Aliens vs. Predator (2010) - February 17, 2014

Edit history:

SDAVerification: 2014-02-17 07:39:32 pm

2014-02-03 09:41:06 pm

Game Page: Doesn't exist yet

Aliens vs. Predator (2010) (Any %) (Single Segment) [Xenomorph Campaign]

Decision: Accept

Reason: Playing on "normal" probably isn't its own category, but this run is acceptable for now

Congratulations to 'WingedKitsune'!

Thread title:

SDAVerification

2014-02-03 09:41:14 pm

Run Information

Aliens vs. Predator (2010) (Any %) (Single Segment) [Xenomorph Campaign]

Verification Files

http://v.speeddemosarchive.com/avp-xenomorph-v_HQ.mp4

Please refer to the Verification Guidelines before posting. Verifications are due by Feb. 17, 2014.

Please post your opinions about the run and be certain to conclude your post with a verdict (Accept/Reject). This is not a contest where the majority wins - I will judge each verification on its content. Please keep your verification brief unless you have a good reason otherwise.

After 2 weeks I will read all of the verifications and move this thread to the main verification board and post my verdict.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-04 02:00:49 am

2014-02-04 02:00:35 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

One thing to note is there is about 4-5 minutes of dead space at the end of the video. I stupidly forgot to stop recording after I finished the run. I was in shock that I got a sub 17 minute run.

ShadowDraft

Edit history:

ShadowDraft: 2014-02-18 07:22:07 am

2014-02-04 06:35:38 am

Get over here!

Decision: Neutral

A/V: I hope it's not a local issue but for me the audio and video is desynced by about 4-5 seconds through the hole run.

No cheating detected.

Timing starts at ~20 seconds I believe and ends at around 17:04 with the last input. The time should be 15:54 but you can correct me on that.

A/V quality is not my only reason to reject this run. In the earlier missions there's only a few hiccups here and there but the most time lost is on the last one in the predator fight. The player should be able to kill the first two a lot faster than what is displayed on normal difficulty.

Those are the two main reasons for my decision.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:59:10 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:58:52 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:51:19 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:47:01 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:46:16 am

2014-02-05 11:39:49 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Where is the video desyncing for you? I'm watching it right now from the link above, and there's no desync on my end. There are a few instances of dropped frames here and there, not sure what caused it, but they didn't last for more than 0.5-1 seconds.

The two predator fight there is a bit random. As far as I know, they don't have a fixed pattern, and I have to wait for them to be on the ground before I can start comboing them. If I try it on top of a building, odds are we're going to fall off, and I'm going to lose even more time than what I lost there. Honestly, I think I only lost about 20-30 seconds on that predator fight. They came down to the ground eventually and when they did, I killed them pretty quickly.

I wish I knew why my run comments aren't available yet. Maybe I should just copy and paste them here to this thread.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:56:05 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 11:55:21 am

2014-02-05 11:54:57 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

These are my run comments.

There really wasn't much routing that had to be done for this run. The Xenomorph campaign is really quite straight forward. There's only one thing I have to say. Marines with shotguns suck!! Those guys have ended so many of my runs by one-shotting me in various places.

Stage 1: Not much to say here, it's the tutorial level of the campaign. Very rarely does a run end here unless the game doesn't want to let me make a jump into a vent somewhere. The only other occurences of a failure have happened at the Queen's holding cell, and at the final switch of the level. The guards and the androids are basically RNG, so if the game wants you dead, they'll just blow your head off. I had one occurence where I somehow died right at the final switch just as the cutscene came up because the androids decided to focus on me instead of the other Xenomorphs in the room. When the cutscene ended, I was dead.

Stage 2: This is where the run starts getting difficult. Specifically in the garage section. There are 5 Marines in there, and things can go real bad real fast as I have to kill all six people. There's a primary reason I jump to the ceiling and head for the solitary marine on the stairway in the back, instead of going for the two closest ones. If I attack the two marines closest to me first, my odds of surviving are about 5%. But by attacking the single marine in the back of the room first, my odds of surviving increase to about 75%. A lot of runs have ended in this room.

Stage 3: Not really much to say about this level. There is a room with some marines in there, and you'll notice I attack one of the marines before prying the door open. That's because if I don't, that one marine will just wreck me. For some reason if I attack him, he runs away, giving me time to open the door. As for the final stretch, you'll notice me hugging the ceiling. That's because there's a guy with a shotgun right at the very end near the console I need to destroy. Two runs back before completing this one, that guy one-shot me while I was sprinting passed him, and that never happened before.

Stage 4: Longest stage of the game by far. I'm actually surprised by how fast I handled the mandatory marine kills. I also ended up near death quite a few times, which surprises me further because I managed not to die somehow. Fairly straight forward, I found a new strat for destroying one of the generators by igniting a tank near it the previous run before this one to see if it would work, and it does. I kill the three marines in the area with the final switch I need to destroy, because ignoring them is a very bad idea.

Stage 5: Not much to say here, everything went fairly well aside from going the wrong way on the ground switches. Now, the Predator fights were a bit of a pain, well, the first Predator was, anyway. These first two guys are pure RNG, and you MUST have them down on the ground to stunlock them with heavy attacks. This is literally the only part of the run where heavy attacks are a viable attack option because they take so long to wind up. You can do 2-3 light attacks before doing one heavy attack. The final Predator fight went pretty well actually. Only part I didn't like about it, was that I attacked one extra time before the final input. I can probably save about 30 seconds at least on the boss fights with perfect RNG. But getting that RNG is easier said than done.

I hope you all enjoyed this run of the Xenomorph campaign, because it's so fun for me to do.

These are my run comments.

There really wasn't much routing that had to be done for this run.  The Xenomorph campaign is really quite straight forward.  There's only one thing I have to say.  Marines with shotguns suck!!  Those guys have ended so many of my runs by one-shotting me in various places.

Stage 1: Not much to say here, it's the tutorial level of the campaign.  Very rarely does a run end here unless the game doesn't want to let me make a jump into a vent somewhere.  The only other occurences of a failure have happened at the Queen's holding cell, and at the final switch of the level.  The guards and the androids are basically RNG, so if the game wants you dead, they'll just blow your head off.  I had one occurence where I somehow died right at the final switch just as the cutscene came up because the androids decided to focus on me instead of the other Xenomorphs in the room.  When the cutscene ended, I was dead.

Stage 2: This is where the run starts getting difficult.  Specifically in the garage section.  There are 5 Marines in there, and things can go real bad real fast as I have to kill all six people.  There's a primary reason I jump to the ceiling and head for the solitary marine on the stairway in the back, instead of going for the two closest ones.  If I attack the two marines closest to me first, my odds of surviving are about 5%.  But by attacking the single marine in the back of the room first, my odds of surviving increase to about 75%.  A lot of runs have ended in this room.

Stage 3: Not really much to say about this level.  There is a room with some marines in there, and you'll notice I attack one of the marines before prying the door open.  That's because if I don't, that one marine will just wreck me.  For some reason if I attack him, he runs away, giving me time to open the door.  As for the final stretch, you'll notice me hugging the ceiling.  That's because there's a guy with a shotgun right at the very end near the console I need to destroy.  Two runs back before completing this one, that guy one-shot me while I was sprinting passed him, and that never happened before.

Stage 4: Longest stage of the game by far.  I'm actually surprised by how fast I handled the mandatory marine kills.  I also ended up near death quite a few times, which surprises me further because I managed not to die somehow.  Fairly straight forward, I found a new strat for destroying one of the generators by igniting a tank near it the previous run before this one to see if it would work, and it does.  I kill the three marines in the area with the final switch I need to destroy, because ignoring them is a very bad idea.

Stage 5: Not much to say here, everything went fairly well aside from going the wrong way on the ground switches.  Now, the Predator fights were a bit of a pain, well, the first Predator was, anyway.  These first two guys are pure RNG, and you MUST have them down on the ground to stunlock them with heavy attacks.  This is literally the only part of the run where heavy attacks are a viable attack option because they take so long to wind up.  You can do 2-3 light attacks before doing one heavy attack.  The final Predator fight went pretty well actually.  Only part I didn't like about it, was that I attacked one extra time before the final input.  I can probably save about 30 seconds at least on the boss fights with perfect RNG.  But getting that RNG is easier said than done.

I hope you all enjoyed this run of the Xenomorph campaign, because it's so fun for me to do.

ShadowDraft

2014-02-05 12:26:00 pm

Get over here!

The hole video is desynced. You can tell by every end of mission screen where gamesound is still playing out that happened before.

I've played the game myself and can't recall this happening to me. It might be a recording issue. I'd have to get the game back up on my harddrive and try it out myself but then the fighting is still a considerable timeloss.

Don't take it wrong from me but as you said yourself this can be improved by at least 30 seconds in the last mission alone. I could also make a list with minor timesavers for you if you'd like but I guess you already know what I mean.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 01:56:15 pm

2014-02-05 01:55:44 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I haven't really had the drive to improve this yet unfortunately. If I do go back to running it, it'll probably be on a higher difficulty. Guess we'll see. Really sorry the video desynced on you man.

Freezard

Edit history:

Freezard: 2014-02-05 02:39:07 pm

Freezard: 2014-02-05 02:38:51 pm

Freezard: 2014-02-05 02:38:32 pm

2014-02-05 02:37:08 pm

Played through this game on the highest difficulty a few months ago.

Decision: Accept.

A/V: No audio desync here. ShadowDraft's codecs/player probably are faulty. Video is fine but it's too bad it wasn't recorded in 60 fps since there's a lot of fast mouse movement. I did encounter some points in the video where it froze for a second, beginning at 9:02. But I suspect most of these are loading times because the player is going so fast.

I think some enemies could be killed quicker but otherwise it's a solid run. Stabbing enemies from behind seems to kill them in one hit instead of four normal slashes. Maybe could have used that a bit more (in the jungle, where you have to kill two enemies in the open it took a while for example), unless the stabbing only works if they don't know of your presence. Also it looks like it would have been possible to skip the enemies at 13:26 and just push the button then run away, or at least skipping the first two enemies.

EDIT: Also I'm curious as to why you choose to run the game on Normal instead of Easy? Normally runs with four difficulties are run on either the lowest or highest difficulty. Maybe that would make it possible to skip some more enemies and kill them faster too.

Played through this game on the highest difficulty a few months ago.

Decision: Accept.

A/V: No audio desync here. ShadowDraft's codecs/player probably are faulty. Video is fine but it's too bad it wasn't recorded in 60 fps since there's a lot of fast mouse movement. I did encounter some points in the video where it froze for a second, beginning at 9:02. But I suspect most of these are loading times because the player is going so fast.

I think some enemies could be killed quicker but otherwise it's a solid run. Stabbing enemies from behind seems to kill them in one hit instead of four normal slashes. Maybe could have used that a bit more (in the jungle, where you have to kill two enemies in the open it took a while for example), unless the stabbing only works if they don't know of your presence. Also it looks like it would have been possible to skip the enemies at 13:26 and just push the button then run away, or at least skipping the first two enemies.

EDIT: Also I'm curious as to why you choose to run the game on Normal instead of Easy? Normally runs with four difficulties are run on either the lowest or highest difficulty. Maybe that would make it possible to skip some more enemies and kill them faster too.

ShadowDraft

2014-02-05 03:03:20 pm

Get over here!

I confirmed that it isn't a local issue with other people Freezard. Otherwise I would have given the benefit of the doubt. As I mentioned it might be a recording issue with the game.

UraniumAnchor

2014-02-05 03:18:58 pm

Not a walrus

Since not everybody seems to be having the issue it's probably something nate can fix. The player you're using would be helpful to know.

ShadowDraft

2014-02-05 03:40:47 pm

Get over here!

I updated my vlc player and flash. The issue is still there. After every level ending it plays out the sound of what happened before. It may be an issue with how the game handles the end screen. Can anyone else confirm this?

Blakynt

2014-02-05 03:47:03 pm

games are canvas, use them as such

summary:

valid time 17:21

optimal time potencial 17:00

no cheats detected

no desync perse, but it is true that after a level ens there is sound of what just happend while loading don't known the reason for that

RNG, should not stop this run to be public, I understand that the last fight could had gone better the quality is good and there is very skillful plays along with knowledge of the routes.

reject until further info comes for the echo sounds at the end of the level. other than that i'll will approve it.

----------------------------
detail:

start
00:13

miss direction on tutorial end ,-0.5 - 1 sec

miss jump on tunels start or chapter 2, -0.5 - 1 sec

miss attack on guard on tunnel after disableling tower, -0.5 - 1 sec

miss panel on 13:30 ,-0.5 - 1 sec

starts 15:14

missed a tail swip -15 sec

the last fight can be improved for the forst two predators, but it is hard to say due to, as the runner said, it has a lot of RNG.

last 2:20

ends 17:34

This is my very first verification so take that into account also I haven't play thi

summary:

valid time 17:21

optimal time potencial 17:00

no cheats detected

no desync perse, but it is true that after a level ens there is sound of what just happend while loading don't known the reason for that

RNG, should not stop this run to be public, I understand that the last fight could had gone better the quality is good and there is very skillful plays along with knowledge of the routes.

reject until further info comes for the echo sounds at the end of the level. other than that i'll will approve it.

----------------------------
detail:

start 
00:13

miss direction on tutorial end ,-0.5 - 1 sec

miss jump on tunels start or chapter 2, -0.5 - 1 sec

miss attack on guard on tunnel after disableling tower, -0.5 - 1 sec

miss panel on 13:30 ,-0.5 - 1 sec

starts 15:14

missed a tail swip -15 sec

the last fight can be improved for the forst two predators, but it is hard to say due to, as the runner said, it has a lot of RNG.

last 2:20

ends 17:34

This is my very first verification so take that into account also I haven't play thi

Freezard

2014-02-05 04:38:18 pm

The loopback sound during level transitions is very low but I do notice it now on my second viewthrough. Rejecting the run because of that reason is kinda silly though. It's not a desync either way.

The game is too large to download for me but testing if the loopback is actually caused by the game is simple by just finishing a level and then immediately starting the next one, maybe WingedKitsune could check it out himself.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 05:38:05 pm

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-05 05:37:11 pm

2014-02-05 05:31:15 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Wait, you guy are saying there's a echo in there during the level transitions? I'm not noticing it at all. I mean, there is music during the part where I have to select whether or not to continue and making thew selection makes a blip noise. Whatever echo you're hearing though, could very well just be the game. Voices and stuff do echo in this game.

I turned up the volume on the level transition part, and I heard what sounded like some minor static, which I can verify to be just something the game did. But as far as an echo, I noticed some echoing during the gameplay when I turned the sound up, which I can also verify to be the game. The game just echoes, guess it was supposed to be part of the atmosphere.

ShadowDraft

Edit history:

ShadowDraft: 2014-02-18 07:24:37 am

2014-02-06 01:40:02 am

Get over here!

Ok if it's the game then there's nothing WingedKitsune can do about it.

~~I'll still go with my reject as the gameplay can still be improved by a lot. Even more so on the lowest difficulty.~~ It is a solid run I won't deny that but I think WingedKitsune can easily improve his time.

Now there's another question that came to my mind when I read Blakynt's post. This is the PC release right?

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-06 02:57:42 pm

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-06 02:49:54 pm

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-06 02:49:32 pm

2014-02-06 02:45:51 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Normal difficulty isn't the lowest difficulty. And yes, this is the PC Release. As I said before, if I do go back to trying to improve this run, I'll probably go with a higher difficulty. I'm burned out on this game at the moment though and don't have the drive I need to try and improve this run. I'll bet I went through a hundred attempts or more before I finally got this one. A lot of runs died in the same spot on Stage 2. For now, I'm not going to worry about the RNG screwing me over on the predator bosses. Not worth driving myself crazy over to see if I can save another 5 seconds there, or if they're going to blow the whole run for me.

Blakynt

2014-02-07 05:36:59 am

games are canvas, use them as such

exactly that's what i said, it can be improve by 20 seconds at the most, that leaves some incentive for another runner to attempt a run, but it is small enough to be accepted, it is a very good run nevertheless. Have someone check the "echo" sound yet?

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-08 10:39:36 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-08 10:39:26 am

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-07 12:44:06 pm

2014-02-07 12:38:13 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I did. It's the game.

WingedKitsune

Edit history:

WingedKitsune: 2014-02-08 10:40:54 am

2014-02-08 10:39:42 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Eventually, I do want to go back to this game, just not right now. This is my very first speedrun, I just wanna keep it that way for now. My problem is I get burned out so easily on things, and unfortunately, speedrunning is no different..

WingedKitsune

2014-02-17 03:59:39 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

I've decided this will probably be my first and last submission here. I honestly don't like how one verifier made me feel like my entire run was garbage based upon the RNG of the boss fights at the end of the run, especially after I worked so damn hard on it trying to get a run I felt acceptable to submit. 100+ attempts on this game just to have this guy make me feel lousy. He turned what should have been a fun experience into an experience I've been loathing for the last two weeks. When I do eventually get back to speedrunning, I just won't be sending the runs in for verification. I feel like even if I had saved that extra 20-30 seconds on the first boss fight, he would have found another reason to reject it anyway.

SDAVerification

2014-02-17 07:39:39 pm

Decision posted.

ShadowDraft

2014-02-18 07:28:11 am

Get over here!

Congrats to WingedKitsune. After talking to another runner and replaying the game I decided to change my verification post(s) to a neutral standing.

I hope you'll read my PM and decide otherwise on your decision.