Spider-Man is a game loosely based on the 2002 movie of the same name. By completing the game on Hero or higher, you unlock the ability to play as Green Goblin.
On the PC 1.0 version of the game, there is an item in the Secret Store only unlockable by beating the game on the hardest difficulty, without cheats (and yes, it knows). However, even following those rules, the item won't actually unlock - it can't be unlocked at all, apparently. So what is this thing?
I was able to get in touch with a guy who knows more about this kind of stuff than I do, and he was able to forcibly enable the reward - it's playing as Alex Ross's design for Green Goblin. He made an AR code for it to be used on the Gamecube version as well, and it only works on 1.0 (using it on 1.1 will probably crash the game while loading the first level). This movie uses that code.
Play as Alex Ross Green Goblin: 045BC5F8 00000000
Normally Alex Ross's design for Green Goblin cannot be accessed, and most players wouldn't even know of its existence. The only time you would see it is if you're playing with Alex Ross's design for Spider-Man, and then play any level with Green Goblin as an enemy - in which case, the opposing Green Goblin would be using the skin.
This is also the only alternate skin for Goblin. Any cheats to play as other characters simply override Spider-Man rather than Goblin.
Why?
I actually have a few reasons for doing this.
- This skips the need for a verification movie.
- This skin is pretty snazzy and I wanted to show it off.
- I was already a few levels in when I learned that this is apparently against the rules?
I would prefer this not get Playground'd but if worst comes to worst I can redo it with the default skin and verification movie. This is intended to obsolete [4411] GC Spider-Man "Green Goblin" by Natetheman223 in 23:20.28.
Encoding
Short Version: Ask Zinfidel.
Long version: the game plays at a ratio closer to 5:4 than 4:3, and it should not be stretched to 4:3. The dspdump (sound effects) will be out of sync with the dumped video. This is because of a few intro movies at the very start of the movie; pre-rendered cutscenes throw off the audio for some reason. Just cut off the first 5 seconds or so from the audio and then line it up. The dtkdump (music) should be fine, but about 12db too loud, so that needs to be decreased unless you want to blow out the viewer's eardrums with the title screen music (and the rest of the music in the game).
The emulator will try to forcibly enable realXFB. This is bad. Right click the game in your dolphin games list, press "properties", then "show defaults". At the bottom of the new text box, there should be 2 lines of text that say something like "enable xfb = true". Erase both of them and ctrl + s to save the file.
1 USA formatted memory card should be inserted, and 1 standard Gamecube controller. D3D12 graphics backend.
Changes
Almost every level in the game has had at least one major improvement since the TAS from almost 2 years ago. I was aiming for the same level of optimization as seen in my other TAS: [4463] GC Spider-Man by Natetheman223 in 25:34.27.
Search for Justice
In the previous TAS, after killing the first two thugs, I would drop a glider bomb on one of the thugs on the building below. I now do this for both thugs on the building below, meaning I'm able to kill 4 thugs out of the necessary 6. On the building ahead, I jump off the glider for a reason - if you go too far from thugs, they'll freeze in place. The two thugs on the previous building still haven't fallen to their death yet, so I stay just barely in range for them to keep existing. Then I kill the last two thugs and fly to the end of the level.
Warehouse Hunt
Everything. From start to finish, this level is just a million times better than last time.
Birth of a Hero
Same situation as the last level. I learned in this level that it's possible to shoot the glider's miniguns faster than intended by pressing the shoot button on every other frame, dealing upwards of 210 damage a second (7 damage per shot X 30 shots a second). Normal thugs have 160 HP for reference, and the boss has 800 HP. The boss fight might actually be able to be improved but I'm not sure how.
Oscorp's Gambit
These robots will actually dodge glider knives if you shoot from too far away, so I kill the first robot with the minigun trick mentioned earlier. The second and third robots are killed a little faster as well, and the next batches of robots are handled the same as last time.
The Subway Station
I gave myself much better placement for the first few thugs, so I can... y'know... actually see what I'm doing. You can see me use the minigun trick in this level as well. Every thug kill in this level is just overall more optimized than last time.
Chase Through the Sewer
For the most part, this level only has 1 new trick - skipping the valve needed to go through the pipe. So apparently this guy named Faze found out that by having your glider parallel to a corner, and descending, will allow you to go through it. It's useless most of the time, but this time, you can use it to go through the floor and fly out of bounds. This game has an extremely strict "position verification system" as I like to call it, which prevents almost all instances of out-of-bounds. Even moving out of bounds with this trick is extremely difficult and only works because goblin can just generate speed out of nothing.
Showdown with Shocker
Did the wallclip better and killed Shocker faster.
Vulture's Lair
In the judging notes for the last goblin TAS, the judge said they were skeptical of the jumps in Vulture's Lair. I've corrected that. Also, for the third section of this level, most of the stairs and floors are destructible, so you really can just fly straight up and shoot them from the bottom.
Vulture Escapes
I've tried to learn more about how Vulture works in this level, and it only partially paid off, allowing me to save 3 seconds. For some reason, Vulture slows down a lot after fixing the water tower and I have no idea why. I feel like I've tried everything. That would let me save an extra few seconds if kept going fast.
Air Duel with Vulture
Nothing. Theoretically I actually lose time in this level since I don't fly forward while shooting the initial glider knives, which would save a few frames. Aside from that, there's really nothing that can be done to speed this level up.
Corralled
I learned the spawn position of all the spiders so I'm able to route them rather than move on-the-fly like the last TAS.
Scorpion's Rampage
Scorpion perishes 1 second faster than the last time.
Coup d'Etat
If Green Goblin is stunned, he won't abruptly gain invincibility. So at the start I throw a bomb at him to stun him, then shoot all my glider knives at him, doing most of his health and allowing him to move on sooner after each repair segment.
The Offer
I found out how to 1-cycle green goblin while playing as green goblin. I had previously thought it was impossible since playable green goblin doesn't have any single move that fits the requirement for killing him early. There's actually 2 frames of vulnerability when he reaches 200 HP (at which point he would get on the glider). By shooting glider knives while moving at a very specific speed, they can all hit him in that 2 frame window and kill him.
Race Against Time
Very minor movement optimizations.
The Razor's Edge
I have opted to toss bombs at the razor bats rather the use the straight bomb - since the thrown bomb can be in position right when the razor bats spawn, whereas the straight bomb has to wait until they spawn before it can be thrown.
Breaking and Entering
Everything. You also get a taste of what it's like to get spotted in this level - this was really hard to set up, actually. Almost as hard as the clip in the sewer level from earlier.
Chemical Chaos
I have no idea how this works. It only works in this specific level, too. Just hold the fly and boost button when the level starts, and you can fly through almost everything. You'll know it worked because you spawn behind the desk instead of standing by the scientist. Also, you can't sequence break this level because attempting to access either terminal in the mixing chamber with anything other than A and B will fail the level.
Oscorp's Ultimate Weapon
New route.
Escape from Oscorp
General Optimizations.
Mary Jane Kidnapped
Nothing.
Face-Off at the Bridge
Killed Goblin a little faster, still left MJ on the bridge because it's fast. I would really like to figure out a way to kill him before he dives, since it's nearly impossible to hit him with anything other than glider knives when he's going down.
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: This run is parsed as starting from SRAM, which is caused by having to set the mono audio mode to get this run to sync, as opposed to just fresh game. Doesn't sound like a problem since nothing of the game is pre-completed, and all the gameplay is still contained in the movie.
The audio-video sync problems have also been fixed by our hero CPP. We're working on hosting the fixed version of 5.0 for encoding use under the tas emulators organization, but for now the build in the CPP fork should suffice.
Another huge issue was using an external cheat code (action replay) to unlock a suit, as well as the character mode. After some discussion the community seems to agree that limited use of external codes can be fine and reasonable.
The summary is that if you just hack around changing things as you please, you need the result to qualify as a hack deserving its own separate publication as a different game. And if your modifications are not that drastic, the only allowed use is unlocking things that are already in the game (similar to how we allowed internal codes), but can't be unlocked otherwise.
Of course unlocking something that you can get by completing the game is in an interesting situation, but we kinda rely on the game developers here: they may or may not decide to add an internal code that replicates what pre-completion can achieve. If they add such a code, we can just use it instead of a save anchor. And if they don't, then we have a decent reason to use an external code, as long as the effect is the same and nothing sneaky gets added to it. And the author's explanation of what this particular AR code does looks compelling to me. And this is all still Moons content, so we don't aim for absolute possible legitimacy like with Standard, as long as the result is entertaining, which this branch is.
This run is also quicker than its predecessor in every level, so it's a good improvement, accepting.
Encoder, please use this fixed build for dumping AVI.
Finally, to enable the AR code, in Dolphin General Config dialog tab, check Enable Cheats, enter the game's Properties on the game list, go to the AR Codes tab and hit Add. Enter anything for for the name and
045BC5F8 00000000 for the code itself.
Natetheman223: Encoder, can the TAS info be presented in Eras bold itc font?
EZGames69: Wanted to get confirmation that this wouldn't be too difficult to sync/encode, now that it's figured out I'll be processing this soon (might be awhile so hang tight). And yes I'll encode with the font requested by the author.