1-Up!
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/Contra.html
Contra (Any %) (Single Segment)
Verifier Responses
However, in my line of work, I can't afford to dispense with formalities. I owe it to my constituents and the special interest groups that I am righteously beholden to, some of which may include the save the frames foundation, and a certain council whose name cannot be revealed at this time, to give this run a formal review and to ensure that this sentence is as long as is humanly possible, owing itself to a combination of my verboseness, wit, and charisma.
The year is 26xx. After having defeated Red Falcon and Black Viper and enduring fate's cruel and agonizing plot twists, the last of the Contra retire. "Contra" is a master of the fighting spirit and guerrilla tactics. A real Contra only comes out when there is a real challenge that requires the manliest of men. They have not been seen for some time. Red Falcon's charred remains residing somewhere in a smoldering heap in the Much Grande Badlands. The jungles of the Galuga Archipelago were hit with napalm until all the trees were gone. A team even went underground and everything that moved or looked even remotely like a shining base core had been decimated. A flag was hung atop Black Viper's corpse infested carcass in Neo City.
That's not to say that the world wasn't threatened. It's just that there was never a threat that counted as a real Contra. There was never a threat that required a Contra to neutralize. Sure, there was some talk about alien cells. Some combatants could still kill a man with a single touch, but soldiers soon memorized their patterns and the threat was neutralized. There was some other talk about plot twists and intrigue and some shattered guy, but that was just more memorization of enemy movements. There was even talk about a Chief Salamander. No evil plot could threaten the world enough to be considered a REAL Contra challenge. They were just remakes.
Things looked bad for "Contra". As predicted at the end of the alien wars, a peaceful time had come. There were no real wars. Those other skirmishes just didn't count. There was nothing to feel sorry about. Everything was just entertainment. Women who had been irresistibly attracted to the manliness of the Contras wept in despair as they no longer had any real men to lavish their affection on. Gone were the men with real haircuts. Gone were the days when men could trudge through water without going any slower. Gone were the days when rhythm had to do with how you shot your gun. Now a man's hair extended below his neck and it could either be in a pony tail, waist length and blonde, or waist length and white. Rhythm consisted of how many notes you hit on a plastic guitar. Fashion consisted of changing the color of headband on a karate gi. "How can we find a real man?" It seemed hopeless. "Even if we found such a man, the only real measure of his manliness would be how well he kills aliens. There aren't even any aliens to kill!" It seemed so hopeless.
Then one day there came an answer. Time travel had at last been invented. As you can imagine many people came with ideas of how to use this new discovery. Some people thought of going back in time to favorably alter the course of history. Actors and filmmakers sought to use it as an opportunity to test the premises of their various screenplays on time travel for historical accuracy. Others sought to purge pop culture of its....popularity. A group of male youths also inquired about time travel. They wanted to use time travel to go back in time, risk their lives, shoot guns, and become men.. Feeling a certain Call of Duty, thousands petitioned to travel back to World War II. Some youths had more exotic tastes and wanted to go back to the Zombie Era. An argument persisted. There stood one among them who began to rage. He raged at society, he raged at his education, he raged that there were no more wars where men were men, most of all he raged that there were no more real Contras. Amidst a heated debate, the fated words fell from his lips and they brought an entire world to silence. "Send me to fight in the place of the first Contra." A solemn hush fell over the world. "And why," asked the President of the world, "Should we send you?"
The man's mutated right bicep tightened. It was over twice the size of his left arm. It might've been bigger than his thigh. "I can do it faster."
Everyone gasped. One woman fainted.
"Silence!" shrieked the president of the world. "Young man, you have the proportions of a Greek statue and a gaze more paralyzing than a thunder wave. In my solemn duties as president of the world, it is clear to me how this magical power of time travel must be used. We must send our finest warriors back in time in pursuit of aesthetic standards of perfection in combat that can only be measured by how quickly we disgrace and decimate our enemies! Therefore I am sending you off to a time warp."
The man was sent back to the Galuga Archipelago that time had all but forgotten. Only time would tell if he were truly a Contra.
So about the run....
For those who aren't familiar with how you improve Contra runs, I'll tell you the three maxims that govern Contra speedrunning:
1. Shoot to kill,
2. Never retreat
3. Look for the quickest path that places your gun in your enemy's face
Stage 1
I am a huge fan of the last run, don't get me wrong. I am a big a fan of it as there could be, however on watching it you see a violation of principle 2. This run improves it by somersaulting toward the hapless piece of machinery. The aerial acrobatics end with our hero taking a comfortable spot with his gun point blank with what I shall anthropomorphize to be the core's face.
Stage 2
Now one thing I've learned in life is that you've either got the rhythm or you don't. I'm more of an orator myself, but I've been known to get a rhythm going if someone will roll a barrel my way, but this enraged man knows how to find a rhythm. Now I know a lot of people want to be Contras and talked about improving this or that, but when it comes down to rhythm some people just don't have it. When I saw the rhythm in Frezy's first room I figured every subsequent run was going to lose time on stage 2 before the boss. How wrong I was. Speaking of the which, it’s amazing what mutated biceps can do. I have to say that bomb fight is a man’s fight. No it’s a man’s man’s fight. Or maybe it’s a manly men’s man’s men masculine sort of fight. That boss didn’t get halfway across the middle of the screen on his trip back.
Stage 3
A growing body of research suggested that a certain game mechanic that controls jump height can't be reliably manipulated in a run. Our runner pulled it off anyway just because. Shoot faster, jump higher, take more risks. Our runner is always looking for the fastest way to get his gun into an enemy's face. Speaking of our enemy's face, I heard this boss was talking trash. In the last run this boss opened his big mouth and got sprayed with bullets. That wasn't enough to shut his mouth and he opened it up again for the the last word. In this run, if you talk trash, you're dead before you close your mouth.
Stage 4
Now this base stage is solid. In base stages you shoot to kill. Instead of spattering bullets all over the place you get a nice spread stream going. You get it going like a trail of blood. Now if anyone knows about the importance of shooting to kill, it's a Contra runner. Just because some alien head of dubious material composition can separate itself like an apparition doesn't make it invulnerable. Our runner shoots to kill. In fact, our runner pumped this boss up so full of spread that it forgot the meaning of the word "invulnerable" and promptly died. Now I do want to say one thing here. A certain Mayor may be working with this runner in the future on kind of a collaboration of sorts. Kind of like how Zangief and Mayor Mike Haggar collaborated on the spinning piledriver. I forget who taught who what, but the point is that you get the mayor and Zangief involved and stuff gets piledriven into the ground where it belongs. Spread may be used as an acceptable alternative should certain things be out of arms reach. Anyway, what I'm getting at here is if the runner ever made another stab at it, this could be the envy of Mount Olympus. It's certainly the worthy of the mere mortals who thought that the previous run was untouchable.
Stage 5
Now the bombs here have ended many attempts. Unlike the last run, the runner didn't waste a jump at the beginning unsure of whether or not his stream of bullets could incinerate the wretched soul in its path. Speaking of jumps, someone might call out a pause before one of the jumps. I can assure you that our runner is perfectly capable of frame perfect jumps. It was not too long ago that a previous excursion into Snow Field went awry when a certain jump was interrupted by a random encounter with a feral cat. Irony demanded that the runner wait until reaching the same stage and at the most fitting opportunity punch the offending creature in the face. The punch took 23 frames. Sadly it was not captured during the video. Oh and the boss decided to appear where he's supposed to be and get it over with.
Stage 6
There was a missed flame cycle here, but don't think for a second that means our runner needs barrier. It's been a bit too long since I've mentioned one of my three maxims. This runner here really shoots to kill. Unlike the last run, the boss really gets punished as he walks passed. The RNG was worse than the last run on this boss, but the timing comes out the same because of manliness.
Stage 7
There's some global timer stuff that could've gone differently. If this stage were to be improved it would be through for more fully embracing maxim three. It's still fine though. There wasn't a missed jump in this run, just a bit of a pause.
Stage 8
The run is pretty much in the bag, or the spread is in front of the enemy's face at this point. Our runner does find an improvement. In a quiet battle of wits, our runner plays mind games with the crawling spider at the top on the way to the heart and he wins. The last run had to stop and kill the spider before the heart. Speaking of the heart, there's no double KO this time. I like it. Our runner never retreats. Dying means falling backwards. That's retreat.
So to recap, this run
1. Shoots to kill
2. Never retreats
3. Finds the quickest path to get the gun in front of the enemy’s face
To accomplish what can only be called an improvement worthy of the ages
Decision: Accept
Reason: Formality
Decision: Accept
Reason: Formality, apparently.
Congratulations to David Heidman Jr.!
Contra (Any %) (Single Segment)
Verifier Responses
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
Quote from MURPHAGATOR!:
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
Quote from DK28:
Quote from MURPHAGATOR!:
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
Quote from Flip:
That's a lot of names to edit out.
[/whine]
I'm going to mark this ready but it probably won't be posted for a few days, so Mr. K has time to come in and verify or add to the pyramid if he pleases.
[/whine]
I'm going to mark this ready but it probably won't be posted for a few days, so Mr. K has time to come in and verify or add to the pyramid if he pleases.
Quote from zallard1:
Mr. K is actually planning on writing up some detailed comments on the run (as well as throwing in the final pyramid layer). It'd be a crime for this to be posted without his comments after all the research he's done to aid Heidman in completing this run, so please make sure that he posts his comments before releasing this thread.
Quote from DK28:
And I'll say for the record. I don't care if my name is left in. It's a formality after all...
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from DK28:
And I'll say for the record. I don't care if my name is left in. It's a formality after all...
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from DK28:
And I'll say for the record. I don't care if my name is left in. It's a formality after all...
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from DK28:
And I'll say for the record. I don't care if my name is left in. It's a formality after all...
Quote from Mr. K:
Quote from DK28:
Quote from MURPHAGATOR!:
Quote from zallard1:
Quote from dunnius:
Quote from UraniumAnchor:
Formality.
However, in my line of work, I can't afford to dispense with formalities. I owe it to my constituents and the special interest groups that I am righteously beholden to, some of which may include the save the frames foundation, and a certain council whose name cannot be revealed at this time, to give this run a formal review and to ensure that this sentence is as long as is humanly possible, owing itself to a combination of my verboseness, wit, and charisma.
The year is 26xx. After having defeated Red Falcon and Black Viper and enduring fate's cruel and agonizing plot twists, the last of the Contra retire. "Contra" is a master of the fighting spirit and guerrilla tactics. A real Contra only comes out when there is a real challenge that requires the manliest of men. They have not been seen for some time. Red Falcon's charred remains residing somewhere in a smoldering heap in the Much Grande Badlands. The jungles of the Galuga Archipelago were hit with napalm until all the trees were gone. A team even went underground and everything that moved or looked even remotely like a shining base core had been decimated. A flag was hung atop Black Viper's corpse infested carcass in Neo City.
That's not to say that the world wasn't threatened. It's just that there was never a threat that counted as a real Contra. There was never a threat that required a Contra to neutralize. Sure, there was some talk about alien cells. Some combatants could still kill a man with a single touch, but soldiers soon memorized their patterns and the threat was neutralized. There was some other talk about plot twists and intrigue and some shattered guy, but that was just more memorization of enemy movements. There was even talk about a Chief Salamander. No evil plot could threaten the world enough to be considered a REAL Contra challenge. They were just remakes.
Things looked bad for "Contra". As predicted at the end of the alien wars, a peaceful time had come. There were no real wars. Those other skirmishes just didn't count. There was nothing to feel sorry about. Everything was just entertainment. Women who had been irresistibly attracted to the manliness of the Contras wept in despair as they no longer had any real men to lavish their affection on. Gone were the men with real haircuts. Gone were the days when men could trudge through water without going any slower. Gone were the days when rhythm had to do with how you shot your gun. Now a man's hair extended below his neck and it could either be in a pony tail, waist length and blonde, or waist length and white. Rhythm consisted of how many notes you hit on a plastic guitar. Fashion consisted of changing the color of headband on a karate gi. "How can we find a real man?" It seemed hopeless. "Even if we found such a man, the only real measure of his manliness would be how well he kills aliens. There aren't even any aliens to kill!" It seemed so hopeless.
Then one day there came an answer. Time travel had at last been invented. As you can imagine many people came with ideas of how to use this new discovery. Some people thought of going back in time to favorably alter the course of history. Actors and filmmakers sought to use it as an opportunity to test the premises of their various screenplays on time travel for historical accuracy. Others sought to purge pop culture of its....popularity. A group of male youths also inquired about time travel. They wanted to use time travel to go back in time, risk their lives, shoot guns, and become men.. Feeling a certain Call of Duty, thousands petitioned to travel back to World War II. Some youths had more exotic tastes and wanted to go back to the Zombie Era. An argument persisted. There stood one among them who began to rage. He raged at society, he raged at his education, he raged that there were no more wars where men were men, most of all he raged that there were no more real Contras. Amidst a heated debate, the fated words fell from his lips and they brought an entire world to silence. "Send me to fight in the place of the first Contra." A solemn hush fell over the world. "And why," asked the President of the world, "Should we send you?"
The man's mutated right bicep tightened. It was over twice the size of his left arm. It might've been bigger than his thigh. "I can do it faster."
Everyone gasped. One woman fainted.
"Silence!" shrieked the president of the world. "Young man, you have the proportions of a Greek statue and a gaze more paralyzing than a thunder wave. In my solemn duties as president of the world, it is clear to me how this magical power of time travel must be used. We must send our finest warriors back in time in pursuit of aesthetic standards of perfection in combat that can only be measured by how quickly we disgrace and decimate our enemies! Therefore I am sending you off to a time warp."
The man was sent back to the Galuga Archipelago that time had all but forgotten. Only time would tell if he were truly a Contra.
So about the run....
For those who aren't familiar with how you improve Contra runs, I'll tell you the three maxims that govern Contra speedrunning:
1. Shoot to kill,
2. Never retreat
3. Look for the quickest path that places your gun in your enemy's face
Stage 1
I am a huge fan of the last run, don't get me wrong. I am a big a fan of it as there could be, however on watching it you see a violation of principle 2. This run improves it by somersaulting toward the hapless piece of machinery. The aerial acrobatics end with our hero taking a comfortable spot with his gun point blank with what I shall anthropomorphize to be the core's face.
Stage 2
Now one thing I've learned in life is that you've either got the rhythm or you don't. I'm more of an orator myself, but I've been known to get a rhythm going if someone will roll a barrel my way, but this enraged man knows how to find a rhythm. Now I know a lot of people want to be Contras and talked about improving this or that, but when it comes down to rhythm some people just don't have it. When I saw the rhythm in Frezy's first room I figured every subsequent run was going to lose time on stage 2 before the boss. How wrong I was. Speaking of the which, it’s amazing what mutated biceps can do. I have to say that bomb fight is a man’s fight. No it’s a man’s man’s fight. Or maybe it’s a manly men’s man’s men masculine sort of fight. That boss didn’t get halfway across the middle of the screen on his trip back.
Stage 3
A growing body of research suggested that a certain game mechanic that controls jump height can't be reliably manipulated in a run. Our runner pulled it off anyway just because. Shoot faster, jump higher, take more risks. Our runner is always looking for the fastest way to get his gun into an enemy's face. Speaking of our enemy's face, I heard this boss was talking trash. In the last run this boss opened his big mouth and got sprayed with bullets. That wasn't enough to shut his mouth and he opened it up again for the the last word. In this run, if you talk trash, you're dead before you close your mouth.
Stage 4
Now this base stage is solid. In base stages you shoot to kill. Instead of spattering bullets all over the place you get a nice spread stream going. You get it going like a trail of blood. Now if anyone knows about the importance of shooting to kill, it's a Contra runner. Just because some alien head of dubious material composition can separate itself like an apparition doesn't make it invulnerable. Our runner shoots to kill. In fact, our runner pumped this boss up so full of spread that it forgot the meaning of the word "invulnerable" and promptly died. Now I do want to say one thing here. A certain Mayor may be working with this runner in the future on kind of a collaboration of sorts. Kind of like how Zangief and Mayor Mike Haggar collaborated on the spinning piledriver. I forget who taught who what, but the point is that you get the mayor and Zangief involved and stuff gets piledriven into the ground where it belongs. Spread may be used as an acceptable alternative should certain things be out of arms reach. Anyway, what I'm getting at here is if the runner ever made another stab at it, this could be the envy of Mount Olympus. It's certainly the worthy of the mere mortals who thought that the previous run was untouchable.
Stage 5
Now the bombs here have ended many attempts. Unlike the last run, the runner didn't waste a jump at the beginning unsure of whether or not his stream of bullets could incinerate the wretched soul in its path. Speaking of jumps, someone might call out a pause before one of the jumps. I can assure you that our runner is perfectly capable of frame perfect jumps. It was not too long ago that a previous excursion into Snow Field went awry when a certain jump was interrupted by a random encounter with a feral cat. Irony demanded that the runner wait until reaching the same stage and at the most fitting opportunity punch the offending creature in the face. The punch took 23 frames. Sadly it was not captured during the video. Oh and the boss decided to appear where he's supposed to be and get it over with.
Stage 6
There was a missed flame cycle here, but don't think for a second that means our runner needs barrier. It's been a bit too long since I've mentioned one of my three maxims. This runner here really shoots to kill. Unlike the last run, the boss really gets punished as he walks passed. The RNG was worse than the last run on this boss, but the timing comes out the same because of manliness.
Stage 7
There's some global timer stuff that could've gone differently. If this stage were to be improved it would be through for more fully embracing maxim three. It's still fine though. There wasn't a missed jump in this run, just a bit of a pause.
Stage 8
The run is pretty much in the bag, or the spread is in front of the enemy's face at this point. Our runner does find an improvement. In a quiet battle of wits, our runner plays mind games with the crawling spider at the top on the way to the heart and he wins. The last run had to stop and kill the spider before the heart. Speaking of the heart, there's no double KO this time. I like it. Our runner never retreats. Dying means falling backwards. That's retreat.
So to recap, this run
1. Shoots to kill
2. Never retreats
3. Finds the quickest path to get the gun in front of the enemy’s face
To accomplish what can only be called an improvement worthy of the ages
Decision: Accept
Reason: Formality
Quote from DK28:
I <3 K so hard. 
I love the Zangief/Haggar reference. But you better educate Heid on who the hell Haggar is! And for the record, Haggar taught Zangief...
Quote from zallard1:
One of the best verifications I've seen all year. This verification packs such a tightly woven plot and some of the most gripping character arcs I've seen in ages.
Mayor K's verification gets **** out of **** stars. This is the summer blockbuster no one should be allowed to miss.
Mayor K's verification gets **** out of **** stars. This is the summer blockbuster no one should be allowed to miss.
Quote from Flip:
It's times like this when i wish I could just add every sda member to this thread and just call it the Verification Thread.
Quote from DK28:
Then just post the whole thing. 
Decision: Accept
Reason: Formality, apparently.
Congratulations to David Heidman Jr.!
Thread title:
