was the greatest game ever. Then Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was the greatest game ever (at least, when we were playing the Battle of Hoth it was). Then... Turok.
This game blew us away. We were shooting dinosaurs with explosive bullets. We were hacking people up with a knife. Watching this game is a blast. I was a bit concerned that the strafing would ruin this run. I wanted to see Turok run head first through the levels and take out hundreds of guys along the way. My computer that has my emulation stuff is offline while it waits for an upgrade, but I got to watch mmbossman's YouTube video, and I liked what I saw. It was hyper fast, and it was fun watching the enemies getting their throats slit as Turok passes by.
I look forward to watching nfq's full run when I get my computer back up and running, but I just want to say that (along with an insanely kick ass destruction of Blast Corps, and Super Mario 64, which is already done), Turok is one of the games that is at the top of my N64 wish list. Good luck on the rest of the run, and thanks for doing this.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Joined: 6/13/2006
Posts: 3300
Location: Massachussetts, USA
yes. Unless Turok runs at a different FPS, 146 frames is two and a half seconds by the 60 FPS standard of practically all other games. Although, you're probably right, because I don't know the FPS of Turok.
I'll download tomorrow and take a look.
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Ah, I was simply going by the reader on the bottom of Mupen that says 30 fps when I'm running the game at 100% speed. I know that video and input both have different rates at which they run, so you're probably right.
it might be a bad idea to use tek arrows except 5 for the purlin because then they will spawn on longhunter.
did you know that a normal arrow can do critical hits in which case it's stronger than a tek arrow?! i once killed a raptor with one arrow on hard! those sergeant soldiers also die with one shot, but it doesn't work as well on all enemies, like purlins!
Joined: 11/18/2006
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nfq wrote:
it might be a bad idea to use tek arrows except 5 for the purlin because then they will spawn on longhunter.
did you know that a normal arrow can do critical hits in which case it's stronger than a tek arrow?! i once killed a raptor with one arrow on hard! those sergeant soldiers also die with one shot, but it doesn't work as well on all enemies, like purlins!
I was having a hard time getting a single shotgun hit to kill the soldier in the area with the lava, so I just decided to go with the tek arrows, and if I have to fight with them spawning at the longhunter, so be it I guess. They're at least better to have spawn than pistol ammo, and (I think) as powerful as explosive shells, with just a slight firing delay (although you have to be very close to your target for them to connect, which I will be for most of the longhunter fight).
I did know about the arrows, and as you show with the knife on the high priests on level four, it's just as effective. I once played through the game using the knife as much as possible so I could save up as many of the critical hit tokens that soldiers drop (they raise your overall hitpoint level), so that when I was done, if I had picked up a full health it would have filled me up to 200 instead of 100 (I think that was the maximum it went, it may have been 225).
I was having a hard time getting a single shotgun hit to kill the soldier in the area with the lava,
why not just shoot twice then? :P
you can manipulate luck to get explosive shells but it will be harder because your tek arrows are not full.
I did know about the arrows, and as you show with the knife on the high priests on level four,
that sucked, use 2 grenades on the first one.
you can only get critical hits with arrows if you're moving when you shoot, but they don't work very well for some enemies, like high priests. on some enemies, the knife can be even more effective than critical arrows. the tough moron high priest on level 5 guarding the cat key takes 14 tek arrows but dies with one knife.
(I think that was the maximum it went, it may have been 225).
with gameshark you can get a maximum of 7777 HP tek armor. if you try to take one more it flashes 7802 but goes back to 7777.
the spirit tokens (or mortal wounds) were the most useless items in the game..
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Almost to the sixth key, will post a WIP when I'm done with the level and on to level 3. As for the Tek Arrows, if I find out that the respawning will be too hard to manipulate, there are a quiver of them behind the energy gunner on the left right before the backpack is picked up in Level 3. I figure it will take at most 2 seconds, and it allows me to use them as much as I want up to that point. I'll just wait to see how hard the respawns are to get, and restart to get the quiver if I need to. Not as optimal as possible, perhaps, but I'd rather think forwards than backwards.
I've been having trouble getting the Emulator to run Turok. I want to view the WIPS, however, whenever I load Turok (U) (V1.0) [!], the emulator freezes up and crashes.
I have to ask though, will you be going for the "Ultimate Weapon" in this game? I can't remember what it's called, so forgive me. ;3
Can anyone help clear up the Problem I am having? DO I need a different ROM Version, or what?
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Yes, I'm using the 1.2 version of the ROM, so it's not unexpected that Mupen is having problems w/ you trying to use the 1.0 one. As much fun as getting the Chronosceptor would be, many of the pieces are way out of the way, and you certainly don't need it to finish off the Campaigner. I'm planning on taking primarily the same route that nfq took because it is clearly very fast and, I believe, nearly optimal. I'll be using some of the hints he gave me (on the first page of this topic), along with my own self discovered time savers, to hopefully pull this run under 37 minutes. However if anyone can figure out a way for me to access level 8 without collecting all the keys I could make a sub 10 minute run probably :) *sigh* I can only hope...
