Fire Fight

2005-10-13 08:39:09 pm

aw crikey!

Fire Fight is an obscure title published by Epic Megagames (Jazz, OMF, Unreal) in 1996. It takes the unusual tack of running entirely from CD - it installs only a 2K save file, and it will play the soundtrack in a regular CD player. Basically, it's a free movement space shooter using high-res sprites with lots of insane weapons (although ammo is quite limited) and LAN-based multiplayer.

The single-player campaign lets you replay levels at any time and tracks times and percentages for individual levels and the full game. There are two difficulty levels, one rather easy and one rather hard. Basically, it's perfect for single-level speedruns; a single-segment speedrun would be very challenging because most of the best powerups are significantly out of your way.

I'm doing a preliminary run right now - I'll post times later. I haven't gotten over 2 minutes on any mission except Hot Cargo so far, and I'm guessing One Way Out will also be 2+ minutes.

Thread title:

AquaTiger

2005-10-13 10:51:24 pm

Never give up!

Now, I only managed to play a four-level demo of this game, and it's been so long that I don't remember it well enough to help you out, but I'd still be glad to see a run of this game.

Robyrt

2005-10-14 05:05:53 am

aw crikey!

Yay! The Fire Fight demo is worth playing in its own right, because Thin Air is such a masterpiece of level design. (Try it on Challenge difficulty and watch how everything changes.)

My preliminary run of all levels adds up to 28:40 right now. I'm sure I could go below 28 minutes once I find better paths. The hardest missions to run are definitely Watchdog and Meltdown, because you have to watch your ammo and there are so many mines.

Notable shortcuts/tricks:
* In No Escape, use 3 EM-Shocks. Voila, 10 seconds. (I could probably make 9 with judicious ramming and a couple missiles.)
* A judiciously timed cloaking on Mudskipper lets you pick up the bomb parts at max speed.
* Similarly, cloak and double shield halfway through Tool of War to complete it in sub-30sec without worrying about the enemies.
* I'm on track to push One Way Out to under 2 minutes via judicious EM-Shocks and memorization of which buildings open which doors. It's not that hard if you don't stop to dawdle.
* Runaway has a fixed minimum time; I believe this to be 3:08. For the ending to trigger, you must be at V sector or lower (hit F2 to find your location). My run gets this time while still getting 100% kills and secrets for that level.
* For sector missions, it hardly needs to be said that the only way to fly is to memorize when to switch between missiles and cannon. All large ships should be EM-Shocked, not naded or cannoned or whatever.

Yay! The Fire Fight demo is worth playing in its own right, because Thin Air is such a masterpiece of level design. (Try it on Challenge difficulty and watch how everything changes.)

My preliminary run of all levels adds up to 28:40 right now. I'm sure I could go below 28 minutes once I find better paths. The hardest missions to run are definitely Watchdog and Meltdown, because you have to watch your ammo and there are so many mines.

Notable shortcuts/tricks:
* In No Escape, use 3 EM-Shocks. Voila, 10 seconds. (I could probably make 9 with judicious ramming and a couple missiles.)
* A judiciously timed cloaking on Mudskipper lets you pick up the bomb parts at max speed.
* Similarly, cloak and double shield halfway through Tool of War to complete it in sub-30sec without worrying about the enemies.
* I'm on track to push One Way Out to under 2 minutes via judicious EM-Shocks and memorization of which buildings open which doors. It's not that hard if you don't stop to dawdle.
* Runaway has a fixed minimum time; I believe this to be 3:08. For the ending to trigger, you must be at V sector or lower (hit F2 to find your location). My run gets this time while still getting 100% kills and secrets for that level.
* For sector missions, it hardly needs to be said that the only way to fly is to memorize when to switch between missiles and cannon. All large ships should be EM-Shocked, not naded or cannoned or whatever.

Robyrt

2005-10-14 05:59:27 am

aw crikey!

As a reference for minimum times, I ran the game with cheats on, and I estimate a game with invulnerability and infinite ammo would still run about 23 minutes. (And, of course, that's counting no worries about mines, the most time-consuming parts of any level.)

Unless people take an interest in this run, I don't plan to do another one on Challenge difficulty, because running that is much more difficult - EM Shocks don't skip entire objectives for you, for instance.

dessgeega

2005-10-14 08:34:18 am

i like to watch.

i...vaguely remember the demo of this game? but the memories are dim.

Robyrt

2005-11-12 08:54:13 pm

aw crikey!

I've managed to push my total time down to 28:16, mostly through savings on Mission X - there's a trick to EM-Shock both huge buildings to open the door instantly, but I can't do it reguarly, but I made lots of other improvements.

Also, as trivia, my run of Mission 9 proves that an EM-Shock doesn't instant kill things, it just does a lot of damage. (It takes 3 EM-Shocks to kill the prison ship, the most powerful enemy in the game.)

Enhasa

2005-11-25 06:10:53 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

So how's it going? Like everyone else it seems, I had my memory vaguely jogged by this point, and now I kinda wanna see it, ha.