Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves Speedrun/Tricks Topic (PS3)

2009-10-06 02:14:59 pm

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Hey all,

Even though this game isn't out until next weekend (in the UK) I was given it to play to produce a guide for it. So having played it for 26 hours, I have a - reasonable - idea of what things can help in a speedrun (and as it's such a bloody good game, I reckon it may prove to be a popular one for running in the near future). Whilst I can't go into too much detail now (as I don't want to spoil anything story related) I'll start the ball rolling with a few observations I've made whilst playing it to 100% (including EVERY treasure collected).

* You can take an extra step out over edges to get a bit more distance on a jump. This proves to be rather useful for some of the longer jumps in the game as you don't have to worry about only just making it and having to pull yourself up.

* Some of the unlockable 'tweaks' in the game will make speed running this (as NG+ obviously) a LOT faster (for example, firing a gun whilst using inf ammo when Drake is injured on the snow level allows you to walk forwards over twice as fast as it bypasses the limping animation, whilst using the inf' ammo means you can repeat it over and over again to make the two levels you're limping in faster Grin

).

* I'm confident that the retail release will have the potential for some 'clipping through walls' action as there was a bit of buggyness when hanging off certain ledges.

* The bullets from the

first attack helicopter scene

don;t actually hit/hurt you. I stood still for 2 mins as it fired at me constantly and never hurt me once, so I reckon on a run it can be ignored and is primarily there for dramatic purposes.

I'll give it another run through this weeked to get a better idea of initial times (very first run watching all cut-scenes took 13hrs). Most of a new game run will consist of time improvements with shot accuracy as there are a few occasions where you won't progress until all/a certain number are killed.

Thread title:

Hey all,

Even though this game isn't out until next weekend (in the UK) I was given it to play to produce a guide for it. So having played it for 26 hours, I have a - reasonable - idea of what things can help in a speedrun (and as it's such a bloody good game, I reckon it may prove to be a popular one for running in the near future). Whilst I can't go into [i]too[/i] much detail now (as I don't want to spoil anything story related) I'll start the ball rolling with a few observations I've made whilst playing it to 100% (including EVERY treasure collected).

* You can take an extra step out over edges to get a bit more distance on a jump. This proves to be rather useful for some of the longer jumps in the game as you don't have to worry about only just making it and having to pull yourself up.

* Some of the unlockable 'tweaks' in the game will make speed running this (as NG+ obviously) a LOT faster (for example, firing a gun whilst using inf ammo when Drake is injured on the snow level allows you to walk forwards over twice as fast as it bypasses the limping animation, whilst using the inf' ammo means you can repeat it over and over again to make the two levels you're limping in faster ;D ).

* I'm confident that the retail release will have the potential for some 'clipping through walls' action as there was a bit of buggyness when hanging off certain ledges.

* The bullets from the [spoiler]first attack helicopter scene[/spoiler] don;t actually hit/hurt you. I stood still for 2 mins as it fired at me constantly and never hurt me once, so I reckon on a run it can be ignored and is primarily there for dramatic purposes.

I'll give it another run through this weeked to get a better idea of initial times (very first run watching all cut-scenes took 13hrs). Most of a new game run will consist of time improvements with shot accuracy as there are a few occasions where you won't progress until all/a certain number are killed.

UCpro

2009-10-06 10:57:55 pm

hopefully i'll be getting a PS3 in about a month, and when i do i will be getting this game first thing. looks amazing! anyways, i should be on board to help out with speedrunning this game ... just wanted to let everyone know

Squishface

2009-10-07 10:54:25 pm

If speedrunning this game goes anything like my failed attempts at the first game, the biggest problem is damage. The game is made to be a cover/fire game meaning trying to run past enemies gets you killed very easy.

Rwede

2009-10-26 03:20:57 am

Hello, I'd like to introduce two speedrunning facts who can help while 'Crushing' the game...

* First, you remember when you want to take that frakking train, but you just can't because some bad asses are in your way, right ?

Actually, it's quite impossible to kill all the bad guys in this levl without dying. So, you're asking : "How do you got the train the safe way ?"

First thing to know : this chapter is time-based, meaning whatever you do (kill or not kill, that is NOT the question), you'll have to wait for Clohe's train to go off the screen (which takes about two minutes) while a horde of enemies are after your head...

When I said 'Time-based' I meant you have to wait for the train to leave the place before Elena triggers...

Ok, so you're now on the train, great... Bad guys are shooting back at you, not good...

Just go as fast as you can on the right end, and jump out the window (yes, you can !), then, just head to the back of the place you were, and press circle a bunch of times while running forward as far as you can. You should eventually avoid every shot and go to a corner, near the barriers on the far end of the map, on your left...

Then, equip your weapon, and be ready to take off one of the snipers.

This will be the ONLY enemy you'll have to kill. The others won't come to see you hiding there.

(I'll take a video of this trick, which saves your life, and allows the player to go for a drink while waiting for Elena).

* The other trick is described above.

When Drake is wounded, in the Snow Chapter, he holds his hips because it aches, making him walk veeeeeeeery sloooooowly... You can avoid this by taking a Propane Tank in your hands. Doing this will make Nate kinda run instead of walking painfully...

Hope this will help...

Forgive me for my bad english and for my bad explanations... I'll make videos of what I've described before.

Thanks for reading, and hope it'll help 'Crushing' the game.

Hello, I'd like to introduce two speedrunning facts who can help while 'Crushing' the game...

* First, you remember when you want to take that frakking train, but you just can't because some bad asses are in your way, right ?

Actually, it's quite impossible to kill all the bad guys in this levl without dying. So, you're asking : "How do you got the train the safe way ?"

First thing to know : this chapter is time-based, meaning whatever you do (kill or not kill, that is NOT the question), you'll have to wait for Clohe's train to go off the screen (which takes about two minutes) while a horde of enemies are after your head...

When I said 'Time-based' I meant you have to wait for the train to leave the place before Elena triggers...

Ok, so you're now on the train, great... Bad guys are shooting back at you, not good...

Just go as fast as you can on the right end, and jump out the window (yes, you can !), then, just head to the back of the place you were, and press circle a bunch of times while running forward as far as you can. You should eventually avoid every shot and go to a corner, near the barriers on the far end of the map, on your left...

Then, equip your weapon, and be ready to take off one of the snipers.

This will be the ONLY enemy you'll have to kill. The others won't come to see you hiding there.

(I'll take a video of this trick, which saves your life, and allows the player to go for a drink while waiting for Elena).

* The other trick is described above.

When Drake is wounded, in the Snow Chapter, he holds his hips because it aches, making him walk veeeeeeeery sloooooowly... You can avoid this by taking a Propane Tank in your hands. Doing this will make Nate kinda run instead of walking painfully...

Hope this will help...

Forgive me for my bad english and for my bad explanations... I'll make videos of what I've described before.

Thanks for reading, and hope it'll help 'Crushing' the game.

flicky

2009-10-30 09:00:11 am

$15 per rant/allegory

Quote from Rwede:

When Drake is wounded, in the Snow Chapter, he holds his hips because it aches, making him walk veeeeeeeery sloooooowly... You can avoid this by taking a Propane Tank in your hands. Doing this will make Nate kinda run instead of walking painfully...

Goddamnit, I thought I was going to blow people's minds by unveiling this.

UCpro

2009-11-16 10:47:02 pm

quick question ... for a speedrun of this game, what difficulty setting would everyone like to see? I'm getting a PS3 in a couple days and i'm most likely going to be spending a lot of time putting a run together for this game. Obviously there will be different strategies on the harder difficulties. For anyone that would be interested in seeing something for this game, what would you prefer?

Tigger77

2009-11-17 06:10:41 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

lowest or hardest difficult IMO

btw: A run for this game woud be pretty cool 8)

UCpro

2009-11-19 12:08:04 am

looks like a run of this game will have to be manually timed ... i played through the first chapter and it takes 5 minutes to get through it if you skip the 4 movie cutscenes. Problem is, when you go to load the game up again, it says you've played 15 minutes instead of 5. I think the reason is because the 4 movie cutscenes add up to 10 minutes, and even though you skip them, they still get added to your game time.

Looks like timing for segments will start once you gain control and will end when you hit "save game". Luckily, saving the game only takes only a split second ... so a segmented run won't lose time with each save. Since the game autosaves it will be important to figure out exactly where those checkpoints are (if they aren't right after a movie cutscene) so that when you manually save and leave the game you'll start up at the exact spot you left off at.

I'm going to spend the next week or two playing through the game (which is quite awesome by the way) and then i'll start working on a run on the "very easy" difficulty. I hope there will be some people here to help me out ... not a whole lot of activity in this thread so far.

looks like a run of this game will have to be manually timed ... i played through the first chapter and it takes 5 minutes to get through it if you skip the 4 movie cutscenes.  Problem is, when you go to load the game up again, it says you've played 15 minutes instead of 5.  I think the reason is because the 4 movie cutscenes add up to 10 minutes, and even though you skip them, they still get added to your game time.

Looks like timing for segments will start once you gain control and will end when you hit "save game".  Luckily, saving the game only takes only a split second ... so a segmented run won't lose time with each save.  Since the game autosaves it will be important to figure out exactly where those checkpoints are (if they aren't right after a movie cutscene) so that when you manually save and leave the game you'll start up at the exact spot you left off at.

I'm going to spend the next week or two playing through the game (which is quite awesome by the way) and then i'll start working on a run on the "very easy" difficulty.  I hope there will be some people here to help me out ... not a whole lot of activity in this thread so far.

Tigger77

2009-11-19 05:53:56 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

We shoud ask mike about the timing because if it adds always the same amount per movie it shoud be acurate. Or do I overlooking something Huh?

UCpro

2009-11-19 08:02:04 am

Quote from Tigger77:

We shoud ask mike about the timing because if it adds always the same amount per movie it shoud be acurate. Or do I overlooking something Huh?

well, i don't think there's a way to be accurate with the timing of each movie cutscene ... in the main menu it lists the time of each cutscene, but only in whole minutes ... not minutes and seconds. Seems too complex to try and figure out a way to use the internal clock. We'll have to ask about this ...

mikwuyma

2009-11-19 09:30:48 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

We can use the in-game timer as long as if the time it adds is reliable.

UCpro

2009-11-19 10:07:20 am

Quote from mikwuyma:

We can use the in-game timer as long as if the time it adds is reliable.

I'll do some more testing to see how the ingame clock works ... would this be a case of using this in-game clock for timing but subtracting out the time of the cutscenes? It's really weird that playing for 5 minutes = 15 minutes on the game clock. Are there other games that do this?

ZenicReverie

2009-11-19 05:24:33 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

Quote from UCpro:

Quote from mikwuyma:

We can use the in-game timer as long as if the time it adds is reliable.

I'll do some more testing to see how the ingame clock works ... would this be a case of using this in-game clock for timing but subtracting out the time of the cutscenes? It's really weird that playing for 5 minutes = 15 minutes on the game clock. Are there other games that do this?

I believe there are, but I can't come up with any specific examples, so I hope I'm not pulling that out of thin air.

UCpro

2009-11-20 11:18:14 pm

practice speedrun - chapter 1

... a few mistakes, but i made this merely as a starting off point. i'm going to do a full game recorded practice run before doing a polished run ... i will be doing this on "very easy"

najzere

2009-11-27 03:41:38 pm

Looks good. The only mistake I saw was going the wrong way in the train after the cutscene, but I'm sure you'll remember which way the camera goes next time. Smiley

The game is extremely linear and there's almost no challenge on very easy, so I think the only way to cut down on time will be good gameplay execution. On very easy you can pretty much take any damage an enemy can dish out before killing him with a shotgun or magnum handgun, so I imagine most fights will be quick run-and-guns if they can't be avoided all together.

UCpro

2009-11-27 04:17:29 pm

Quote from najzere:

Looks good. The only mistake I saw was going the wrong way in the train after the cutscene, but I'm sure you'll remember which way the camera goes next time. Smiley

The game is extremely linear and there's almost no challenge on very easy, so I think the only way to cut down on time will be good gameplay execution. On very easy you can pretty much take any damage an enemy can dish out before killing him with a shotgun or magnum handgun, so I imagine most fights will be quick run-and-guns if they can't be avoided all together.

yeah, that mistake was because i was holding down the control stick before gaining control (i actually held it in the right direction, but because the camera angle changes before gaining control it sent me off in the wrong direction)

It'll probably be a while before i make any progress with this run, but i do still plan on working on it.

najzere

2009-11-28 10:20:30 am

The only glitch I've noticed is falling through solid objects, although I've only gotten stuck in them so far. But it may lead to some serious sequence breaking if we could ever find a way to get through a wall or something. It usually happens when attempting to jump right before climbing something. It appears the game tries to produce the jump animation at the same time as the climbing animation and forces Drake somewhere awkward. I think I've also seen the enemy doing weird things sometimes, but I don't know how useful that would be for speedrunning purposes.

Rwede

Edit history:

Rwede: 2010-01-06 04:19:12 pm

2010-01-04 04:17:06 am

Well, I hope I'll see moar of this soon :3

BTW, I finally (almost) got the Platinum Trophy... If you need help for any chapter (except the 2 FRAKING Train Chapters), I'll be glad to help you out :3

EDIT :

I see another possible improvement : when you pick up the gun, you'd better not roll and shoot 'from the hip', perhaps you just should aim at the chain (perhaps time-saver).

Anyway, looks good Cheesy

najzere

2010-06-18 04:03:37 am

Well, got bored last night and ran through Uncharted 2 on very easy. It was a ballpark run with no pre-planning, just what I remembered from playing it a few months ago quite a bit. The time came in just under four hours, which seems extremely long to me (from the perspective of trying to watch a run of the game), but it's a fairly long game and while you can skip major cutscenes, there are tons of minor cutscenes where you have zero control and can't skip. If no one finds any sequence breaks, I think it would be tough to get it under three hours. I can see a lot of time savings from my hastily executed runthrough, but it's still going to be pretty long. Game time said six hours and six minutes, by the way, so there's something like a little over an hour of just straight cut scenes.

I've found some good time savers, which basically just consist of better, less obvious platforming tricks and fairly quick battle strategies. Something that I think will keep us from most sequence breaking is this mechanic they have where they just kill you or one of your friends if you leave the area too soon. An example is in chapter fifteen (where you re-climb the train after it crashes). If you climb up and leave the area without taking out all the waves, a random bullet takes you out. The enemies down below also become invincible when you get up there, so you can't just clear them out before you leave.

Some areas are just protected by an in-game mechanism you have to manipulate to leave, which is nearly impossible to do while being shot. There is some wiggle room here though, as you can just take out the bare minimum guys to allow you to raise the door or whatever. I don't know if UCpro is still working on this, or how far he got. If you see this, can you post your overall time or any chapter times?

Well, got bored last night and ran through Uncharted 2 on very easy. It was a ballpark run with no pre-planning, just what I remembered from playing it a few months ago quite a bit. The time came in just under four hours, which seems extremely long to me (from the perspective of trying to watch a run of the game), but it's a fairly long game and while you can skip major cutscenes, there are tons of minor cutscenes where you have zero control and can't skip. If no one finds any sequence breaks, I think it would be tough to get it under three hours. I can see a lot of time savings from my hastily executed runthrough, but it's still going to be pretty long. Game time said six hours and six minutes, by the way, so there's something like a little over an hour of just straight cut scenes.

I've found some good time savers, which basically just consist of better, less obvious platforming tricks and fairly quick battle strategies. Something that I think will keep us from most sequence breaking is this mechanic they have where they just kill you or one of your friends if you leave the area too soon. An example is in chapter fifteen (where you re-climb the train after it crashes). If you climb up and leave the area without taking out all the waves, a random bullet takes you out. The enemies down below also become invincible when you get up there, so you can't just clear them out before you leave.

Some areas are just protected by an in-game mechanism you have to manipulate to leave, which is nearly impossible to do while being shot. There is some wiggle room here though, as you can just take out the bare minimum guys to allow you to raise the door or whatever. I don't know if UCpro is still working on this, or how far he got. If you see this, can you post your overall time or any chapter times?

najzere

2010-06-19 05:08:12 am

Okay, I take it back, under three hours is definitely possible. I did another SS run and got 3:10, and that was with some messing around with strategies and having the wrong info written down for the puzzles in chapters 23 and 24. So who knows how fast a segmented would be. Cheesy

The new patches must have changed the layout of the Lazarevic fight a bit, because there used to be a platform you could hang from and shoot pods on either side of it, and now it seems to have disappeared. That probably wasn't the fastest strategy, but it was definitely the safest.

TheQuietMan

2010-06-19 05:21:14 am

Complete. Global. Saturation.

Up until recently, there was a glitch in multiplayer where, if you held a grenade near a ledge and pressed up on the control pad a bunch of times, you could "fly" across gaps and gain access to a bunch of out of bounds places. If someone were to run an unpatched version of this game, I'm sure it would come in handy in a few places. The river crossing in Turkey would be a good place to try it.
In fact, the Ice Cave chapters would probably be the best places to test it for a NG+ speedrun, assuming the game would give you the grenades in that level from the cheat menu.

najzere

2010-06-19 10:49:56 am

Quote from TheQuietMan:

Up until recently, there was a glitch in multiplayer where, if you held a grenade near a ledge and pressed up on the control pad a bunch of times, you could "fly" across gaps and gain access to a bunch of out of bounds places. If someone were to run an unpatched version of this game, I'm sure it would come in handy in a few places.

Hey, great info! I tested it and it definitely works. I gave myself some grenades and used the glitch to skip all the platforming on chapter 18 (Heart of Ice). I also checked the last chapter, and that nice dual-pod platform is back. For a normal game we'd be constrained to using the glitch on chapters where grenades are available, but since that's most of them, this is bound to be a huge time saver. The only thing I worry about is the auto-kill mechanic the game sometimes uses if you leave an area before its scripted events take place. I'll have to do another run of the unpatched version to see if they behave the same way. Thanks again! Smiley

[quote="TheQuietMan"]
Up until recently, there was a glitch in multiplayer where, if you held a grenade near a ledge and pressed up on the control pad a bunch of times, you could "fly" across gaps and gain access to a bunch of out of bounds places. If someone were to run an unpatched version of this game, I'm sure it would come in handy in a few places.
[/quote]

Hey, great info! I tested it and it definitely works. I gave myself some grenades and used the glitch to skip all the platforming on chapter 18 (Heart of Ice). I also checked the last chapter, and that nice dual-pod platform is back. For a normal game we'd be constrained to using the glitch on chapters where grenades are available, but since that's most of them, this is bound to be a huge time saver. The only thing I worry about is the auto-kill mechanic the game sometimes uses if you leave an area before its scripted events take place. I'll have to do another run of the unpatched version to see if they behave the same way. Thanks again!  :)

najzere

2010-06-23 01:38:08 pm

I have some good news: you can do the grenade hover without grenades! Using the same mechanic (mashing up on the d-pad while pressing forward), you can perform the floating trick by shooting first and holding down R1 while you do it. So this makes the trick usable on every chapter (except chapter 24) I believe, since you pretty much always have a weapon. I haven't done a thorough search for skips with this yet, but I'm sure there's a few, including the one in chapter 18 I found before.

najzere

Edit history:

najzere: 2010-06-26 05:03:14 pm

2010-06-25 03:59:32 pm

Okay with further testing I've found that you don't even need a weapon. Yup, it's really as easy as jamming up on the d-pad and pushing a direction. Since both controls are on one side of the controller, this presents its own challenge though. My left thumb's not trained well enough to keep up a consistent d-pad tap, so I have to put the controller down on the table.

So, with this mechanic I've gone through most of the game and found some sweet skips (and some minor ones). There may be others, as I didn't check chapters that I don't remember there being a place where it would help. I have no idea how much time all this is saving, but it's quite a bit. I don't know if this would get a run down to two hours or not, but it will definitely help.

EDIT: Rechecked chapter four and skipping the whole camp fight is doable. Edited the Chapter 4 spoiler with the method.

Chapter 2: Breaking and Entering

For the second time Flint breaks out his grappling hook and you wall run and jump to the metal grating on the wall, you can hover from the ledge before going down to this area straight to the wall without waiting for the grappling hook.

Chapter 4: The Dig

Right after stealthing the first guy in the camp after the cut scene, climb the closest shipwreck and hover to the ledge with the sandbags on it. I went to the right of the tree in front of the sandbag platform, but you may be able to go to the left. It's a longer hover though, and you lose elevation as you hover, so I'm not sure it's doable. Killing the other three guys in the camp may be optional, but sometimes if you leave an area with enemies in it, they auto-kill your ally. I killed them when I did it, since it took multiple tries to get the hover right and they spotted me on my second attempt. If you get it on the first try when their backs are still to you, that might be ideal.

Chapter 7: They're Coming With Us

It is indeed possible to cross the canal without using the cars in the river. When you get into the area, just go to the right of the stairs that go down to the water and hover from up there to the ladder across the way. On the other side you finish the rest of the chapter by yourself.

Chapter 12: A Train to Catch

After taking out the guys in the first area, you climb up the fire escape with Elena and normally you have to jump out to the signs and shoot the boards out for her on the other side of the door and then a big firefight ensues. Instead, when you get up to the boarded door, climb the wooden crate where you normally jump from to get to the billboards and hover over to the building opposite the boarded door. From there you can climb the ladder up to the cut scene right before you slide down to the train yard and skip the whole fight.

Chapter 17: Mountaineering

There are a couple places you can hover, but in the beginning you have to wait for Tenzin, so they're not useful. The first good one is to hover to skip climbing around after finding the lone dead body and the ice collapses under you. This is the part where you circle around and catch Tenzin and then he does the third grapple hook swing. If you have him boost you up like normal, you can hover to a farther ledge, skipping some wall climbing, then climb a rope and jump to another ledge. From this high ledge you should be able to hover all the way to the platform you normally land on from the grapple swing that starts a cut scene. I hovered to the ledge where you have Tenzin jump and then he does the grapple swing, but when I hovered to the other ledge instead of using the swing, it went to the cut scene so I think you should be able to skip the part where you land and help Tenzin over.

The best skip though, is when you get to the part where you shoot the icicles and then fight your first snow monster. This whole part can be skipped by hovering over to the far side where you shoot the crate to let the rope fall down. I did it by going down into the area and following the stream behind the icicles to the end and hovering from there. I tried hovering to the platform directly out from up on the ledge where you first start, but I didn't make it and you can't get back up there, so I didn't bother restarting the whole level to try again.

Chapter 18: Heart of Ice

This is a huge skip of basically the entire level. Right from the start of the chapter where you're looking out across the way at the big statue on the other side, you can hover down to the floor button on the left that activates the pillars you swing and jump on to get to the middle part where you and Tenzin both stand on buttons. You have to do the jumping and swinging bit on the pillars, because I think it activates something else. I tried hovering directly to the middle platform you end up at, but Tenzin never showed up.

Interestingly, if you go straight to the big statue from the beginning you can glitch right through it and off the sides of it and it's all empty space over there. Nothing helpful though, I'm afraid.

Chapter 22: The Monastery

There's a pretty good skip after the beginning firefight where you take out the turret and then the guys on the other side of the river. When you open the door out of there with Elena, you're supposed to go down and throw a rope up and push a statue and whatnot, but instead you can just hover to the other side. You go on by yourself up to the tower with the door you can't open, and Elena is back with that cut scene. I forgot to try hovering from the top of the tower to the next one, but I know it's an auto-kill if you try crossing the wooden plank after it to the bridge without killing everyone, so I doubt it would be helpful.

Okay with further testing I've found that you don't even need a weapon. Yup, it's really as easy as jamming up on the d-pad and pushing a direction. Since both controls are on one side of the controller, this presents its own challenge though. My left thumb's not trained well enough to keep up a consistent d-pad tap, so I have to put the controller down on the table.

So, with this mechanic I've gone through most of the game and found some sweet skips (and some minor ones). There may be others, as I didn't check chapters that I don't remember there being a place where it would help. I have no idea how much time all this is saving, but it's quite a bit. I don't know if this would get a run down to two hours or not, but it will definitely help.

EDIT: Rechecked chapter four and skipping the whole camp fight is doable. Edited the Chapter 4 spoiler with the method.

[b]Chapter 2: Breaking and Entering[/b] [spoiler]
For the second time Flint breaks out his grappling hook and you wall run and jump to the metal grating on the wall, you can hover from the ledge before going down to this area straight to the wall without waiting for the grappling hook.
[/spoiler]
[b]Chapter 4: The Dig[/b] [spoiler]
Right after stealthing the first guy in the camp after the cut scene, climb the closest shipwreck and hover to the ledge with the sandbags on it. I went to the right of the tree in front of the sandbag platform, but you may be able to go to the left. It's a longer hover though, and you lose elevation as you hover, so I'm not sure it's doable. Killing the other three guys in the camp may be optional, but sometimes if you leave an area with enemies in it, they auto-kill your ally. I killed them when I did it, since it took multiple tries to get the hover right and they spotted me on my second attempt. If you get it on the first try when their backs are still to you, that might be ideal.
[/spoiler]
[b]Chapter 7: They're Coming With Us[/b] [spoiler]
It is indeed possible to cross the canal without using the cars in the river. When you get into the area, just go to the right of the stairs that go down to the water and hover from up there to the ladder across the way. On the other side you finish the rest of the chapter by yourself.
[/spoiler]
[b]Chapter 12: A Train to Catch[/b] [spoiler]
After taking out the guys in the first area, you climb up the fire escape with Elena and normally you have to jump out to the signs and shoot the boards out for her on the other side of the door and then a big firefight ensues. Instead, when you get up to the boarded door, climb the wooden crate where you normally jump from to get to the billboards and hover over to the building opposite the boarded door. From there you can climb the ladder up to the cut scene right before you slide down to the train yard and skip the whole fight.
[/spoiler]
[b]Chapter 17: Mountaineering[/b] [spoiler]
There are a couple places you can hover, but in the beginning you have to wait for Tenzin, so they're not useful. The first good one is to hover to skip climbing around after finding the lone dead body and the ice collapses under you. This is the part where you circle around and catch Tenzin and then he does the third grapple hook swing. If you have him boost you up like normal, you can hover to a farther ledge, skipping some wall climbing, then climb a rope and jump to another ledge. From this high ledge you should be able to hover all the way to the platform you normally land on from the grapple swing that starts a cut scene. I hovered to the ledge where you have Tenzin jump and then he does the grapple swing, but when I hovered to the other ledge instead of using the swing, it went to the cut scene so I think you should be able to skip the part where you land and help Tenzin over.

The best skip though, is when you get to the part where you shoot the icicles and then fight your first snow monster. This whole part can be skipped by hovering over to the far side where you shoot the crate to let the rope fall down. I did it by going down into the area and following the stream behind the icicles to the end and hovering from there. I tried hovering to the platform directly out from up on the ledge where you first start, but I didn't make it and you can't get back up there, so I didn't bother restarting the whole level to try again.
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[b]Chapter 18: Heart of Ice[/b] [spoiler]
This is a huge skip of basically the entire level. Right from the start of the chapter where you're looking out across the way at the big statue on the other side, you can hover down to the floor button on the left that activates the pillars you swing and jump on to get to the middle part where you and Tenzin both stand on buttons. You have to do the jumping and swinging bit on the pillars, because I think it activates something else. I tried hovering directly to the middle platform you end up at, but Tenzin never showed up.

Interestingly, if you go straight to the big statue from the beginning you can glitch right through it and off the sides of it and it's all empty space over there. Nothing helpful though, I'm afraid.
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[b]Chapter 22: The Monastery[/b] [spoiler]
There's a pretty good skip after the beginning firefight where you take out the turret and then the guys on the other side of the river. When you open the door out of there with Elena, you're supposed to go down and throw a rope up and push a statue and whatnot, but instead you can just hover to the other side. You go on by yourself up to the tower with the door you can't open, and Elena is back with that cut scene. I forgot to try hovering from the top of the tower to the next one, but I know it's an auto-kill if you try crossing the wooden plank after it to the bridge without killing everyone, so I doubt it would be helpful.[/spoiler]

TheQuietMan

2010-06-26 05:06:50 pm

Complete. Global. Saturation.

Just checking, but do you know that you can melee at any point during the hover and then jump? You can get up to a ton of ledges even if you lose elevation.