It would be nifty to see a classic run improved.  Personally, I'd find it the utmost amazing of feats to beat the game on the hardest mode, collection 100% of treasures, and maybe save everyone possible to get access to the special weapons that might have speed running purposes---like my beloved "across the level gun", fastest way to transport a car!

Does anyone know how I could contact lecourer? Feel free to PM me if you do.




What? 

In America 1 you can use the V8-Hiboy to jump over the broken Halsall bridge. I cribbed that from Einstein's gamefaqs guide. And it works. It doesn't look like it should but it does. That saves about 1:45 or so.

I haven't tried it yet but he also says:



I'm sure it would work. That saves about another minute.

MASTER-88:

Thanks.

That's pretty funny. I don't remember that. It wouldn't really help much on Siberia since you can get a VTOL like halfway through. Thanks though, I might have to try that sometime for kicks.

I was able to contact LC. He sent me the following text. Body Harvest God! Some of this stuff I already knew, other stuff was just...wow. Words FAIL! Using a mutant to kill cacti? Using a hangman-b to carry the sub? Genius.


SEQUENCE BREAKS AND TRICKS

Greece 1

-Skip most of the level. Using a motorcycle or a Saloon you can drive up the hill to the Processor, avoiding the need for dynamite, the hangar key, and a tank. Just drive up the hill at full speed, then perform a handbrake (hold A and B) at the top.

Greece 2

-Skip most of the level. Take the motorcycle to the Talosus Statue, and ramp off the ground behind the statue into the water, facing east. When the motorcycle lands in the water, get out and swim east to the Processor’s island. In doing so, you avoid the Sun Shield and  the entire southern half of the stage.

Greece 3

-Skip Atlantis altogether. East of the Pointer Statues there's Bulldog sitting there, at this spot the gap across the water is narrower than anywhere else. Take a motorcycle to the top of the green hill then drive straight at the gap by the Bulldog. If you hit it at the right angle you'll get crazy air, enough to hit near the top of the opposite cliff. Exit the motorcycle on impact and you'll just barely be placed on solid ground as the motorcycle falls into the river. From here run to the nearby Saloon and drive to the airport like normal.
Greece should be cleared in less than 10 minutes.

Java 1

-Quicker level beginning. Instead of running west over to the village/Harvester wave, swim across the bit of water to the north of Alpha 1. There’s a Trekker sitting right there which you'll use for the next trick.

- Skip most of the level. It is possible to cross the eastern bay and reach the Processor without an airboat or any northern island adventures. Get in that Trekker and head to the cluster of buildings on the eastern side of the south island (to the northeast of the Alpha 1). Use the “high speed explosion” glitch facing east, to land in the water about halfway across the bay. Continue swimming east, headed for a tiny stand-able spot of land sticking up out of the water about ¾ of the way across. After stopping there to regain your breath, finish the swim. From here you should go on foot south to the bunker for ammo and a rifle, then get in the airboat to go fight the Processor.

Java 2

-Skip the Army Base. Take a Kubelwagen to the blown up bunker in the northwest. One of the polygons on the north side of the alcove can be driven up, just the right seam of the polygon actually. This is tricky: you have to drive up this polygon at an angle, then when you near the top, jam the control stick to the left. The Kubelwagen will push over the top of the slope, but sort of get stuck in the hill. From here you can get out of the car and proceed on foot, or jiggle the control stick around and hope the Kubelwagen comes unstuck; in any case, you are slightly east of the Jelly that is sapping the Radio Tower’s power. You have just saved about a minute.

-Skip the Radio Tower sequence. You don't have to kill the Jelly on the Radio Tower, you can go crashing through the Roach Gunners instead. Using a Trekker from the Radio Station, drive down to the river and onto the thin bit of land slightly to the right of the path. From there, kill the first Roach Gunner with mortars. Carefully drive off the thin bit of land, to the other side of the river, and up to the next Roach Gunners. Of the three there, mortar the MIDDLE one to death, then drive straight up the hole you've now opened past them; when doing so, stay back a safe distance or the Roach Gunners will smack your Trekker and blow it up. This saves about 20 seconds of travel time and cutscene time in dealing with the Jelly.

-Note that it doesn't seem possible to blow up the Skull tunnel with anything other than grenades.

Java 3

-Cut out a huge part of the level. At Rua-Rua East, take the airboat a few feet straight out into the water, then stop and aim to your left. Go full speed facing south into the bay and up the steep hill (you have to aim for the right side of this slope). When your airboat's momentum runs out at the top of the hill, get out of the airboat (it will slide back down into the water but you will be up on the cliff). Run to the left; there is a “lava” polygon that will eat roughly half of your health bar when you cross it. Now drop down the hill-- you are in the area with a Kubelwagen and rocket launcher bunker, normally accessed from a tunnel near Colonel Murtz’s house. From here dont worry about the rocket launcher, just run down the path to that tunnel and reach Colonel Murtz’s village without saving Rua-Rua West, getting the idol of Rua-Rua, or taking the Javanese Queen.

-Skip the Swamp Fever Medicine. When you reach Colonel Murtz’s village take a Trekker and drive the road north like normal. When you reach the small village where a Harvester wave appears (it appears AFTER getting the Swamp Fever Medicine)  drive up the hills to the left and drop down to the beach. Get out of the Trekker and swim for the long, narrow island to the northwest (though you’ll want to kill the Turrets and water bugs before doing so). From this island the Processor is visible to the north; use a weapon with some distance to kill it (Rifle or Machine Gun are best). Now swim to the Processor’s island for the save point, you need to save before the next part.

Java 4

- Hop the blue fence into Blackness Naval Base. Using a Trekker, jump the water gap over to the base like normal. Drive along the fence, then go right around the bottom corner. Head to the top of the nearby hill and turn around to face the fence. Drive down the hill, then jam right on the control stick to clip the hill weirdly and pop into the air. With some luck you should clear the fence and land inside the base, although the Trekker may get stuck on top of the fence. This avoids traveling down to the big ship and ramming the gate. There's another spot you can clip to jump over the fence, on the hill to the right after you've jumped over the first water gap; this spot would be faster but it's much less consistent.

-Skip the Java Kris Knife. With a gyrocopter, fly south from Blackness Naval Base. Zig-zag around the Roach Gunners and Jellies, all the way to the bottom of the map, along the western edge seems safest. Turn east, swoop under the bridge, and send some rockets into the Processor’s face. Unfortunately the game doesn’t like that the storm is still going and will freeze at least 3 times out of 4 when doing this trick, so make sure you saved in Java 3. While the Processor’s death cutscene is rolling, lightning will destroy your gyrocopter in realtime and possibly even damage you as well. For your daring escape you need to run to the nearby Trekker and head up the hill. Switch over to the other Trekker by the Jelly, you may need its full healthbar. From the Jelly, go east and then follow the road north all the way to the shield portal. When you do this, you do not have to go to the Water Temple, Fire Temple, or Great Temple, nor do you have to stop by the Earth Temple on your first trip through Java 2. Saves around 10 minutes.

America 1

-Glitch through the fence at the start with Karl’s custom hotrod. Get the hotrod like normal, then drive up the hill towards the police barricade. Eventually a Scorpion will notice you and will run up the hill shooting lasers at you. When he nears, accelerate into the fence; when he is on top of you, he will stop shooting lasers and will switch to swiping with his claws. His first swipe should hit the police truck on the other side of the fence; his second swipe should push your hotrod through the fence. Now you can proceed to the school like normal and use the bus to knock over the fence blocking the ramp, and not backtrack to get the hotrod. Saves about a minute.

-Skip the storm drain. When you have jumped across the broken bridge in the custom hotrod, head south to the broken Halsall Bridge. Drive at full speed along the eastern side (the side to YOUR left)… When you reach the southern tip of the bridge, four Roach Gunners will teleport in. What SHOULD happen is, you are inside the leftmost Roach Gunner’s clipping when he teleports in, and so you will be “warp-boosted” upwards and across the broken bridge. (Thanks KID EINSTEIN.) You skip the whole storm drain and save more than a minute.

America 2

-Fly a helicopter through the shield portal and beat America 2 in about 30 seconds. There are  two cacti on the ground preventing you from taking a helicopter and even most cars through the portal that connects to America 2. The cacti are invincible to most kinds of damage, but the one thing I found that can knock them over is a mutant. So in the normal course of running through America 1 a mutant should appear. When you reach the hospital and get a helicopter, instead of killing the processor right away (if you do the mutant disappears), fly all the way north to the shield portal, land the helicopter nearby, and stand near the cacti on foot. When the mutant arrives (shouldn't be long), in the course of his jumping around you, with a little luck he’ll hit a cactus and it will be knocked over. With only one of the cactuses down, it's possible to fit one of the small helicopters through the hole and fly straight over all of America 2. Once the cactus is knocked down you have to fly back to the processor and kill it to open the portal, then fly back; but this should still be faster than playing America 2 like normal.

If you play on foot you can use these tricks:
-Skip the battle in Blackfoot Gulch. Black Adam will warp in and threaten you, but if you just drive straight through to the other side of town, he’ll warp away without fighting.
-Skip the rocket launcher. When you reach the Terra Pueblos, run over to the big rock blocking your progress. Just stand there in the corner and push against the rock, eventually the big earthworms will try to attack you but will mostly hit the rock instead. After a little bit of punishment the rock blows up and you don't need the rocket launcher.
-Skip the second half of the level. When I say second half, I mean the collecting of the totem pieces, the spirit quest, and the Indian village in general. When you reach the Monster Bug in the creek, you normally head south and catch a glimpse of some Roach Gunners across the water. With the Monster Bug, you can cross the water, skirt the edge of the mountainside, and finally drive up it and drop down into the valley of the Processor. The best bet is then to get into the damaged Huey and knock the Processor out from the air. Alternatively, you can take the Monster Bug over to Base Station 508 and drive up the mountainside there to drop down for a fully-powered Huey. The first method is a little bit faster though more risky.

America 3

-Fly a helicopter through the shield portal and beat the Processor in less than a minute. If you take the little red and white helicopter from America 1, you’ll have no trouble getting through. It's possible with a bigger Huey too but harder. (Thanks KID EINSTEIN.) The UFO part should be played like normal.


Siberia 1

-Skip the whole stage. To get to Petrozansk, you have to cross a tiny expanse of water. Do so, then turn right. The mountainside is made up of rows and columns of polygons, and either by coincidence or intentional programming, the column of polygons IMMEDIATELY to the right after you cross the water can be walked up. On the lower couple of polygons, you climb slowly. But after a little while, you pick up speed. And you just keep going up. And up. And up. Right up over the top of the mountain. Once you’re over the top, there's a convenient boat you can use to kill the processor. Siberia 1 now takes about a minute and a half.

Siberia 2

-Skip the chemical facility and rocket launcher. This involves getting the past iceberg, obviously. Go to the small strip of land where you would normally fire the rocket launcher from. You can walk up the hill a little bit, then run towards the iceberg. You'll fall close to the water but once you touch the iceberg you should walk straight up the seam between the iceberg and the land, and end up standing on top of the iceberg. Now the Hoveros enemies will hit the iceberg while trying to shoot you, and it will be damaged the same as the rock in America 2. When the iceberg blows up swim back to your high speed boat and continue past.

-Shortcut to the power plant. Past the iceberg, there’s a sort of valley on the northern side of the bay, right by the power plant. The hill in the northwest corner of this valley can be run up, placing you at the entrance to the power plant and thus skipping the need to drive through the whole southwest corner of Siberia 2. Now do the nuclear reactor mission to get the Spectre jet.

Siberia 3

-Skip the underwater portion of the level. The Processor doesn’t appear until the bomb timer runs out, and the workers' deaths don't matter, so spend that time setting up this trick. When the timer starts, use the Hangman B to set the Spectre on the small shore/beach with the tunnel entrance (the southern one). Then land the Hangman B on that same shore next to the Spectre. Run through the tunnel back to the upper area, run to the foreman's shack and wait for the timer to run out. When it does, go in and talk to him to get the Aqua Tank. Drive forward for a little bit, then turn left, get out, and swim to that shore with the Hangman B. Get in the Hangman B, fly close to the water, and LIFT the Aqua Tank up out of the water. Fly north to the Processor, drop the Aqua Tank into the water. Crash the Hangman B into the water and it will explode--now DIVE DOWN to the Aqua Tank (only thing that diving is useful for in the entire game and it's not even intended), get in the tank, and blast the Processor. When it’s dead, exit the Aqua Tank and get in the nearby boat. Drive to the southern shore and the Spectre is waiting for you there to fly into Siberia 4. This all sounds complicated but the idea is, by carrying the Aqua Tank you skip all the underwater driving, and then the Spectre is ready to be accessed as quickly as possible.

Siberia 4 (strategy not completely finished)

(marshmallow note: pretty much the same as my old speedrun -- except I completely sucked at this point and could save like 3-4 minutes with pure optimization and non-horrid play

-With the Spectre from Siberia 2 you can quickly fly to the military base instead of driving around and going through the tunnel.

-Instead of driving to the SCUD Launcher in the Fist tank, it is better to simply FLY west over the battlefield in the Hangman B and carry the SCUD Launcher back, dropping it into the fenced area.

-There seems to be no way to skip the SCUD launch. Even if you're halfway across the map from the SCUD truck when it blows up (you can shoot it from very far with the Spectre's missiles) you'll die automatically.

-When the Processor is defeated, you receive a message that Alpha 1 is under attack. You can just ignore that and head straight to the shield generator. If you do so, then try to fight the boss without saving and resetting, the Alpha 1 will still be under attack. If that other Alpha 1 is destroyed before you win the boss battle, you will receive a game over. It should be possible to win before that, but to make it easier you can save when prompted and just reset, and the enemies attacking Alpha 1 will simply have disappeared and you can fight the boss no problem.

Comet

-Jump over the acid river. When you reach the north-east part of the map (with the green rocks that give you Resonators), you can drive west at high speeds, up into the hills, and ramp over most of the destructive acid river, you'll have probably less than 1/4 of your health left once you finally drive out of the acid. With this jump you cut off pretty much the entire perimeter of the Comet, saving around ten minutes. You'll probably want to save at the save spot immediately to the south, from the start of the level to there should take less than 2 minutes.

-Potential trick: skip destroying the four comet engines. If you use the 'move through wall' glitch mentioned below, you can get past the gate that leads to the building where you kill the brain. Once you do that though, there doesn't seem to be a way out from behind the gate so you're stuck. If there were a way out it would possibly save those few minutes of destroying the engines.


USEFUL GLITCHES

- “High speed explosion.” Now you know that one type of bug that beams down with a harvester wave? The one who likes to back up really far then ram your vehicle? Get in a vehicle and whittle its health down really low somehow, low enough that ONE ram from the ramming bug will destroy the vehicle. Let the ramming bug ram your vehicle… The vehicle will explode because of its low health, but somehow the velocity is transferred into Adam’s body and you'll fly horizontally. You don't gain any height and you fall at the same speed as normal, but as long as you're in the air you'll have huge horizontal speed.  The “finish Java 1 quickly” trick uses this but I don't know of any other useful spots.

-Text skips. In some cases, Daisy’s intrusive messages can be avoided by moving quickly or avoiding a trigger. The one example I can think of is at the first village of Greece 1; if you get into the bridge switch’s building quickly enough, Daisy will never, ever tell you that she is detecting an enemy presence nearby.

-Seam walking. Sometimes if an object is sticking out of the ground, you are able to glitchily run up the seam that is created where the object meets the ground. Examples: the entrance to the Ancient Tunnel in Greece 3; you can run up the right side of the entrance structure reach its roof. The iceberg in Siberia 2; you can run up the seam where the iceberg meets the hillside, and reach the top of the iceberg.

- Get out of car, move through wall. If you have a vehicle wedged up tightly against a wall, and there is nowhere for Adam to exit the vehicle, then sometimes you will be pushed through the nearest wall when you try to exit the vehicle. Examples: Java 2. After getting a tank from the military base, you use it to blast through a set of wooden gates near the Radio Tower. If you take a car such as a Kubelwagen and wedge it tightly against those wooden gates, you can pass through the first one; you’ll be trapped between the gates and will have to reset. Also, this can be done on the Comet at most of the yellow gates with bluish purple lasers blocking the way. Wedge Alpha 1 up between the yellow gates, push against the lasers, and get out; you will end up on the other side of the gate, but Alpha 1 will be beyond reach on the other side.

-Roll into water, save time. If you go up to the edge of some water and do a side-roll into that water, you will follow the contour of the ground while the rolling animation is going, and when it ends you float up to the surface. In some cases, this trick can give you a useful head-start in trying to do some long distance swimming.

-When you get out of water, you go through a slow “get up to my feet” animation before you can move again. If you press Z to shoot while this animation is going, you cancel the animation and regain control sooner.

- Warp boost. If you happen to be located WHERE some bugs beam down, WHEN they beam down, you will be boosted away rapidly. Examples: the Halsall Bridge jump in America 1, pretty much whenever a Harvester wave beams down.

-Magic teleportation of doom. Sometimes when you try to get in a vehicle, you do not get in the vehicle but instead you are magically teleported halfway across the level and left unable to move. This has happened only a handful of times to me. Once I went to get in the Bulldog in the military base in Java 2, but instead I was warped to an empty void (possibly below the ground); twice I tried to get in the custom hotrod in America 1--once I zapped into the middle of the street, right by the hotrod, and once I was zapped to the stage’s northern shield wall, 50 feet in the air, near the Bates Motel. When this happens, the only thing you can do is manipulate the camera. You cannot pause, shoot, or move. Completely bizarre

-If you have two “helicopter” vehicles (this includes, Hueys, the UFO, the Hangman B, Spectres, etc.), you can transfer liftoff power between them. Just land, get out quickly, get in the other vehicle, and watch in amazement as it takes less time than usual to reach liftoff.

I haven't been able to do the Greece 3 skip, Java 1 skip, or the Java 3 airboat wall jump. Everything else was money though.

I can do the Java 3 wall jump now. It's not so bad once you know what to do. Java 1 skip I still haven't done, although I now have an idea where to do it and what to do once I cross the water. Greece 3 bike jump I haven't tried in a long time.

I did a test run. 1h:25m. Subtracting the time savers above + mistakes during the run a sub 1:15 should be quite doable. I'm not so sure about sub 1:10. Sub 1:00 looks dim. But still, basically cutting my former time in half. That's rather nice.

In Greece it's all about the yellow car called the Saloon. So much faster than Nico's Supplies. e.g. you can get one to the right after crossing the bridge after the first town.

In Java 1 I tried going behind the alpha-1 at the start, killing the flying enemies, and using the health they drop in an attempt to extend my life bar so I can swim to the island with the functioning airboat. Didn't work. Health drain is much too fast + it's too far. Looks like you have to use the damage boost method.

Java 2 I don't know how skipping the jelly could be faster than not. When you go over the wall it's RIGHT there. To skip you'd have to drive far away, change vehicles, and kill a couple roach gunners, then jump the gap. OR you could just kill the jelly like right away and then drive unmolested and jump the gap. Which is, btw, so much faster than swimming across + using the tank. Obviously.

End of Java 2 it's better to just ignore the blue APC and kill the proc with the jeep. I think the jeep is faster than it, right? A little bit at least. So that makes going to java 3 + the first village a little faster.

For the Java storm skip I never experienced any freezing as LC described. It's probably a problem with his cart, perhaps similar to my (unique?) random freezing problems in the America 2 desert.

In America 1 the cacti can also be destroyed by having the helicopter enemies explode on them. This is excellent because you don't have to rely on harvesters making mutants quickly. Only one cactus needs to be removed.

In Siberia 2 instead of getting on top of the glacier and having the enemy blow it up (very difficult!) I just run along the right shore all the way to the area where you can run up a hill to the entrance to the nuke facility. It takes approximately a minute. Much easier. I don't think it's even much slower than melting the glacier. I did that twice and it took awhile waiting for the enemy to hit it with multiple bolts + swimming back to the boat...

In Siberia 3 I don't do the sub lift trick. I can do the lake 50+ seconds faster than in my old speed run. Perhaps I should try the sub lift more. It's very difficult to do cleanly and it's easy to waste huge amounts of time.

For the scud section I take a much more direct route to the scud with the hangman-b. The entire last section is just so much better compared to my old speed run.

The comet would be really hard to optimize. I hate the alpha-1 physics. It's like driving a giant bath tub. Then you have to go through tiny doors with teeth on them + slippery hills with 90 degree turns. WHY?

Note that saving at a totem after killing a proc instead of continuing on wastes 35-40 seconds. In a run I would probably only save at greece 2 unless I find a really easy way to do the bike jump (LC says it's brutally difficult. The greece 2 bike jump is pretty hard in and of itself, so...)

I hope to do it someday. Right now my computer is old, my capture card is ancient, and I don't think I have the right equipment to capture BH to current SDA standards. Plus I don't know about some of the tricks that I can't do yet (Greece 3 bike skip and Java 1 skip).

Before this vanishes back into the void again here are some hopefully helpful suggestions, more detailed descriptions of how to do lecourers tricks

GREECE 2:
The main thing that you want to watch out for here is that in the hilly area right before the main jump you could accidentaly do a small jump which causes you to lose a good bit of speed and not be able to make the actual jump into the water.

GREECE 3:
Here is what you need to do to make the jump across the canyon(or at least give yourself a realistic chance of making it).
If you stand in front of the bulldog and look northeast there will be what looks like a flattened v in the terrain in front of you with both sides going up at approxomately 30 degree angles. The lowest point in the middle of the v is the takeoff point. It is much easier to line the bike up with the point if you zoom the camera out.
When you are lined up with the point look out to the northeast and you will see a area where the other cliff is closer than anywhere else. Off to the right of that point there is a thick black line. To have the best chance you need to line yourself up so that vertical lines on your target is about an eighth of an inch to the left of that line while still pointing towards the bottom point of the v.
Once you do that put on the brakes and start backing up the hill. When you near the top your bike will wobble a bit to the left and then start turning right. When you see your bike start to turn to the right that is the cue to throw on the gas. If you are lined up good when you hit the bottom of the hill your bike should redirect itself back towards the takeoff point and you should jump far and hit the cliff high on the other side where you can jump out as lecourer described.

Unfortunately at least for me even though I know what to do it is still at best a 1 in 10 shot since your aim has to be absolutely perfect to make it and just being a hair off will cause you to miss.

For the processor the fastest way to kill it is so start tapping the brakes when you get close enough to start damaging him so that by the time you get up close to him he should have very little or no health left.

JAVA 4:
To get into the naval base the best place to do it IMO is immediately to the right on the hill after jumping the gap. To get in you have to drive facing perpendicular towards the blue shield wall until you are just about to hit the left side of the hill where it steepens. Once you get there jam the control stick to the right and you should go flying over the wall. It may take a couple attempts but that would still be faster than driving around to the hill on the other side.

For the storm skip it is actually possible to kill the processor and fly to the shield portal if you take the Zero in the water instead of the Gyrocopter. What I usually do is fly due south as close to the western shield wall as possible until I'm on the same horizontal level as the processor and then I swing a hard left and blast him in the face with rockets. If you get a quick kill on the processor you should have about 20% of the health bar on the zero left after his death animation. For yoiur escape you want to fly north as close to the blue wall as possible again. I'm not sure but I think flying close to the blue wall gives you at least some protection from the lightning.

Unfortunately I don't know how to do the Java 1 skip either. I've only made it across once and I think that was more a freak accident/lucky break than how you are supposed to do it. The biggest problem is that while I can get the bug to do what I want it to do as far as ramming the jeep it just doesn't send me far enough into the water to make it across.

Finally when you are walking as Adam it as actually faster to quickly alternate pressing left and right while walking foward so that you do a small zigzagging motion forward. Walking like that saves about 7 seconds per minute over just walking straight.

Marshmallow if you ever have time to do this I hope some of this actually helps you (especially with Greece 3). I will probably continue to try to figure the Java 1 trick out whenever I need a break from DK64 but I'm not really optimistic about figuring it out.

Here's another issue:

I thought I could do a segment for each boss since it lets you save right before. But when you reload the save file it forces you to watch the shield tower explosion + alpha-1 take off + landing + transformation sequence. From warp in to boss battle takes ~36 seconds x 4 for each boss = 2m24s.

If the run is timed by real-time instead of the terrible ingame clock then maybe that'd be OK, if the start of the boss fight counts as start of character control. But technically you are in control of Adam for about 1 second as you warp into the level, then the cinema plays.

Stylistically, I should just be a man and go for the boss and kill it, though it would be heart breaking to do the insane greece 3 jump and then fuck up on a big dumb crab.

You're my personal hero. If I still can't do it I'll probably upload some attempts to see if I should be doing anything differently. I still don't understand your original comment about a thick black line though.

If you don't mind my asking, how do you know so much speed running info about Body Harvest? Were you going to do a run like Bush but stopped?



Heh, fair enough. I've used the same N64 controller more or less since 1997. The stick is kinda funky, but I kinda like it that way.



Yes sir, that's just what the doctor ordered. I remember 2 years ago when I was trying this out for several hours that I came a lot closer to this than the greece 3 jump but I still never pulled it off. Plus if it is that consistent I could skip another save point time waster. I bet Bushwacker did all of Greece in one segment because he's that hardcore, so maybe I'm gonna have to man up yet again.



Yeah I was using the Zero in my test runs a couple years back in '09 because it seemed like the gyrocopter was too fragile and I sometimes died to lightning after the processor died. I don't think I was ever able to actually fly away from the processor fight though, although my memory might be getting fuzzy. If it's so hard it requires doing over and over from a save I might have to do some tests to see if the 30 second save penalty is worth it. Good advice!



Yeah I had this in mind too. Mostly because yesterday I was doing test runs and once I killed the lower right arm I think and it dropped plasma bombs, which aren't too helpful. Another concern is when he keeps smashing his pincer into the ground and makes earthquakes that send you flying 200 feet away. I don't know if that's pre-determined, random, or if he tends to do it when I cut in close or drive under him to get the goodies. I'll have to play him a lot to see.



I can't quite remember the specific order of events for that level but wouldn't it still be way faster to just fly the VTOL to the base and get that hangman? Or do you have to unlock it by talking to the military guy? I remember doing that and it took awhile for all the bugs in the first section to catch up. And I remember the hangman-b being about as fast as a flying bus. And you'd have to fly it through the first half of level 4 and the last stretch of level 3.

And if I did use the hangman then that would make me have to reconsider getting the VTOL from the nuke plant in the first place. I'm pretty sure Bush got it though because he talked about moving the VTOL to the shore for the siberia 3 submarine hangman trick...and if I used the hangman to go to siberia 4 I couldn't do that trick because I wouldn't have anything to fly to the middle and ditch in the water. I think. Or I'm confusing myself. Not doing the sub trick may not be that bad because I can do the underwater section a LOT faster than in my old crappy run, but I'm not sure how it compares to the sub trick. So I just named like 4 different things to test -- sub lift trick, quickest water section using the sub, hangman b instead of VTOL, and ignoring VTOL from the nuke plant. Ugh, I wish I could just kill the damned proc through the water using a boat or the VTOL missiles. Actually, you can hurt him with the boat IIRC, except it does like 1 dmg per 10 shots. And about 500 crabs and fish gather under you and you can't move and you get wiped the hell out.

Decisions, decisions...

Thanks for all the help. It really means a lot! If I ever get this run on the SDA I'm gonna credit you and Bushwacker a lot. I'll be on my hands and knees chanting "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!"

I tried the greece 3 jump a lot before your post and man, I got really close like 2x. But I might not be close. Do you always have to ditch, or is it possible to actually clear the entire thing? I landed like 2-3 feet below the cliff and it seemed like a lucky exit could've MAYBE popped me up there. But I'm still probably not doing it right.

I'm 99% sure you can't kill the underwater siberia 3 proc with a VTOL...or a boat. Unless I missed something. That was just an exasperated aside. The jellies on the tower don't matter because they don't appear until after you dump the SCUD in the yellow fenced area...I think.

For the Java storm skip I had a file that was there, so that was handy. Maybe I didn't use the zero in my past runs, although I know it was on my future to do list because you said to use it back then too (and it is obvious...maybe I thought the gyro was faster). I only say this because only now did I finally get my N64 to freeze at the proc like Bushwacker said -- 2 times in 5 tries. I also had one where he suicided, which I remember happening before. And the other 2 times I killed him easily.

Fitting the zero through the shield portal wall seems...well, maybe I just suck too much. Or I should take an approach from the left after following the shield wall. Especially since when I get there I have only a bit of health left and it blows up very easily on a fast landing. Right now my plan is to ditch nearby and grab that German car. It's pretty speedy. So I can zoom to the gyro near the tower, fly in, and kill everything. I'm gonna have to do some timing tests in that area.

As another aside, I'm thinking way ahead about a potential Hero mode speedrun. Pretty sure all enemy HP + damage is increased 2x. Hopefully the lightning won't do 2x damage. And mutants come out 2x faster, but that probably won't matter too much except maybe in Java.

Greece -- fighting the 2nd proc on foot would be really scary. Might actually be faster to nab the machine gun for it.
Java -- fighting that proc on the island on foot would be harder.
America -- stage is roflstomped, wouldn't matter.
Siberia -- I don't think this would change much.
Comet -- Ditto, just killing the engines would be a bit tougher but not by a lot.

The bosses would also take a lot longer to take down and you'd have to actually dodge their attacks since they melt through your health at an alarming rate. Ditto for that scorpion guy on the comet. And the Black Adam in his own bathtub vehicle too.