Alien 3 [MD/Genesis]

2013-04-07 09:15:58 am

Time for a update!
I've been practising for a while now and today I completed the game in about 42 min, roughly speaking. I'm quite pleased with the time,although I had some problems at certain levels and a mild hangover to deal with Wink

Sub 40 is absolutely possible to achieve, but I still need a bit more practice before I start recording.

Ghoti

2013-04-08 12:03:28 am

Currently occupying the grey area.

I'll be following.

2013-04-08 06:54:12 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

This game will definitely be fun to run. I remember the normal stages are pretty easy once you have everything memorized, so those areas will just come down to execution. The guardians though are gonna be tough to deal with. I wish you luck with this one.

2013-04-08 07:06:56 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

Following this one too. Love the music, atmosphere, and gameplay, especially the final bosses.

2013-04-09 09:08:49 am

Thanks for the support guys!

Yes, the first 10 levels of the game are not that hard when you know them, but the first time I played the game it was a pain in the ass at some points, haha.
I've been practicing and optimizing all levels individually, except for the last 2-3 levels. Apart from trying to come up with my own tactics and strategies the TAS has been helpful, especially with the boss fights. Most guardians are actually pretty easy once you've learn their moving patterns. I think the hardest parts of the game are the levels where you have to do long jumps between platforms, which requires a lot of precision.

Oh, and if I didn't mention it before I'm playing on hard difficulty.

Edit history:

J.Y: 2013-04-12 03:44:31 pm

J.Y: 2013-04-12 03:43:42 pm

2013-04-12 02:32:25 pm

Here's a couple of previews of two mini-bosses (or Guardians as the game calls them), played on a emulator.

Guardian 2

Of all the attemtps I've made on this guardian, this is probably the fastest on ever made, normally it takes 5-7 more hits with the grenade launcher to kill it! I don't know what causes the quick kill, this was a pretty bad try in terms of speed and shots fired. Guess it was a lot of luck Smiley

An average attempt is about 5 seconds longer, and it will probably be so in the real run.

Guardian 3

This is about as fast as you can kill the guardian. Most of the time you'll need to drop a floor after burning it with the flamethrower and fire some pulse rifle shoots at the guardian in order to kill it. That's probably the method I'll use in the real run since you can collect 20 more shots for the grenade launcher which is needed for the final guardian.

Also, I found this glitch that makes you go Oob!
If you're standing on a floor that falls apart, press and hold down on the D-pad. This makes you slowly fall downwards through the air,and as long as you hold down you will pass through floors, walls, lavapits, ect ect, all the way through the bottom floor. Then you can kind of walk under the level, but you'll be stuck down there and you can't make your way back. However, if you get hit by a alien or land on a moving plattform you'll stop falling.
This may be useful, too bad you can't do it in so many levels.

EDIT: I did some testing just now and it may actually be possible to skip the 20 extra ammo for the grenade launcher and still have enough ammo for the final guardian. To be continued....

Here's a couple of previews of two mini-bosses (or Guardians as the game calls them), played on a emulator.

[b]Guardian 2[/b]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORaAjFRasVw

Of all the attemtps I've made on this guardian, this is probably the fastest on ever made, normally it takes 5-7 more hits with the grenade launcher to kill it! I don't know what causes the quick kill, this was a pretty bad try in terms of speed and shots fired. Guess it was a lot of luck :)
An average attempt is about 5 seconds longer, and it will probably be so in the real run.

[b]Guardian 3[/b]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnug6CNa7B0

This is about as fast as you can kill the guardian. Most of the time you'll need to drop a floor after burning it with the flamethrower and fire some pulse rifle shoots at the guardian in order to kill it. That's probably the method I'll use in the real run since you can collect 20 more shots for the grenade launcher which is needed for the final guardian.

Also, I found this glitch that makes you go Oob!
If you're standing on a floor that falls apart, press and hold down on the D-pad. This makes you slowly fall downwards through the air,and as long as you hold down you will pass through floors, walls, lavapits, ect ect, all the way through the bottom floor. Then you can kind of walk under the level, but you'll be stuck down there and you can't make your way back. However, if you get hit by a alien or land on a moving plattform you'll stop falling.
This may be useful, too bad you can't do it in so many levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmjDyEtTma0&feature=youtu.be

[i]EDIT: I did some testing just now and it may actually be possible to skip the 20 extra ammo for the grenade launcher and still have enough ammo for the final guardian. To be continued....[/i]

2013-04-12 10:13:40 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Nice work, I guess the Guardians aren't as hard as I originally thought. As for that clipping glitch, what happens if you continue to hold duck as you move through the bottom of the level? Can you somehow wrap around to the top and skip to certain key areas (namely the exit door)?

2013-04-13 05:01:30 am

When you've reached the bottom of the level you stop falling, even if you're still pressing down. I'm afraid it's not possible to skip right to the exit door, sadly enough :/

2013-04-28 10:40:45 am

Just did a sub 40 run, I think the time was 39:11. Not really a perfect run, but not far from. Recorded it on DVD, video coming soon.

Ghoti

2013-04-28 09:51:25 pm

Currently occupying the grey area.

nice. You said around 45 mins in an earlier post. Do you have a better idea of a target time now? how much faster could you reasonably go?

2013-04-29 02:14:05 am

Before I started to practise the run I wasn't really sure how fast it would be, so I said 45 min, just to have a time to beat. I'll admit that it was a slow time. but I didn't wanna say to much and look like a fool if I couldn't beat the time Wink

Sub 39 is my next (and probably final) goal. If I had played the NTSC version of the game I would already beaten the TAS, which is more then I've hoped for Smiley

About the vid: The video quality sucks, I don't know why but it does. The sound is also out of sync, I'm gonna try to fix it before I upload it.

2013-05-11 11:34:16 am

Update:
I decided not to upload the run I recorded on DVD (because of the poor video quality) and go for sub 39 instead.
The best time I've gotten so far is 39:03, but I'm still trying. Sooner or later I will get the sub 39 time!

Edit history:

J.Y: 2014-04-14 07:05:33 am

2014-04-14 07:04:01 am

Necro-bump!

Apart from recording a few attempts last summer, I didn't play the game at all until I picked it up again in February. I started out by trying to optimize the game even more than last time, and I did find a couple of small improvements that made things easier.
I also got a hold on a Genesis, which ment that I could play the game at proper speed. It took a couple of hours to get used to the speed, and I had to play it a bit more safe in some parts of the game, but once I felt comfortable with it I started to record again.

My initial goal was to beat the TAS and break the 33 min mark. It didn't take that long to do that, but it wasn't until last night that I finally got a run that I felt was good enough to share. Here it is!

This run is pretty good, but I made too many small mistakes that I normaly wouldn't do, so I'm not going to submit it to SDA. My next (and probably final) goal will be a sub 32 time, and hopefully it won't look as bad as this one does.

[size="16"][b]Necro-bump!
[/b][/size]

Apart from recording a few attempts last summer, I didn't play the game at all until I picked it up again in February. I started out by trying to optimize the game even more than last time, and I did find a couple of small improvements that made things easier.
I also got a hold on a Genesis, which ment that I could play the game at proper speed. It took a couple of hours to get used to the speed, and I had to play it a bit more safe in some parts of the game, but once I felt comfortable with it I started to record again.

My initial goal was to beat the TAS and break the 33 min mark. It didn't take that long to do that, but it wasn't until last night that I finally got a run that I felt was good enough to share.  Here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmKIL7xDy24

This run is pretty good, but I made too many small mistakes that I normaly wouldn't do, so I'm not going to submit it to SDA. My next (and probably final) goal will be a sub 32 time, and hopefully it won't look as bad as this one does.

2014-04-14 08:26:17 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Hot damn that was nice, very clean execution. Even the small mistakes don't spoil it.

2014-04-14 10:05:34 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

Watched the run. It's good. I never realized how much this game lends itself to speedrunning just off routing to save the prisoners and I've been playing it off and on since the mid 1990's. Keep up the good work.

2014-04-15 01:13:28 am

Thanks guys! I've spent many hours routing and practicing this game, and I'm glad that I picked it up again a couple of months ago, otherwise all my work would have been for nothing.

About the mistakes: The hits I take on Mission 3,4 and 8 doesn't actually cost me any time becuase the movment patterns of the platforms are always the same, and in the case of these levels, I just had to speed up a bit to catch them, rather than waiting for the like you normally would (if you haven't taken a hit or so).
However, during the "Mission Complete" sequence, when the game is counting all the points, you always loose a second, perhaps two, if you've taken any damage during the mission. So the best thing would be to not take any damage what so ever during the game, but I don't think I've ever made it all the way through without getting hit at least once though.

There are also a couple of parts where I turn the wrong way and fire into the walls. This is all because of the sensitive (or perhaps un-sensitive) D-pad on the Genesis controller. Sometimes when I'm crawling around in the air ducts, I press and hold the D-pad with both thumbs so I won't slip and accidently take a detour. Usually, it doesn't happen that often though.

Thanks guys! I've spent many hours routing and practicing this game, and I'm glad that I picked it up again a couple of months ago, otherwise all my work would have been for nothing.

About the mistakes: The hits I take on Mission 3,4 and 8 doesn't actually cost me any time becuase the movment patterns of the platforms are always the same, and in the case of these levels, I just had to speed up a bit to catch them, rather than waiting for the like you normally would (if you haven't taken a hit or so).
However, during the "Mission Complete" sequence, when the game is counting all the points, you always loose a second, perhaps two, if you've taken any damage during the mission.  So the best thing would be to not take any damage what so ever during the game, but I don't think I've ever made it all the way through without getting hit at least once though.

There are also a couple of parts where I turn the wrong way and fire into the walls. This is all because of the sensitive (or perhaps un-sensitive) D-pad on the Genesis controller. Sometimes when I'm crawling around in the air ducts, I press and hold the D-pad with both thumbs so I won't slip and accidently take a detour. Usually, it doesn't happen that often though.

2014-04-15 07:03:49 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

I think that the unsensitive control is more the game than the Genesis d-pad itself. I remember there being a slight delay before Ripley turns around when you hit the d-pad. Firing at the walls was the only weird thing I spotted though.

2014-04-15 10:25:21 am

The Dork Knight himself.

Every action in the game has a 3-frame hold before it'll happen. The only exception is changing weapons, which is a 1-frame action (although it takes 3 frames to draw out the newly chosen weapon).

2014-04-15 11:47:21 am

I didn't mean that I have problems with the slight delay that you always have when you turn or jump, that's not a big issue. Let me give you an example of what I ment:

If you're running and firing the pulse rifle at the same time, you have to make sure that your finger doesn't slip even the slightest on the D-pad, because then you will fire up in the air or down in the ground. And even if you're just running around without firing any weapons, it's hard to quickly stop, turn, and duck (like in mission 6, at the elevator near the ending).
The Genesis D-pad is imo pretty stiff, and since the controls are so sensitive in this game, it can sometimes be a pain in the ass to make such moves quickly without turning the wrong way (although I usually don't fail as much as I did in this vid though, I must have been a bit unfocused when I recorded it).

2014-04-19 12:10:52 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

Yeah the 3-button controller's dpad is really bad, which is half the reason I use only the 6-button controller (the other half being a more comfy shape).

2014-04-25 11:53:15 am

I don't have any 6-button controllers, I don't think I've even held one in my hand, but if the d-pad is much better I'll probably buy one of those!

By the way honorableJay, do you have the game on cartidge? I was just wondering if you could test the game and see if you also get a lot of slowdowns on the first level, actually on the very first part of the level (where you kill two aliens and then descend down the ladder to save the first prisoner).
When I play on my Mega Drive, it doesn't slow down at all. I've also tried both versions (PAL and NTSC) on my Genesis, and both versions starts to lag at the same places, so I don't think there's anything wrong with the game itself.

2014-04-25 01:36:38 pm

The Dork Knight himself.

I used to have it, but not anymore. Sorry Sad

2014-04-25 03:50:48 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

I have an NTSC Genesis and Alien 3 cart and there is lag on the surface area with those two aliens (and the other two that you wouldn't be spawing) when using the machine gun. I'm not sure why but there is.