Body Harvest 64 improvements?

Edit history:

bh guy: 2016-01-22 01:00:20 pm

bh guy: 2016-01-22 09:23:40 am

2016-01-22 09:22:33 am

with that route i think you're almost better off doing your save-and-reset idea rather than spend that much time killing all those enemies...

here's a super fast route that's really only appropriate for segmented... you get to the final battle with 30 missiles but no resonators. also the area up along the southern wall is super glitchy and more often than not you get wedged against a wall and have to reset. but start the final boss cutscene at around the two minute mark, meaning sub 3:30 comet should be possible :O

edit:

and here's the missing southeast launch. the fastest yet and luckily it's super easy. very similar to the original launch in the northwest. i suspect the level geometry might have just been copy and pasted over.

leftysheroes

2016-01-22 06:27:48 pm

The southeast launch spawns a ton of enemies which makes me wonder if the final boss will spawn or just freeze the game. I have yet to survive to the hive mind attempting that route so I don't know.

bh guy

Edit history:

bh guy: 2016-01-23 01:11:57 pm

bh guy: 2016-01-23 11:37:05 am

2016-01-22 06:35:24 pm

-- the level's opening cutscene adds about 15 seconds
-- i lost about 20 seconds against the boss and some seconds elsewhere so 3:15 would be a great goal
-- the game seemed to freeze at the final boss unless i took a few seconds to kill the suppressor when i'm getting the resonator
-- the resonator detour takes about 30 seconds, it may be faster to do without

edit: when i thought of this i did NOT expect it to work. at best i thought the game would freeze. this is completely fucking insane.

double edit:

ok so that first video there, to hit him with the plasma bomb you have to start the battle from the far side of the trigger (plasma bombs don't fire very far and their firing range doesn't change no matter how fast you are moving). this requires you to restart the level and go all the way around again which is obviously very time consuming, so i wasn't sure if that trick could be used in the speedrun or not.

so i started trying to hit him from the proper side, where you exit the central tower. fragcannon and missiles go far enough but they can't seem to hit him. on foot i couldn't get him with the rocket launcher either. i was all out of ideas... until:

you actually need a lot of speed to make this work, otherwise alpha 1 will just bump into him and he'll run around it.

so this takes the comet under 2 minutes easily. and with that i'm done, i retire Smiley

https://youtu.be/8GPSyiWnLyA

-- the level's opening cutscene adds about 15 seconds
-- i lost about 20 seconds against the boss and some seconds elsewhere so 3:15 would be a great goal 
-- the game seemed to freeze at the final boss unless i took a few seconds to kill the suppressor when i'm getting the resonator
-- the resonator detour takes about 30 seconds, it may be faster to do without

edit: when i thought of this i did NOT expect it to work. at best i thought the game would freeze. this is completely fucking insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUv51sjwh0w&feature=youtu.be

double edit:

ok so that first video there, to hit him with the plasma bomb you have to start the battle from the far side of the trigger (plasma bombs don't fire very far and their firing range doesn't change no matter how fast you are moving). this requires you to restart the level and go all the way around again which is obviously very time consuming, so i wasn't sure if that trick could be used in the speedrun or not.

so i started trying to hit him from the proper side, where you exit the central tower. fragcannon and missiles go far enough but they can't seem to hit him. on foot i couldn't get him with the rocket launcher either. i was all out of ideas... until:

https://youtu.be/gHj9Q98ZRQ8

you actually need a lot of speed to make this work, otherwise alpha 1 will just bump into him and he'll run around it.

so this takes the comet under 2 minutes easily. and with that i'm done, i retire :)

bh guy

2016-01-24 02:48:50 pm

the perfect run with this route is around 1:50.

this strategy is in no way appropriate for single segment runs, it's a suicide mission. maybe you can tweak it by killing more enemies or saving and reloading to despawn them. if you mess up the boss skip (alpha 1 went too fast, too slow, or off to the side and didn't hit him) then you're screwed too as alpha 1 is now on the far side of the battlefield. i even had it glitch a few times where alpha 1 was exactly where the boss is supposed to teleport in, so it placed him completely underground or back in the walls near the detention center. it's mind boggling how you only get one attempt at pretty much everyl strat in the game or else you die.

blackbox64

2016-01-24 07:00:58 pm

I go fast I guess

I come back after a hiatus and you've skipped the final boss. Wow.

I have been really busy with college so I haven't been able to do anything with this game. But I feel like I want to pick it up again and stream more often. http://www.twitch.tv/blackbox64131195

Man the hype for this game is great.

Heidrage

Edit history:

Heidrage: 2016-01-25 10:24:05 am

2016-01-25 10:23:17 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

My boss thinks i am out of my mind, im still laughing at the green splat from getting run over

I want that video as a gif

leftysheroes

2016-01-25 07:28:31 pm

Quote from bh guy:

this strategy is in no way appropriate for single segment runs, it's a suicide mission.

Technically the whole single segment route is a suicide mission.

That being said, I will probably just use the original route up to going over the hill and grab the crystal and go south. I will have to take down 2 suppressors but they die in like 2 seconds if you fight them right so not a big deal. Taking the other route increases the ammo requirement and given how tough it actually is to shoot stuff down on console with lag interfering that is a pretty big deal. It shouldn't be really all that much slower(10 seconds maybe) but it should be completely safe which will make it more realistic to do the quick kill on the final boss.

bh guy

2016-01-28 04:50:41 pm

i've been playing around with a little hacking and messing with x, y, z values for position.
your very beginning height when you take control in greece is 620.
the highest you can fly in a vehicle is 2500-3000.
the best tnt launch i managed in greece hit the shield wall up around 9500.
the highest possible value for height is 32767...

... and still the shield wall blocks you.

meanwhile the lowest value is -32768 (which combined with the upper bound is 65536... hmm anyone recognize that number?). any height under the current land you're standing on just pushes you instantaneously up towards land. any height over that max limit just wraps around to the bottom of the level. so changing to a height of, say, 67000 will just place you slightly higher than you currently are.

if you adjust your coordinates to put yourself on othe other side of a shield wall, you just get pushed right back to the active level or get stuck unable to move. the shield generator of each stage is around coordinates 0,0, and if you warp there the damn thing isn't even loaded.

so i guess my point is, there's no sense trying to get over, under, or through the shield wall whatsoever. short of some TAS-like memory corruption, it seems you are stuck actually killing every processor and advancing through the game like normal.

i've been playing around with a little hacking and messing with x, y, z values for position. 
your very beginning height when you take control in greece is 620. 
the highest you can fly in a vehicle is 2500-3000. 
the best tnt launch i managed in greece hit the shield wall up around 9500.
the highest possible value for height is 32767...

... and still the shield wall blocks you.

meanwhile the lowest value is -32768 (which combined with the upper bound is 65536... hmm anyone recognize that number?). any height under the current land you're standing on just pushes you instantaneously up towards land. any height over that max limit just wraps around to the bottom of the level. so changing to a height of, say, 67000 will just place you slightly higher than you currently are.

if you adjust your coordinates to put yourself on othe other side of a shield wall, you just get pushed right back to the active level or get stuck unable to move. the shield generator of each stage is around coordinates 0,0, and if you warp there the damn thing isn't even loaded.

so i guess my point is, there's no sense trying to get over, under, or through the shield wall whatsoever. short of some TAS-like memory corruption, it seems you are stuck actually killing every processor and advancing through the game like normal.

Heidrage

2016-01-29 08:45:38 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

For a game of its time, rather well coded. Very impressive for the N64.

bh guy

2016-01-29 01:31:20 pm

a couple more things: i hacked my position while inside a building (different game mode and coordinates than outside, the game only keeps an x and z value, no height) and was able to get out of bounds inside. you can just walk around in an infinite void outside whatever room is loaded and no other indoor areas will load at the same time. the walls are solid too so you can't just walk back in-bounds without hacking your position again.

also i hacked my position to escape the greece crab boss arena during the fight. basically everything else in the level unloads during that fight and you can walk around a hellish landscape without water, buildings, bridges, vehicles, enemies, or even shield walls. you can walk right past the normal bounds of the level and into a void which just wraps around to the opposite side of the level. the collision for buildings is actually still there but invisible and you can't go indoors anywhere. even the entrances to caves (like where you get the sun shield) are gone. then i walked over to the tnt-bridge cutscene in greece 3 and it played (without a bridge or even the man in black appearing) but adam was frozen in place afterwards and i had to reset. i imagine this unloading aspect applies to every other stage's boss fight. it's even conceivable you could get a boss to knock you out of the arena without cheating, if anything useful could come of it.

a couple more things: i hacked my position while inside a building (different game mode and coordinates than outside, the game only keeps an x and z value, no height) and was able to get out of bounds inside. you can just walk around in an infinite void outside whatever room is loaded and no other indoor areas will load at the same time. the walls are solid too so you can't just walk back in-bounds without hacking your position again.

also i hacked my position to escape the greece crab boss arena during the fight. basically everything else in the level unloads during that fight and you can walk around a hellish landscape without water, buildings, bridges, vehicles, enemies, or even shield walls. you can walk right past the normal bounds of the level and into a void which just wraps around to the opposite side of the level. the collision for buildings is actually still there but invisible and you can't go indoors anywhere. even the entrances to caves (like where you get the sun shield) are gone. then i walked over to the tnt-bridge cutscene in greece 3 and it played (without a bridge or even the man in black appearing) but adam was frozen in place afterwards and i had to reset. i imagine this unloading aspect applies to every other stage's boss fight. it's even conceivable you could get a boss to knock you out of the arena without cheating, if anything useful could come of it.

leftysheroes

2016-02-06 08:33:55 pm

Unless there is some input that bh guy does when he hits the wall that makes it easier for him to get over it the Southeast Launch is REALLY REALLY hard on console. I don't know if its lag or if the wall is rendered different on emulator than on console(cause he says that its not hard) but on average I'm actually pulling it off maybe 1 out of every 50-75 attempts. I am using visual cues to try to line myself up the same way every time but even when I get the line right most of the time I just get stuck in the top of the wall and can't get over. It seems that I have to get the line exactly right and get lucky and glitch through the wall to get into the alien city.

Luckily the quick kill on the boss is not that hard. There is a very small window for actually popping out of the Alpha 1 in order to kill him but there is a very good visual cue to use(when the Alpha 1 goes through the gate) so that makes it easier. I could probably get to the point where I can pull it off 75+ percent of the time.

bh guy I would like to know what you are doing especially when you jump and hit the wall cause I just hold the line. Do you like turn the Alpha 1 slightly or something like that cause I have tried that in order to force myself over when I got stuck but it doesn't work. Maybe it has to be done mid jump??? Hopefully there is something that I'm not doing cause right now this is basically Impossible Bike Jump Lite 55 minutes in.

Unless there is some input that bh guy does when he hits the wall that makes it easier for him to get over it the Southeast Launch is REALLY REALLY hard on console. I don't know if its lag or if the wall is rendered different on emulator than on console(cause he says that its not hard) but on average I'm actually pulling it off maybe 1 out of every 50-75 attempts. I am using visual cues to try to line myself up the same way every time but even when I get the line right most of the time I just get stuck in the top of the wall and can't get over. It seems that I have to get the line exactly right and get lucky and glitch through the wall to get into the alien city.

Luckily the quick kill on the boss is not that hard. There is a very small window for actually popping out of the Alpha 1 in order to kill him but there is a very good visual cue to use(when the Alpha 1 goes through the gate) so that makes it easier. I could probably get to the point where I can pull it off 75+ percent of the time.

bh guy I would like to know what you are doing especially when you jump and hit the wall cause I just hold the line. Do you like turn the Alpha 1 slightly or something like that cause I have tried that in order to force myself over when I got stuck but it doesn't work. Maybe it has to be done mid jump??? Hopefully there is something that I'm not doing cause right now this is basically Impossible Bike Jump Lite 55 minutes in.

bh guy

2016-02-08 06:40:06 am

for that southeast launch, yeah i think i usually try to turn more to the left as soon as i hit the wall. im not sure how much extra turn you get on a keyboard vs a controller but i don't think it's as bad with alpha 1 as it is a normal vehicle. i think it will help to keep firing fragcannon when you're up on the wall too, for extra pushing power. and the most important thing i think is hitting the wall on the grey/green part that raises up a a lot higher, NOT the lower blue section of the wall. the blue part seems to stop your momentum dead, but that grey/green slope isn't as steep and you keep your speed. at the 0:45 mark of that last video i posted you can see i hit the greenish part but then actually keep moving left and go OVER the wall on the blue part. hope that helps. if not, post a video of how you're trying to do it?

meanwhile i've just been looking at the game with Cheat Engine. the memory region with adam's x/y/z coordinates is actually part of a huge section that has the data for every vehicle in the level, complete with coordinates, speed, fuel, and health. i'm going to keep looking around and maybe i can stuff for the enemies too.

for that southeast launch, yeah i think i usually try to turn more to the left as soon as i hit the wall. im not sure how much extra turn you get on a keyboard vs a controller but i don't think it's as bad with alpha 1 as it is a normal vehicle. i think it will help to keep firing fragcannon when you're up on the wall too, for extra pushing power. and the most important thing i think is hitting the wall on the grey/green part that raises up a a lot higher, NOT the lower blue section of the wall. the blue part seems to stop your momentum dead, but that grey/green slope isn't as steep and you keep your speed. at the 0:45 mark of that last video i posted you can see i hit the greenish part but then actually keep moving left and go OVER the wall on the blue part. hope that helps. if not, post a video of how you're trying to do it?

meanwhile i've just been looking at the game with Cheat Engine. the memory region with adam's x/y/z coordinates is actually part of a huge section that has the data for every vehicle in the level, complete with coordinates, speed, fuel, and health. i'm going to keep looking around and maybe i can stuff for the enemies too.

bh guy

2016-02-23 08:47:40 am

after that discovery about skipping the final boss fight simply by killing the man in black's human form, i got really curious about all the other instances in the game where he appears. if you could damage him there, would the game think you killed the same instance of him that appears on the comet and cause the game to end? well i spent a bunch of time looking through the game's memory, and the short answer is no.

long answer, in every instance he has 100 health, except the comet where he has only 1 health point (so he dies instantly when you shoot him... or run him over with alpha 1). he has a few different routines or states...
2= running (like in the greece and siberia cutscenes),
3= animation with arms raised in the air (like just before he transforms on the comet),
4=shooting at you (like in java 4, america 2 in blackfoot gulch, and america 4.... interestingly, if you edit his value to 4 on the comet, he is equipped with a machine gun. i didn't check the other levels though),
5=standing and bleeding, like when you shoot him on the comet. in state 5 there's also a timer that counts down to 0 after a few seconds, so he dies even if you don't shoot him...
7=collapsing to lay on the ground, when you kill him.
but long story short you can edit his health and state values to "kill" him in every other stage outside the comet, even the very brief cutscenes where he only appears for a few seconds, but he just disappears and nothing else happens. so it seems there's some other code on the comet only that will cause the game to end.

i half expected this to work but oh well, it was interesting getting a better understanding of what's going on "behind the scenes". and i found some other interesting memory regions including a lot of text/dialogue that can be edited. maybe i try to document some of this for future TAS or gamehacks, etc.

after that discovery about skipping the final boss fight simply by killing the man in black's human form, i got really curious about all the other instances in the game where he appears. if you could damage him there, would the game think you killed the same instance of him that appears on the comet and cause the game to end? well i spent a bunch of time looking through the game's memory, and the short answer is no.

long answer, in every instance he has 100 health, except the comet where he has only 1 health point (so he dies instantly when you shoot him... or run him over with alpha 1). he has a few different routines or states... 
2= running (like in the greece and siberia cutscenes), 
3= animation with arms raised in the air (like just before he transforms on the comet), 
4=shooting at you (like in java 4, america 2 in blackfoot gulch, and america 4.... interestingly, if you edit his value to 4 on the comet, he is equipped with a machine gun. i didn't check the other levels though), 
5=standing and bleeding, like when you shoot him on the comet. in state 5 there's also a timer that counts down to 0 after a few seconds, so he dies even if you don't shoot him...
7=collapsing to lay on the ground, when you kill him.
but long story short you can edit his health and state values to "kill" him in every other stage outside the comet, even the very brief cutscenes where he only appears for a few seconds, but he just disappears and nothing else happens. so it seems there's some other code on the comet only that will cause the game to end.

i half expected this to work but oh well, it was interesting getting a better understanding of what's going on "behind the scenes". and i found some other interesting memory regions including a lot of text/dialogue that can be edited. maybe i try to document some of this for future TAS or gamehacks, etc.

Heidrage

2016-02-23 08:41:12 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

good research even if nothing is fruitful as of yet

bh guy

2016-02-26 01:44:34 pm

here's an improved version of the java 1 skip, it's a slightly more direct route to the airboat and saves about 10 seconds but naturally it seems more difficult than the other way.

i also looked a little bit at the possibility of swimming straight from alpha 1 to the bunker, using health dropped from the helicopter enemies to extend your swimming range. i edited adam's health value directly to simulate picking up all 4 health pickups, but even if you could miraculously get all of them while swimming in the straightest most directly line you still won't make it.

but funnily, if you drive the jeep into the water behind alpha 1 and wait a minute while it slides all the way down the hill underwater (very sloooooowly), swim out to it and dive in to reset your swim meter, then swim the rest of the way to the bunker-- WITH all 4 health pickups-- you can actually just barely make it. but because of how slow the jeep rolls down the hill this is still way slower than the normal skip (to say nothing of the 1 in a million chance of getting all 4 health pickups from the helicopters). thought it was interesting though.

here's an improved version of the java 1 skip, it's a slightly more direct route to the airboat and saves about 10 seconds but naturally it seems more difficult than the other way.

https://youtu.be/KzFTw8WN1W8

i also looked a little bit at the possibility of swimming straight from alpha 1 to the bunker, using health dropped from the helicopter enemies to extend your swimming range. i edited adam's health value directly to simulate picking up all 4 health pickups, but even if you could miraculously get all of them while swimming in the straightest most directly line you still won't make it.

but funnily, if you drive the jeep into the water behind alpha 1 and wait a minute while it slides all the way down the hill underwater (very sloooooowly), swim out to it and dive in to reset your swim meter, then swim the rest of the way to the bunker-- WITH all 4 health pickups-- you can actually just barely make it. but because of how slow the jeep rolls down the hill this is still way slower than the normal skip (to say nothing of the 1 in a million chance of getting all 4 health pickups from the helicopters). thought it was interesting though.

leftysheroes

2016-05-15 02:37:24 am

School semester is over so its back at this.

I got the setting the Spectre VTOL on the water with the Hangman B to work but when I get in it after taking the processer it takes damage while taking off cause the game thinks its in the water so I usually end up losing about half its health. The problem is that whether you get health in Siberia 4 is very random(you need some of those flying red things to divebomb you when you are taking off after launching the SCUD and if they don't your pretty much screwed cause rushing the Siberia tower with a half health VTOL just isn't going to happen. Trying to shoot down one of the aliens that attack with the wave and get the health safely loses more time than placing the sub on the lake saves.

I think I'm on to something with the Southeast Comet launch. I think that properly timing jamming the joystick to the left when you hit the wall does help when it comes to making it over. It's still very hard but I will probably only need to make it 1 or 2 times ever because the quick kill on the final boss is very very easy. Basically 2-3 Fragcannon coming down the hill, then 1 right when passing through the gate and pop out immediately after. The biggest problem is getting the alpha 1 through the gate but with a little bit of practice that should come. Not counting getting stuck on the gate I got the quick kill like 15 times in a row in practice.

School semester is over so its back at this.

I got the setting the Spectre VTOL on the water with the Hangman B to work but when I get in it after taking the processer it takes damage while taking off cause the game thinks its in the water so I usually end up losing about half its health. The problem is that whether you get health in Siberia 4 is very random(you need some of those flying red things to divebomb you when you are taking off after launching the SCUD and if they don't your pretty much screwed cause rushing the Siberia tower with a half health VTOL just isn't going to happen. Trying to shoot down one of the aliens that attack with the wave and get the health safely loses more time than placing the sub on the lake saves.

I think I'm on to something with the Southeast Comet launch. I think that properly timing jamming the joystick to the left when you hit the wall does help when it comes to making it over. It's still very hard but I will probably only need to make it 1 or 2 times ever because the quick kill on the final boss is very very easy. Basically 2-3 Fragcannon coming down the hill, then 1 right when passing through the gate and pop out immediately after. The biggest problem is getting the alpha 1 through the gate but with a little bit of practice that should come. Not counting getting stuck on the gate I got the quick kill like 15 times in a row in practice.

blackbox64

2016-05-19 02:23:38 pm

I go fast I guess

It's been a while, I did some runs on stream a while ago and got within 20 seconds of my PB. I hope to do more runs over the summer.

blackbox64

2016-05-20 02:04:48 pm

I go fast I guess

Sorry for the happy noises at the end but this was such a surprise. Sub 11 is possible even without the Bike Jump, as I did enter the pointer statues for the setup, and didn't do the thing in Greece one where you enter the door without leaving the car. I should probably consider moving onto Java soon

blackbox64

2016-05-29 01:34:55 pm

I go fast I guess

Quick update, I managed to get my Sum of best down without the trick mentioned in the post above. So if a Greece Run can include the house trick AND the Bike Jump, there may be a chance of sub 10 in Greece, although I don't think the Bike Jump will be able to shave a minute of in Greece.

bh guy

2016-05-30 08:10:50 pm

i haven't played any body harvest in a couple months but i picked it up a couple days ago and came up with this... it's a ridiculous and stupid trick but the segmented run can save 15 seconds with this. it took me a couple *hours* to get this recording, looks stupid getting stuck on the edzil but at least i got the insta-door on the hospital.

blackbox64

2016-06-22 04:58:53 pm

I go fast I guess

Quote from bh guy:

i haven't played any body harvest in a couple months but i picked it up a couple days ago and came up with this... it's a ridiculous and stupid trick but the segmented run can save 15 seconds with this. it took me a couple *hours* to get this recording, looks stupid getting stuck on the edzil but at least i got the insta-door on the hospital.

WOAW. Bless this game for having so much bad collision detection.

bh guy

Edit history:

bh guy: 2016-07-12 01:39:54 pm

2016-07-12 01:35:10 pm

i secured a console and some recording equipment so i'm going to try to get a full set of levels done. for my first effort:

youtube quality is crap but maybe later i can find somewhere to upload super high quality.

the only strategy change from before is going with 20 fragcannon instead of 30. under 1:30 should be possible but this was a damn clean run except for the stupid gates. note that my timing is from the first frame of the beginning cutscene, to the frame that alpha 1 hits the man in black at the end. in 75 seconds of gameplay (the first 15s is just cutscene), here are the things that can go wrong:

-not being directly on top of the first frag cannon when it appears
-2nd tree taking too many shots (sometimes it doesnt take damage, for no reason... or you just miss it altogether)
-2nd fragcannon pickup shooting out in a bad direction or popping too high in the air
-undershooting the river jump
-overshooting the river jump (running into pond on the other side)
-running into the bike enemy that appears other side of the river
-running into the big green tower before the launch into the city
-running into the hoveros before the launch into the city
-hitting the hill wrong and landing short of the wall
-not getting over the wall
-getting caught on bike guys once you're over the wall
-getting caught on either set of gates for too long
-alpha 1 blocking the door when you're trying to get into the central command tower
-getting caught on the gates while trying the boss skip
-alpha 1 missing the man in black (bad angle)
-alpha 1 not having enough speed to kill the man in black
-not exiting alpha 1 fast enough and starting the boss fight like normal

so im quite happy with this one!

also, i discovered GRENADE SKIP in java using a sort of new glitch and saving 40+ seconds, i will explain later. enjoy the comet for now Wink

i secured a console and some recording equipment so i'm going to try to get a full set of levels done. for my first effort:

https://youtu.be/TpmY8jx_Au4

youtube quality is crap but maybe later i can find somewhere to upload super high quality.

the only strategy change from before is going with 20 fragcannon instead of 30. under 1:30 should be possible but this was a damn clean run except for the stupid gates. note that my timing is from the first frame of the beginning cutscene, to the frame that alpha 1 hits the man in black at the end. in 75 seconds of gameplay (the first 15s is just cutscene), here are the things that can go wrong:

-not being directly on top of the first frag cannon when it appears
-2nd tree taking too many shots (sometimes it doesnt take damage, for no reason... or you just miss it altogether)
-2nd fragcannon pickup shooting out in a bad direction or popping too high in the air
-undershooting the river jump
-overshooting the river jump (running into pond on the other side)
-running into the bike enemy that appears other side of the river
-running into the big green tower before the launch into the city
-running into the hoveros before the launch into the city
-hitting the hill wrong and landing short of the wall
-not getting over the wall
-getting caught on bike guys once you're over the wall
-getting caught on either set of gates for too long
-alpha 1 blocking the door when you're trying to get into the central command tower
-getting caught on the gates while trying the boss skip
-alpha 1 missing the man in black (bad angle)
-alpha 1 not having enough speed to kill the man in black
-not exiting alpha 1 fast enough and starting the boss fight like normal

so im quite happy with this one!

also, i discovered GRENADE SKIP in java using a sort of new glitch and saving 40+ seconds, i will explain later. enjoy the comet for now ;)

bh guy

Edit history:

bh guy: 2016-07-22 10:53:53 pm

2016-07-22 10:53:00 pm

in 15 hours of attempts this is only the 2nd time i made the bike jump. never in a million years did i think i would ever make it across keeping the bike (which saves 30 seconds getting to the airport) but here it is. unfortunately i fucked up bad on the third processor or this would have been sub 10. i may come back and improve this but for now im burnt out on greece.

bh guy

2016-08-02 08:36:01 am

with a better boss fight you can get under 10 minutes for sure, the strat i use mostly minimizes the chance he'll do something completely crazy and time-wasting. i also found a very difficult way to skip that 20 second cutscene where the school in stage 1 is getting attacked by the bugs, i may come back to america and try for a lower time later.

after the first 2 mins of gameplay it's just very straightforward flying until the boss. but that 2 minutes is full of 1 attempt, instant reset tricks: getting through the gate with the first scorpion quickly, the first bridge jump, the second bridge jump (actually the worst of all of these), and the new aerial cactus destroy strat (works 80% of the time, not that hard).

then after the 3rd processor when you go for the UFO, there's a high chance the game will freeze on an orange screen during the cutscene where the UFO comes out of the hangar... i suspect it's caused by the overlap with the "stage complete" text boxes that pop up, but if you don't want to waste time letting those play through you just have to go for it and hope for the best...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG2SIHWreJE

with a better boss fight you can get under 10 minutes for sure, the strat i use mostly minimizes the chance he'll do something completely crazy and time-wasting. i also found a very difficult way to skip that 20 second cutscene where the school in stage 1 is getting attacked by the bugs, i may come back to america and try for a lower time later.

after the first 2 mins of gameplay it's just very straightforward flying until the boss. but that 2 minutes is full of 1 attempt, instant reset tricks: getting through the gate with the first scorpion quickly, the first bridge jump, the second bridge jump (actually the worst of all of these), and the new aerial cactus destroy strat (works 80% of the time, not that hard).

then after the 3rd processor when you go for the UFO, there's a high chance the game will freeze on an orange screen during the cutscene where the UFO comes out of the hangar... i suspect it's caused by the overlap with the "stage complete" text boxes that pop up, but if you don't want to waste time letting those play through you just have to go for it and hope for the best...

bh guy

Edit history:

bh guy: 2016-08-25 09:39:05 pm

2016-08-25 09:26:21 pm

my sum of best splits for java is almost down to 10:30 but it requires so many small things to go exactly right that i'm extremely pleased with this. 99% of attempts ended in the first 3 minutes due to the brutal sequence of 1) goliath ramming boost to extremely small spot of land you can stand on 2) crazy ass airboat ride up the hill around the minefield 3) trying to just survive reaching the kubelwagon surrounded by 3 mantises that still attack you while the cutscene for the save point is playing. i lost about 13 seconds through all of that, but the rest of the run was insanely clean.

an explanation for the grenade skip: on foot, when you jam the control stick in the opposite direction, your character adam will do a short slide on the ground. if you slide into a vehicle while pressing C-down to enter the vehicle, adam will sort of bounce off the vehicle a short distance before he teleports into the vehicle. but during this animation, his collision detection is altered and he can pass through a few different objects-- the big military base doors in java 2, the fences in america 1, others, and, here, the boulder blocking the tunnel in java 2. so all i actually do here is run against the kubelwagon, then jam the control stick from down to up, and press C down immediately after. adam gets bounced off the kubelwagon and through the boulder, avoiding an annoying 45 second detour to get grenades

during the vehicle entry animation he is also invincible, and so is the vehicle that he is entering. he can read signs and enter actual doors on buildings as well. this grenade skip is the only actual use for this bit of knowledge that i have found so far but there may possibly be others.

now only siberia remains... it may take longer as the level itself is so much longer, and i still want to research a few time-saving ideas.

https://youtu.be/l1VGkXSFKrw

my sum of best splits for java is almost down to 10:30 but it requires so many small things to go exactly right that i'm extremely pleased with this. 99% of attempts ended in the first 3 minutes due to the brutal sequence of 1) goliath ramming boost to extremely small spot of land you can stand on 2) crazy ass airboat ride up the hill around the minefield 3) trying to just survive reaching the kubelwagon surrounded by 3 mantises that still attack you while the cutscene for the save point is playing. i lost about 13 seconds through all of that, but the rest of the run was insanely clean.

an explanation for the grenade skip: on foot, when you jam the control stick in the opposite direction, your character adam will do a short slide on the ground. if you slide into a vehicle while pressing C-down to enter the vehicle, adam will sort of bounce off the vehicle a short distance before he teleports into the vehicle. but during this animation, his collision detection is altered and he can pass through a few different objects-- the big military base doors in java 2, the fences in america 1, others, and, here, the boulder blocking the tunnel in java 2. so all i actually do here is run against the kubelwagon, then jam the control stick from down to up, and press C down immediately after. adam gets bounced off the kubelwagon and through the boulder, avoiding an annoying 45 second detour to get grenades

during the vehicle entry animation he is also invincible, and so is the vehicle that he is entering. he can read signs and enter actual doors on buildings as well. this grenade skip is the only actual use for this bit of knowledge that i have found so far but there may possibly be others.

now only siberia remains... it may take longer as the level itself is so much longer, and i still want to research a few time-saving ideas.