3D Gex Games

2013-12-24 02:25:26 am

I found a small timesaver in www.dotcom.com. Also, for everyone who doesn't know it yet, I've started the new TAS! This will be a huge project, so don't expect me to be done fast.

Merry ~~Christmas~~ Gexmas!

exe

2013-12-24 02:43:04 am

from PAListan

Oh great use with the Super Tailbounce.

If practised that in the later part of the Remote, but it's very riskant, because you can fall of easily and on a higher spot it's an big time waste if you fall off.

Merry Gexmas ^^

Crash41596

2013-12-24 06:06:54 am

I urge you to mess with the wrong warp andy. I tried some stuff with it and you can do it in every level. I am also very positive you can do it in gex 2.

andypanther

Edit history:

andypanther: 2013-12-24 12:57:10 pm

2013-12-24 12:53:04 pm

I got myself a PSX emulator, went to Western Station and now I know why your trick never worked for me: It's a version difference! Apparently, the physics of TVs work different on PSX, because on the N64 version it's absolutely impossible to interact with the mule once you stepped on the switch. Even if you cancel it with tailslaps, you will just go through it. On PSX, I got the trick first try.

I will need to test this for Gex 2. If it turns out to be useful, I will have to restart my TAS on that version, even if the emulators are crap.

Crash, can you explain how exactly you're doing the trick on other levels, maybe with a video? I would appreciate it a lot!

Crash41596

2013-12-24 05:25:44 pm

This trick is actually pretty simple. You grab the remote and spin away untill the remote respawns(You have to be a certain distance away). Then it should try and send you to a different level.

andypanther

2013-12-25 04:41:43 am

Ok, it's not fun to do it (because of all the mashing) but I did it on some TVs in both games. Looks like it works the same in Gex 2, but I don't really know because this game doesn't tell me what it's loading. I know it's not the overworld, in that case it would say "The Media Dimension" on the screen. The result is the same anyway: An infinite loading screen.

Crash41596

2013-12-25 01:05:34 pm

I still think every level needs to be tested, along with entering 2 levels at the same time.

andypanther

Edit history:

andypanther: 2013-12-25 02:02:15 pm

andypanther: 2013-12-25 01:59:39 pm

2013-12-25 01:54:54 pm

Entering two levels at the same time puts you into the second one. The game even tries to suck you into bonus levels that haven't been opened yet, which produces a crash (N64) or an infinite loading screen (PSX). There's only one thing that I haven't exactly tested yet: Entering boss levels early. If this was possible, we could skip 12 remotes!

I tried to enter the first boss from the TV of the N64-exclusive level, but it just put me into the normal level and ignored the boss TV. I will try Mooshoo Pork next.

Another theory I had was skipping the first boss completely by bypassing the first gate with the trick (letting Gex get sucked into Frankensteinfeld or www.dotcom.com). It didn't work either, you have to be in front of the TV.

It's not that trivial to test though, because I absolutely have to TAS these tests (I won't try to get like 20 1-frame-tailwhips in a row).

Crash41596

2013-12-25 02:56:30 pm

I did manage to do the mystery tv wrong warp, but that's not saying much since it only takes around 8 spins, and I was practicing one of the remotes for an hour. I have also been trying to get oob in mystery tv to see if I can do anything interesting, nothing yet :/.

andypanther

Edit history:

andypanther: 2013-12-26 06:29:25 pm

andypanther: 2013-12-26 06:26:57 pm

andypanther: 2013-12-26 05:18:36 am

andypanther: 2013-12-26 05:18:19 am

andypanther: 2013-12-26 05:16:13 am

2013-12-26 04:43:43 am

Every theory I had so far isn't possible, Gex is really not easy to sequence break. At least I learned more about the mechanics.

- The TV physics work differently in the two games
- In Gex 2, the switches do not "reset" after you moved a certain distance away or got them off camera. Instead, there seems to be a set area of effect (AoE) around the TV that automatically sucks you in. If you leave this area with Tailwhip-cancelling and wait for Gex to get sucked in, the game will try to wrong warp.
- In the overworld, the game will try to suck you into the nearest TV available if you left the AoE of the one you cancelled.
- You can't enter TVs you haven't opened yet.
- The AoE of TVs extends very far horizontally, but not vertically. This can be seen easily by jumping down from the TVs of Rezopolis or Channel Z.
- It is possible to reset the switch of a TV, if you make it all the way to a second switch. In this case, you will just enter the second TV. You can continue to reset TV switches as many times as you want.

With this current knowledge, everything I had in mind to break the game is impossible. You can't break into boss TVs (because it crashes) and you can't skip gates (at least not with the TVs I tested). There might be a chance that you could skip a boss, but I would need to get incredibly lucky (cancelling a level like Out of Toon all the way to the area of Mecharez and somehow come close enough to the AoE of Pain in the Asteroids, so I can enter that level and skip Mecharez)

Edit: WE CAN SKIP MOOSHOO PORK!

Get all the remotes in area 1 (9), at least 6 in area 2, at least 8 in area 4 and open area 5 by killing Mecharez. Then you enter area 6 early with that super easy tailbounce. From there on just jump down from the very right past the red gate. it's so obvious but we never did it.

Note: It only works on N64 (because the remotes from the exclusive level allow you to enter area 4 before area 3.

Every theory I had so far isn't possible, Gex is really not easy to sequence break. At least I learned more about the mechanics.

- The TV physics work differently in the two games
- In Gex 2, the switches do not "reset" after you moved a certain distance away or got them off camera. Instead, there seems to be a set area of effect (AoE) around the TV that automatically sucks you in. If you leave this area with Tailwhip-cancelling and wait for Gex to get sucked in, the game will try to wrong warp. 
- In the overworld, the game will try to suck you into the nearest TV available if you left the AoE of the one you cancelled. 
- You can't enter TVs you haven't opened yet.
- The AoE of TVs extends very far horizontally, but not vertically. This can be seen easily by jumping down from the TVs of Rezopolis or Channel Z.
- It is possible to reset the switch of a TV, if you make it all the way to a second switch. In this case, you will just enter the second TV. You can continue to reset TV switches as many times as you want.

With this current knowledge, everything I had in mind to break the game is impossible. You can't break into boss TVs (because it crashes) and you can't skip gates (at least not with the TVs I tested). There might be a chance that you could skip a boss, but I would need to get incredibly lucky (cancelling a level like Out of Toon all the way to the area of Mecharez and somehow come close enough to the AoE of Pain in the Asteroids, so I can enter that level and skip Mecharez)

Edit: WE CAN SKIP MOOSHOO PORK!

Get all the remotes in area 1 (9), at least 6 in area 2, at least 8 in area 4 and open area 5 by killing Mecharez. Then you enter area 6 early with that super easy tailbounce. From there on just jump down from the very right past the red gate. it's so obvious but we never did it.

Note: It only works on N64 (because the remotes from the exclusive level allow you to enter area 4 before area 3.

andypanther

2013-12-28 03:22:49 am

Another update regarding the sequence breaking attempts.

Both me and P0rtal messed around on the overworld of Gex 2 and eventually he found a way to enter levels early without producing a crash! The key to this is damaging Gex, which is actually possible, because the developers only made him invincible in normal gameplay, but not in his "about-to-enter-a-level" -state. If you do this and manage to land exactly where the switch would be, you will successfully enter the closed level!

It's still not possible to do anything with it, because for this to be useful, we would need to start from the end (Rez). We now have the same problem as Cronikeys had with Banjo-Kazooie, where you would need to start with the last note door for any skip of an earlier one being useful. Also, the gigantic horizontal range of TVs still limits the potential of all this stuff.

exe

2013-12-28 04:31:07 am

from PAListan

OMG these finds are awesome.
Especially the Pork Skip. This changed future Speedruns a lot.

It will be very nice, if you can find a use with the wrong warp on other points.

Very very nice work.

Crash41596

2013-12-28 07:04:49 am

So you can skip into the final boss in 3 now?

andypanther

2013-12-28 07:34:04 am

I don't know if that would work, as the trick to enter levels early requires a practical damage source (I don't know if it has to be fire, though). But Rez early in Gex 3 still seems more realistic than in Gex 2.

Btw, I tried to get the Wrong Warp on Western Station to actually work by taking damage in the process, but it didn't make a difference :/

Strongfox

Edit history:

Strongfox: 2013-12-28 09:50:50 am

2013-12-28 09:50:07 am

Anyone planing on doing 100% for Gex 64/ Gex 2: Enter The Gecko?

andypanther

2013-12-28 10:02:43 am

I want to route 100%, but I have so little time at the moment (German Restream of AGDQ, Gex any% TAS, stupid RL stuff). But I will eventually do it.

Strongfox

2013-12-28 01:10:57 pm

Quote from andypanther:

I want to route 100%, but I have so little time at the moment (German Restream of AGDQ, Gex any% TAS, stupid RL stuff). But I will eventually do it.

Cool, cool. Also Congratulations on getting the German re-stream fully approved and Geo-located Cheesy

andypanther

2014-01-02 05:52:41 am

Some small stuff I found recently:

This is the fastest method for this room, but you can fail it so easily. I honestly never expected this to work, I found it by pure luck.

Exe, now that there's such an easy way for the room skip, I want you to time that remote. In your WR run, it took you roughly 1:24 from entering the level (where the screen turns black) to the moment where you hang on to the ceiling. The MTT remotes are both around 2 minutes, so it would be very interesting to see the difference.

And btw, congrats on the new WR ^^

andypanther

2014-01-04 03:04:10 am

So guys, this is the last Gex vid before AGDQ. After the marathon, I will finally continue the TAS.

This one destroys that last remote. The annoying thing about it are the two enemies right on the jump pads (I killed them beforehand in this video), who could completely troll you by cancelling the power up.

A TAS could probably jump onto the rotating platform with this trick and use it to get to one of the other remotes faster (the one that requires you to grab onto the ceiling).

andypanther

Edit history:

andypanther: 2014-01-26 07:27:45 pm

2014-01-26 03:05:42 am

Gex 3 got its first sequence break, thanks to frogburt:

This OoB allows us to skip a boss, which is always nice, especially since it's the longer of the two pre-Rez boss fights.

When exe told me about that skip, I tried it out for myself, and actually found a way to skip the other boss too:

Frogburts "Funky Town early" should be usable in a run if you practice it enough, but my "Slappy Valley early" is way harder, because you have to blindly navigate Gex OoB. You can't die, as there are no kill planes, but you can easily get lost and fall in bounds to the lobby or the training area. You may not even need the Dracula ability, but this would make the trick even more complicated.

Crash41596

2014-01-26 05:34:23 pm

Awesome, not really sure what else I can say. Cheesy

exe

2014-01-26 07:29:01 pm

from PAListan

That's such a great found. Maybe the biggest found in the whole Gex series

Crash41596

2014-01-31 10:18:46 am

I can't seem to do the clip on psx, but I can do it just fine on n64. While messing around with it I figured out that you don't need to level loop at all to get into funky town.

Crash41596

2014-01-31 12:58:19 pm

Welp, I officially destroyed the psx version

andypanther

2014-02-02 10:25:58 am

Frogburt made Rez early happen:

But don't get too excited: It still requires using either the last bonus level (31 bonus tokens) or the last regular level (26 remotes). 31 bonus tokens may sound promising, but remember: To get them all we would need to enter a lot of levels, which of course requires remotes.

The perfect way to do it would be the one bonus level in the area that doesn't require anything to enter, but here we have a different problem: The TV of Rez is too close to the TV of said bonus level, so we always get sucked into that one. Yes, I actually TASed that, it would be impossible anyway in a non-TAS.

For the moment, the best thing we could do would be finding a perfect route to get the 31 bonus tokens with the least amount of remotes (if that is even faster than just getting 26).

And to all the Gex glitchhunters out there: The only thing that keeps us from doing 0 remote is the range of the bonus TV. Find a way to cancel that, and this game is done!

Frogburt made Rez early happen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBo7JwF8oyw

But don't get too excited: It still requires using either the last bonus level (31 bonus tokens) or the last regular level (26 remotes). 31 bonus tokens may sound promising, but remember: To get them all we would need to enter a lot of levels, which of course requires remotes.

The perfect way to do it would be the one bonus level in the area that doesn't require anything to enter, but here we have a different problem: The TV of Rez is too close to the TV of said bonus level, so we always get sucked into that one. Yes, I actually TASed that, it would be impossible anyway in a non-TAS.

For the moment, the best thing we could do would be finding a perfect route to get the 31 bonus tokens with the least amount of remotes (if that is even faster than just getting 26).

And to all the Gex glitchhunters out there: The only thing that keeps us from doing 0 remote is the range of the bonus TV. Find a way to cancel that, and this game is done!