My feelings on The Demon Rush
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Vincent 'Captain' Russo's normal difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Decision: Accept
Reason: Everyone accepted the run, even the most critical verifier who pointed out every little detail.
Vincent 'Captain' Russo's normal difficulty run
Verifier Responses
Quote:
Here's my comments concerning the run.
Raptor attack- From the outset what I see is promising as it seems the player has the first level rehearsed to death and nailed to a tee. The shot on the raptor at 0:30 is rather impressive considering how short of a window the runner has to react, and not a moment later he shows excellent anticipation to oncoming raptor attacks. At 0:42 he makes a shot so early you don’t even see the enemy it’s impacting until it dies, which once again has me impressed by the level of memorization and movement planning so far. The jumping sequence from 0:43-0:55 is flawless and the runner uses a clever jump shot to kill the little orange dinosaur before entering the building such as to minimize the risk of getting hit while not really wasting any time. Next thing that catches me by surprise is the runner’s technique to climb ladders (never knew that was possible and it’s quite an impressive timesaver), though he does waste a bit of time in ensuring he won’t get hit by the raptor before climbing the overhead pipes to the other side. At this point I’m already so impressed with the run that I’d feel pretty redundant constantly complimenting his anticipation of enemy attacks and the expertise of his maneuvers, so I’ll put some more focus on his mistakes. Overall, the Raptor Attack level only had a few noticeable mistakes such as slightly blotched ladder climbs and having to take a health pick-up, though I see it as completely forgiveable, especially when he’s taking risks such as the long jump at 3:02.
Raptor attack EM (emergency mission)- Good technique for taking out the flamethrower guys and he appears to minimize the time wasted from averting grenade attacks while climbing a vine. He does have a pretty sizeable gaff at 4:17, stopping completely to take out the grenade guy and making an unnecessary jump in the flamethrower (FT) kill, though it’s possible the runner ran in on the FT guy to maximize the damage of the second snare gun shot, as exemplified by the triple snare shot to kill the FT guy at 4:42. Overall pretty solid, and I can understand the occasional slowdown to deal with FT guys seeing how deadly they are and the fact that this is an SS run.
T rex carnage- At 5:46 the runner makes the first major mistake of the run, as his missed shot on the dinosaur results in a fall, costing a few seconds. At 6:40 the runner could’ve killed the raptor with a diagonal down-right shot, though that could’ve risked another knockdown.
T rex carnage EM- At 9:13 the runner ducks for an inexplicably long time after the FT kill. He also misses the overhead pipe at 10:49 for a couple seconds lost.
Blockade- Not sure why the runner chooses to take out the FT enemies with overhead shots since he’s stationary during that entire sequence. IMO a double snare shot would work just fine even with the risk of being flamed from overhead. Getting the extra snare ammo at 13:11 cost a lot of time, so I can only wonder if he could’ve averted that by using the machine gun once in a while to conserve his snare ammo.
Blockade EM- At 16:20 the runner appears to make a route error since he went down the ledge to the left but then proceeded to return to the right. My gut feeling says the runner was just being ultra conservative with the FT kill, which is probably my most frequent critique of the run so far. Also, some of the raptor maneuvers are starting to seem less rehearsed and more improvised, as the runner makes his second fall in the run from a double raptor attack. Finally, a terrible mistake was made at 17:10 since the switches took 3 sequences of shots before they were finally activated in the proper order.
High Ptera- No major mistakes here, though the runner could’ve alternated between snare and the machine gun to save time on the grenade thrower kills.
High Pter EM- Another fall at 21:12, followed shortly by a nasty hit. Not only did this cost him loads of time, it also cost him a fair deal of health, which lead to a lot of conservatism afterwards. Though, what bothers me the most is the poor ammo management. Once again machine gun is used in situations where the snare gun should be, and he ends up with a massive excess of 20 snare gun bullets at the end of the level, which seems like pretty poor planning to me. Probably the worst segment so far.
Seek and Destroy- It’s clear that falls are starting to become more frequent, as another one occurs at 22:34, then at 22:44. As if that weren’t enough, the runner completely freezes at the sight of 2 raptors below him and settles for killing one while taking an intentional fall to get better position on the other. The missed shots afterwards seem to show how nervous the runner is becoming, though he at least deals with the situation reasonably and gets into the tunnel without too much time loss. The rest of the level was fine.
Seek and Destroy EM- 4 shots on the FT guy and some of the early snare use seems a bit sloppy. Missing the ammo pick-up also had me cringe a little, especially when he didn’t need it all (he finished the level with a massive excess of 48 snare shots, and this is including all the shots he wasted at the end). The approach to killing the FT guy at 26:09 was pretty ugly and has me fearing ultra conservatism to finish the run. Not very impressed.
Protect the Gallimimus- The first ammo pick-up was slow because the runner also had to switch to the snare, which could’ve easily been averted. Yet another fall at 28:21 and another around 29:00. Once again the ammo management was terrible, he had a reasonably large surplus of snare ammo at the end of the level and this is considering the 10-20 bullets he wasted destroying mines he wasn’t going to land on anyway. Boss fight was good at least.
Protect the Gallimimus EM- A lot of the same critiques as before, though the usage of the machine gun was more justified this time because of the non-existence of convenient pick-ups.
Scientist Radios for help- Falls are just becoming far too frequent, especially when a lot of them are based on poor decisions rather than back luck (such as at 35:47). The mistakes in this segment really had me going “what the hell?”, though I can understand that this is the end of the run, the level is long and confusing, and freaking difficult.
Extra level 2- I could’ve sworn there were 2 falls within 10 seconds of each other, this is just getting ridiculous. At 38:52 an enormous amount of time is lost in the runner’s persistence to go in the wrong direction and he only corrects himself 3 seconds later, losing a total of roughly 5 seconds.
Extra level 3- No complaints about the T-rex kill.
Conclusion- I’m pretty torn about how I feel about this run. On the one hand, I’m quite impressed by the first half of the run and the fact that the runner has the route for each level very well memorized, with his only route mistakes seeming to be a consequence of nerves. On the other hand, a lot of the second half of the run seems far too improvised and the consistent falling, hyper conservatism and poor ammo management really had me frustrated as a viewer. Still, I cannot help but feel I’m underestimating the difficulty of the game and the fact that SS runs in general can be expected to generate somewhat as it goes along, then again I almost feel as though two different people were playing the game based on the stark contrast between the earlygame and lategame performance disparity. Right now I’ll go with my instinct and give this run a reluctant acceptance.
Raptor attack- From the outset what I see is promising as it seems the player has the first level rehearsed to death and nailed to a tee. The shot on the raptor at 0:30 is rather impressive considering how short of a window the runner has to react, and not a moment later he shows excellent anticipation to oncoming raptor attacks. At 0:42 he makes a shot so early you don’t even see the enemy it’s impacting until it dies, which once again has me impressed by the level of memorization and movement planning so far. The jumping sequence from 0:43-0:55 is flawless and the runner uses a clever jump shot to kill the little orange dinosaur before entering the building such as to minimize the risk of getting hit while not really wasting any time. Next thing that catches me by surprise is the runner’s technique to climb ladders (never knew that was possible and it’s quite an impressive timesaver), though he does waste a bit of time in ensuring he won’t get hit by the raptor before climbing the overhead pipes to the other side. At this point I’m already so impressed with the run that I’d feel pretty redundant constantly complimenting his anticipation of enemy attacks and the expertise of his maneuvers, so I’ll put some more focus on his mistakes. Overall, the Raptor Attack level only had a few noticeable mistakes such as slightly blotched ladder climbs and having to take a health pick-up, though I see it as completely forgiveable, especially when he’s taking risks such as the long jump at 3:02.
Raptor attack EM (emergency mission)- Good technique for taking out the flamethrower guys and he appears to minimize the time wasted from averting grenade attacks while climbing a vine. He does have a pretty sizeable gaff at 4:17, stopping completely to take out the grenade guy and making an unnecessary jump in the flamethrower (FT) kill, though it’s possible the runner ran in on the FT guy to maximize the damage of the second snare gun shot, as exemplified by the triple snare shot to kill the FT guy at 4:42. Overall pretty solid, and I can understand the occasional slowdown to deal with FT guys seeing how deadly they are and the fact that this is an SS run.
T rex carnage- At 5:46 the runner makes the first major mistake of the run, as his missed shot on the dinosaur results in a fall, costing a few seconds. At 6:40 the runner could’ve killed the raptor with a diagonal down-right shot, though that could’ve risked another knockdown.
T rex carnage EM- At 9:13 the runner ducks for an inexplicably long time after the FT kill. He also misses the overhead pipe at 10:49 for a couple seconds lost.
Blockade- Not sure why the runner chooses to take out the FT enemies with overhead shots since he’s stationary during that entire sequence. IMO a double snare shot would work just fine even with the risk of being flamed from overhead. Getting the extra snare ammo at 13:11 cost a lot of time, so I can only wonder if he could’ve averted that by using the machine gun once in a while to conserve his snare ammo.
Blockade EM- At 16:20 the runner appears to make a route error since he went down the ledge to the left but then proceeded to return to the right. My gut feeling says the runner was just being ultra conservative with the FT kill, which is probably my most frequent critique of the run so far. Also, some of the raptor maneuvers are starting to seem less rehearsed and more improvised, as the runner makes his second fall in the run from a double raptor attack. Finally, a terrible mistake was made at 17:10 since the switches took 3 sequences of shots before they were finally activated in the proper order.
High Ptera- No major mistakes here, though the runner could’ve alternated between snare and the machine gun to save time on the grenade thrower kills.
High Pter EM- Another fall at 21:12, followed shortly by a nasty hit. Not only did this cost him loads of time, it also cost him a fair deal of health, which lead to a lot of conservatism afterwards. Though, what bothers me the most is the poor ammo management. Once again machine gun is used in situations where the snare gun should be, and he ends up with a massive excess of 20 snare gun bullets at the end of the level, which seems like pretty poor planning to me. Probably the worst segment so far.
Seek and Destroy- It’s clear that falls are starting to become more frequent, as another one occurs at 22:34, then at 22:44. As if that weren’t enough, the runner completely freezes at the sight of 2 raptors below him and settles for killing one while taking an intentional fall to get better position on the other. The missed shots afterwards seem to show how nervous the runner is becoming, though he at least deals with the situation reasonably and gets into the tunnel without too much time loss. The rest of the level was fine.
Seek and Destroy EM- 4 shots on the FT guy and some of the early snare use seems a bit sloppy. Missing the ammo pick-up also had me cringe a little, especially when he didn’t need it all (he finished the level with a massive excess of 48 snare shots, and this is including all the shots he wasted at the end). The approach to killing the FT guy at 26:09 was pretty ugly and has me fearing ultra conservatism to finish the run. Not very impressed.
Protect the Gallimimus- The first ammo pick-up was slow because the runner also had to switch to the snare, which could’ve easily been averted. Yet another fall at 28:21 and another around 29:00. Once again the ammo management was terrible, he had a reasonably large surplus of snare ammo at the end of the level and this is considering the 10-20 bullets he wasted destroying mines he wasn’t going to land on anyway. Boss fight was good at least.
Protect the Gallimimus EM- A lot of the same critiques as before, though the usage of the machine gun was more justified this time because of the non-existence of convenient pick-ups.
Scientist Radios for help- Falls are just becoming far too frequent, especially when a lot of them are based on poor decisions rather than back luck (such as at 35:47). The mistakes in this segment really had me going “what the hell?”, though I can understand that this is the end of the run, the level is long and confusing, and freaking difficult.
Extra level 2- I could’ve sworn there were 2 falls within 10 seconds of each other, this is just getting ridiculous. At 38:52 an enormous amount of time is lost in the runner’s persistence to go in the wrong direction and he only corrects himself 3 seconds later, losing a total of roughly 5 seconds.
Extra level 3- No complaints about the T-rex kill.
Conclusion- I’m pretty torn about how I feel about this run. On the one hand, I’m quite impressed by the first half of the run and the fact that the runner has the route for each level very well memorized, with his only route mistakes seeming to be a consequence of nerves. On the other hand, a lot of the second half of the run seems far too improvised and the consistent falling, hyper conservatism and poor ammo management really had me frustrated as a viewer. Still, I cannot help but feel I’m underestimating the difficulty of the game and the fact that SS runs in general can be expected to generate somewhat as it goes along, then again I almost feel as though two different people were playing the game based on the stark contrast between the earlygame and lategame performance disparity. Right now I’ll go with my instinct and give this run a reluctant acceptance.
Quote:
Verifier: oh yeah rofl, i had already verified before i signed on yesterday but forgot to tell you then too
Verifier: it's a good run, although there are some annoying mistakes
Verifier: but the game is pretty hard so just beating it fast is pretty good
Verifier: also route planning is the most important aspect, and as far as i can tell (but not 100% sure without trying myself of course) all that looks good
Verifier: the most impressive part was how the guy had everything down completely
Verifier: like he knew exactly what he was doing the whole time and had every single enemy planned out basically
Verifier: it felt like a gia run, and i say that without knowing who actually ran it of course
Verifier: it's a good run, although there are some annoying mistakes
Verifier: but the game is pretty hard so just beating it fast is pretty good
Verifier: also route planning is the most important aspect, and as far as i can tell (but not 100% sure without trying myself of course) all that looks good
Verifier: the most impressive part was how the guy had everything down completely
Verifier: like he knew exactly what he was doing the whole time and had every single enemy planned out basically
Verifier: it felt like a gia run, and i say that without knowing who actually ran it of course
Quote:
Sorry for taking so long on this, xmas and what not.
Audio Quality:Fine
Video Quality: I had to turn the brightness up to get it where it was the same as on my console/tv. Also their is a skip at 04:31 where he dosnt duck to pick up the ammo, I dont know enough about recording/playback problems or emulators so dont know what to make of it really. Only a couple of frames if any are saved if any.
Gameplay: Other then a few minor mistakes where he miss's a jump or should have skipped an enemy rather then taking them on and maybe one or two more ammo pickups then needed I would say it is a decent run of a pretty hard game. No deaths and no mistakes in going through the wrong doors or anything.
So if that ammo pickup is innocent which it probably is, I say Accept.
Audio Quality:Fine
Video Quality: I had to turn the brightness up to get it where it was the same as on my console/tv. Also their is a skip at 04:31 where he dosnt duck to pick up the ammo, I dont know enough about recording/playback problems or emulators so dont know what to make of it really. Only a couple of frames if any are saved if any.
Gameplay: Other then a few minor mistakes where he miss's a jump or should have skipped an enemy rather then taking them on and maybe one or two more ammo pickups then needed I would say it is a decent run of a pretty hard game. No deaths and no mistakes in going through the wrong doors or anything.
So if that ammo pickup is innocent which it probably is, I say Accept.
Decision: Accept
Reason: Everyone accepted the run, even the most critical verifier who pointed out every little detail.
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