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And this is an improvement of 28 seconds from my previous submission.
On the streets, I picked the right time to take bullets just to speed me up a little bit and save time. To make up for it, I needed to manipulate luck into having the blue cops drop Soylent Sodas (energy canisters) so I'll have something to give away if I needed to take another bullet later down the road. (1,3,5,6)
I maintained my own infamous song-to-gunfire dance in Richter's apartment. And then when that woman appeared, that was when Aerosmith gave silent word that "Janie's Got A Gun!" Then to speed things up precisely after I picked up her gun, I made sure that every bullet managed to strike her, even in the air. I never missed a lot of shots like the last time. (1,2,3,5,6)
The security hall at the Subway was where I cornered at least 2 security guards while bullets from ceiling orbs were coming at me in all directions. I do not know if I took damage here, but I really knocked out the security guards slightly quicker. And to close this deal, Quaid walks in the air again. (1,3,4,5,6)
And downstairs to the boarding area of the Subway. I only focused on the gray soldiers while avoiding all the red ones and the rabie dogs that were trying to attack me. I did pick up nearly all EN-canisters as I made way toward the front. I took no damage here. After I jumped on board, a red soldier was still at the top. As the subway train started moving, it looked like it was moonwalking. For that, I think that is indeed another glitch I noticed. (1,4,5,6)
I bought 6.5 energy into the concrete area. I used the ball-and-chains to take damage just to save time. That is probably the only best improvement on this stage. Everything else looked about the same. (1,3,5,6)
And now, Quaid reaches Mars.
The blue hallway was a little bit of precise improvement, at least in the first room. It was crazy to shoot a laser gun on the right and then another one on the left all in one jump. But it's pretty quick. Then I defeated the UFO's in each room even quicker. I still avoided the red robots; but if I did mess with them, I would probably push them back so they're least likely to throw a grenade at me. (1,3,5,6)
I did slightly better zooming through the streets of Mars and never crashed into anything, period! Taking damage here doesn't help a bit. (1,5,6)
As soon as I stepped foot into Mars' (what I call) "Trailer Park", I did more precise firing and whatever bullets I shot would go through some of the Martian Cats I took out. It would make the viewers think that I was missing shots that way, but believe me, that's not true. Everything else was fine. (1,3,5,6)
And then the caves where a few guys and skeleton zombies would go after me. I was slightly quicker here as a matter of fact, and I only took out those that were a bigger threat to me. And then going into the Digger Dan boss, I managed to fire the laser even quicker to where Dan's head came off the drill before it backed up. That means improvement with a capital "I"! (1,3,5,6)
The final stage of Mars was about the same as my first submission. But this time, I had enough energy to get a boost from the electric pulses just to save a little more time. From there on, Richter fell again and I rise victorious! (1,3,5,6)
Here are my goals for this run:
(1) Aim for faster time
(2) Show entertainment
(3) Take damage to save time
(4) Abuse programming error(s) in this game
(5) Manipulate luck
(6) Do not die (no death)
=)


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1955: p0rtal_0f_rain's NES Total Recall in 07:04.45
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Well the first level is indeed faster (although I still don't think it's very close to optimal), but the second level with the fighting chick is 96 frames slower in this version than your canceled version. This is a prime example of what I was talking about with using rerecords to your advantage. Don't just be happy with making one pass through the game, or a level, or a segment. Try different actions, different strategies, etc, and always compare them to each other. That way you can always be sure you're as fast or faster than your previous work. You also seem to avoid taking damage in the third level, but it looks like if you took damage you'd be able to kill the enemies faster. Level 4 was noticeably better, although it seemed like there weren't as many large pauses, but a lot more small ones. The rest of the levels looked about the same to me, except for the large amount of missed shots on the last boss, and there's definitely still room for improvement with RAM watching to make sure you're hitting the enemies at the first frame possible after invulnerability periods. Actually, RAM watching would benefit this game a lot in all areas. Overall it's certainly better, but due to a lot of small things, and a very noticeable lengthened level 2, I have to vote no. I can easily see this going below 7 minutes, and I wouldn't doubt that 6:40 would be possible with very carefully planned health management. Learn some more about RAM watching and (this is most important) test things and compare them to previous results! Make sure whatever you do is on par with both versions 1 and 2. Keep at it though, I still think this has some pretty good TASing potential.
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mmbossman wrote:
The rest of the levels looked about the same to me, except for the large amount of missed shots on the last boss
Of course, once the laser is fired, Richter immediately jumps. I am sure that was the way the game was programmed to start off with. I had no choice but to miss the shot, but I was able to jump a little bit just to score about 4 to 8 hits on him when he was coming down. It is possible to beat the last boss as quick as possible, but firing to make him jump is the only strategy for Quaid. It's been impossible to fool with the memory to where Richter would neither jump nor fire one of his shots where Quaid can quickly defeat him. If I do a version 3, I'll try to cut the run by 4 to 8 seconds. Plus I will see if I can save time by firing the laser a few frames before Quaid meets Richter. But for that, of course, a challenge within a challenge. Big thanx!
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I cancel here. I did submit a version 3, which is a cleanup of version 2 I hope. I beated my previous record by about 4 seconds.
mmbossman wrote:
I can easily see this going below 7 minutes
In that case, you just did. ;)