Submission #8137: FitterSpace's GC 007: Nightfire "all tokens" in 45:48.80

Hello, everyone! My name is FitterSpace, and this is my tool-assisted speedrun of the “All Tokens” category for 007: Nightfire. As the name implies, the goal is to complete the game as fast as possible while collecting all of the bonus 007 tokens hidden throughout each level. I like this category because it shows much more of the game than the published any% TAS and also features a lot of unique strategies that are only possible in a run like this.

Note: This TAS aims for real time instead of in-game time

This TAS plays on the easiest difficulty, Operative. Typically, the hardest difficulty is standard for most TASes, but the only difference it makes in this game is the amount of damage you deal and receive. I chose the hardest difficulty in the any% TAS because it was the difficulty the TAS before that one played on, and it let us show off some cool strategies for the longer boss fights. However, the easiest difficulty is faster and more entertaining for this category because there are some ways to save time that aren’t possible with the increased damage you take on 00 Agent. Because the hardest difficulty takes more time and doesn’t add any entertainment value to the run, I chose to play on the easiest difficulty here.

This game is chock full of awesome glitches that allow me to clip through walls and get out of bounds almost anywhere. Clipping is done by standing up at the same time you cycle through your weapons or gadgets, then moving underneath an object you aren’t supposed to stand under (such as a table or a chair). When the weapon cycle animation finishes, Bond will stand up inside the object, which causes him to be pushed through the floor. On top of this, it’s also possible to store a clip and use it later. The possibilities are endless!

From power on with no memory card inserted, Paris Prelude (the tutorial level) will start automatically. This version of Paris Prelude isn’t the same as the one you select in the menu and doesn’t count for anything when you finish it, so I choose to quit to the main menu.

In the menus, I change a few settings to my liking as well as entering a password that is required for this run. The password is “Q LAB” and it is used to give me a fully completed save file. This is useful because the 007 Tokens only appear in a level once you have earned a gold medal for that mission. I chose to use this password instead of a verification movie because it’s more convenient and accomplishes the same thing. This password gives me all of the platinum medals for every level, essentially unlocking everything in the game, including the 007 Tokens. This also allows me to use all of the weapon and gadget upgrades, including the gold P2K, the upgraded watch later, and the long-range stunner.

After typing in the password, I change a few settings to my personal preference. First, I change the control scheme to “Nightfire” because it is much better than the default control setup. Then I turn off “Weapon auto switch”. With this setting on, Bond will automatically equip a weapon if it’s better than the one he’s currently holding. I turned this off because it’s better for me to change weapons manually than letting the game do it on its own. Next, I take a few extra frames to turn on the widescreen setting. Nightfire has excellent widescreen support, and it makes the game look way better. After that, I go back and start Paris Prelude on Operative difficulty.

Number of Tokens: 4

Paris Prelude starts off with an on-rails section, then finishes with a driving segment. The nice thing about on-rails missions in Nightfire is that they can be sped up by shooting enemies at certain times. The reason is because the driver will slow down for a while to give you time to shoot all the enemies. When you do that, the driver will speed up again. You might think it’s best to shoot every enemy as soon as possible, but that's not the case. If you kill all the enemies before the game slows you down, it won't know you've killed all the enemies and will never speed up again. So, the goal in all the on-rails missions is to kill certain enemies as early as possible, but only after the driver starts slowing down. Not every enemy encounter is time-sensitive, though.

At the start of the mission, I shoot the first enemy's front tire. This will start the next part of the level as soon as possible. After that, I have some waiting to do. I put as much effort as possible into making the waiting sections funny or entertaining. It might look like I cause Dominique to slow down by shooting her car, but she is scripted to swerve in certain spots. I just did that to make it look funny. The only way to speed this part up is by waiting to shoot the enemies at the right time.

Near the end of the on-rails segment, I shoot out an enemy’s tire as soon as they appear on-screen. This enemy is supposed to drive over the ramp and crash, but if they can’t get to the ramp, the game just skips that section. The developers did this to prevent any potential softlocks here.

All four of the 007 tokens in Paris Prelude are in the driving segment. They’re all along the main path, only requiring slightly wider lines than you would normally take. The only one that’s a bit tricky is the second one, which is in this outdoor restaurant area. The turns are incredibly tight here, but I made it work out okay. This sort of thing is common in Nightfire’s driving levels. Another thing that’s common in driving levels is using the machine gun instead of rockets. While the TAS uses plenty of rockets, sometimes it’s best to take out enemies with the machine gun. There are two enemy encounters in Paris Prelude that take place in tight streets with very little room to overtake. If I shot these enemies with rockets, they would blow up and their cars would flip around all over the place and, inevitably, slow me down. Using the machine gun is safer because you can pop their back tires, which causes them to gently drift to the side and away from me. Explosions also noticeably lower the framerate on real hardware, but that’s not much of a factor on this old version of Dolphin I started this TAS on.

Speaking of explosions, I use the explosions from some rockets to boost myself forward a little bit during the end of the level. It happens when I use the Q-booster to jump over the bridge. When I was TASing this part originally, I kept running into this street sign that the enemy truck knocked over. Running into obstacles slows you down way more than you’d expect, so you want to avoid that if at all possible, even if you have to drive around it. I didn’t want to do that, so I had the idea to use rockets while I was jumping over the bridge. It worked, and the rockets boosted me far enough in the air that I could maintain the Q-boost speed for a little longer, totally clearing the street sign and driving perfectly into the final token. It only saves 4 frames, but it’s one of my favorite parts of this level. Another more significant time save happens right after that. At the very end of the level, you’re supposed to use an EMP projectile on the enemy truck. However, the enemy doesn’t drive at a constant speed. If you’re really close to him, he’ll speed up so he’s always ahead of you. If you slow down and get too far behind, he’ll slow down and give you time to catch up. Most people call this “rubber banding”, and I take advantage of that here. The EMP projectile only becomes available when you get to a certain spot in the level, so I drive there as fast as I can, then I hit the brakes and drift into the wall to the left to stop as soon as possible. At this point, the EMP projectile is traveling toward the truck, and the truck is slowing down since he’s trying to give me time to catch up. This means the EMP projectile hits the truck sooner than it would if I was still chasing him. In the end, this strategy saved about a third of a second.

Number of Tokens: 8

The Exchange is the first on-foot level in the run, and it’s a great one to start with. I’m not going to give a play-by-play commentary, since that would take forever. Instead, I’m going to talk about the main techniques used in on-foot levels in general and talk about things you might not notice from watching the video.

The fastest way to move in the on-foot levels is to strafe diagonally. It’s very common in retro shooters because developers often didn’t normalize movement vectors. What I mean is that, assuming your forward and sideways movement speed is 1, the distance to the corner would be the square root of 2. That means it’s faster to move by holding forward + left or right instead of just holding the analog stick forward.

As mentioned in the “Glitches” section above, it is possible to clip through walls and floors by standing up and pulling out a weapon or gadget at the same time. This delays Bond’s standing animation and causes him to get stuck in a strange state somewhere between crouching and standing. During this state, he can move at full speed, but he is only slightly above normal crouching height. At the end of this delayed animation, Bond can get pushed through the floor and certain walls if his head gets stuck inside an object. This technique will be used in every on-foot level except Equinox, and it saves a massive amount of time in any Nightfire speedrun category that allows glitches.

One of my goals with this TAS was to show off every weapon and gadget that I possibly could, as long as it didn't lose any time. I’m proud to say that almost every weapon and gadget was used at least once. The only weapons that are missing from this TAS are the Kowloon Type 40, AT-600 Scorpion (though it looks exactly the same as the AT-420 Sentinel, which is used), laser trip bomb, satchel charge, and smoke grenade. Those last three don’t appear in this TAS because they are pretty far out of the way and not worth taking the time to get. Technically, the Wolfram PP7 doesn’t appear, either, since this TAS starts with the upgraded P2K that replaces it. Also, the only gadget that goes unused is the decryptor, since it’s not needed in the run and takes time to use.

The reason I brought up the weapons and gadgets is because The Exchange is the first level I put that into practice for. The first enemy most players will encounter is standing in front of the starting point with a covert sniper rifle. This is my only chance to get one, and I’m willing to do just about anything (except waste time) to get it. Here, I shoot my pistol a bunch of times to get that enemy’s attention, then he runs toward me and hides behind the corner of a wall I’ll run past later. Now I can shoot him and get his sniper without wasting any time.

The next trick worth mentioning is the part where I jump across a gap you’re supposed to sneak across. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to make the jump completely, since there’s an invisible wall preventing you from getting past it. Instead, I jump as far as I can, then press the A button to start sliding along the wall. Since I’m at the end of the ledge when I start sliding, that animation immediately finishes and I can keep moving. It has a weird side effect where it prevents you from strafing for a second or two, which is why I turn the camera in a strange way when I’m walking toward the castle.

In the next part of the level, after raising the alarm, I take advantage of a weird quirk of Nightfire’s camera movement to turn faster while climbing a spiral staircase. In most console games, the speed the camera turns at isn’t constant. Newer games may handle this a little differently than older ones, but in Nightfire, the camera will accelerate if you hold down the right analog stick for a long time. The camera speed will start off slow, which allows for fine movement if you’re moving the analog stick quickly. However, if you’re holding a direction on the analog stick for a long time, like if you’re turning all the way around, the camera will speed up since the game knows you want to face a completely different direction. This might sound strange, especially if you’re not used to playing first-person shooters on console, but it makes the camera movement feel more natural and takes away some of the imprecision that comes with using an analog stick to turn the camera. This is all well and good, but Nightfire has one quirk that makes this useful in a TAS: the camera acceleration doesn’t care which direction you’re pointing the analog stick. If you move the camera to the left for one second, then flick it to the right without letting go, the camera will be turning at the same speed it would be if you were holding it to the right all along. With that being said, I use this to my advantage to climb up a spiral staircase faster. In the straight line leading up to it, I turn the camera to the left and right every other frame, which makes the camera accelerate. Since I’m only turning the camera left or right for one frame at a time, I’m moving in basically the same direction as before, but it means the next turn I make will be significantly faster. It’s probably faster to do this all over the place, but I reserve this quick back-and-forth turning for extreme cases like this one, where there’s really no good way to get up there without losing time. While it’s really interesting, it’s not pretty to look at.

While the back-and-forth camera acceleration isn’t nice to look at, the idea of it is still used all over the place. In fact, it’s used again in the party in the castle interior. After meeting Dominique and getting the two tokens in this area, there are two sets of stairs to walk up before moving on to the next part of the game. From the direction I’m coming from, I have to turn right, then left, then right again. What you might have noticed is that the second turn is a little faster than the first, and the third turn is much faster. This is because I didn’t let go of the right stick at all when I was making these turns. After I made the first turn to the right, I kept the analog stick just outside of the deadzone so I’m still technically turning a little. Then when I start turning to the left, I can carry that camera acceleration over. I do the same thing for the third turn, and the game lets me turn the camera insanely fast because I’ve technically been holding the analog stick for several seconds.

With all this in mind, the 4th and final section of this level is pretty straightforward. The only strange part here is the out of bounds glitch in the safe room. It’s not known exactly what causes this, but when a rotating object falls and hits Bond, it can flip him around 180 degrees. It’s not just changing the camera perspective, it’s actually rotating Bond around, and I assume it’s not rotating along his center point. That, or maybe it pushes him at the same time. It’s hard to say for sure. Either way, this out of bounds glitch happens because Bond runs into the safe while the door is falling, and that door causes this strange rotation glitch, putting him just outside of the room. It saves basically no time, but it looks cool.

The last thing worth mentioning is the helicopter boss fight at the very end of the mission. It takes three rockets to shoot it down, and the helicopter spawns after a cutscene. Since the rockets are projectiles and take time to travel, I can shoot three of them before the cutscene starts, then they’ll hit him right when he spawns. I also run forward while shooting these rockets, so the third one hits a little sooner.

Number of Tokens: 3

Alpine Escape is mostly an on-rails mission similar to the first half of Paris Prelude. In this stage, Zoe Nightshade is driving the snowmobile while James Bond is tasked with shooting enemies. Even though most of the level is on-rails, there are still plenty of interesting ways to save time that allow me to complete this level faster than ever before.

Like the autoscroller in Paris Prelude, time can be saved in Alpine Escape by shooting groups of enemies at just the right time. The first example of this is just after the 40-second playaround at the start of the mission. There are two enemies standing next to a set of explosive barrels, then another group of enemies near a tower and some other buildings. I shoot the explosive barrel with the machine gun to kill the first group, then switch to the JL-7C rocket launcher to shoot down the tower, killing the next group of enemies so Zoe doesn’t slow down.

After the cutscene where Zoe and Bond drive in front of a truck, two enemies on snowmobiles will start following me. Another snowmobile enemy will spawn shortly after. Normally, I’d kill the enemies or shoot them in a way to make them do something funny, but I need one of the enemies to cooperate so I can use them later. For whatever reason, one of the enemies will slow down then speed up again a few seconds later. All I know is that it has something to do with all three enemies being there and not having enough room to move anywhere but straight ahead. I think this causes one of the enemies to slow down, but they speed up again shortly after because they get too far away from Bond. When the enemy finally catches up with Bond, they are going ridiculously fast that they’ll collide with you if you aren’t careful. Even better, you can blow up the enemy at just the right time so the blown-up snowmobile starts tumbling toward you at ludicrous speed. If this crazy tumbling snowmobile hits you while you’re in the air after driving out of the tunnel, it will make you spin around into the next cutscene trigger. This TAS also lands on the very same snowmobile it blew up earlier, causing Bond and Zoe to tumble around even more.

This image shows where the any% TAS ends up after the cutscene, compared to this TAS. The images don’t line up exactly, but you get the idea.

The rest of the level is rather straightforward. The one other place you can save time is at the big gate that gets locked. There are two quick ways to unlock it and move forward. You can use the rockets to blow up the gate, or you can shoot the gate switch and open it that way. It turns out it’s faster to shoot the gate switch because the machine gun is a hitscan weapon, which means your bullets instantly hit whatever target you’re pointing at. The rockets, however, are projectiles and take time to travel to their destination. Since Zoe starts driving again as soon as the gate starts opening, shooting the gate switch with the machine gun saves about half a second.

Number of Tokens: 5

Enemies Vanquished is a really unique level in this TAS. It’s a driving stage that starts off with seemingly normal gameplay then devolves into some out-of-bounds shenanigans. While out-of-bounds shenanigans are not out of the ordinary in Nightfire speedruns, it’s unusual to see them in driving levels. Thankfully, this TAS cannot get out of bounds at the very beginning of the level and drive straight to the end like the any% TAS does. Because all of the hidden 007 Tokens must be collected, this TAS needs to actually play through most of the level and pick up the collectibles.

The level starts off fairly straightforward. I simply take the best racing lines I was able to get and collect the tokens throughout the stage as quickly as possible. The first token is just off the road on the left side, so I do a quick turn to get that one, then get back on the main road. A common theme of the driving levels in this game is to shoot any obstacles that may be in your way. In this case, the token is at some outdoor area with tables and chairs all around. If I run into the furniture, I'll lose a ton of speed and also temporarily lose control of the car. You only lose control for maybe a second, but that's enough to crash into the wall or get a really bad line without being able to fix it. Here, I switch to the machine gun and shoot the table closest to the token so I won't run into it. Unfortunately, you can't shoot the chairs, so I'm forced to hit one of those while I grab the token. But it's not a big deal since it didn't slow me down much and I was already heading in the right direction when I hit it. Next, I shoot some rockets at a street light to get it out of the way so I can take an inside line around the next corner. The next token is just after a huge jump and it is also surrounded by various outdoor furniture which I easily shoot out of the way. Just like before, I run over one chair but the speed loss is minimal.

The next part of the stage is where things start to get crazy. Just after taking the next left turn, there are two enemy vehicles I have to narrowly avoid. I take a slightly weird line so they won't run into me. Next, I turn the camera around and shoot missiles at them. When I run into a wall to get a little bit of air, one of the cars I shot earlier crashes into me and launches my car out of bounds. I can then drive in the out of bounds space to cut off about 10 seconds of travel time. Thankfully, the out of bounds terrain has collision that mostly behaves how you would expect, but there are some weird places where your car can get launched around. I take advantage of this by launching myself toward the next 007 Token. I'm facing the wrong way when I get back inbounds, but a collision with a nearby tree fixes that completely. Now, it's time to drive on ice.

I hate driving on ice. Well, I've never driven on ice in real life, but if it's anything like this game, I hate it. Bond's car has absolutely no traction and will easily slide if I turn too sharp. For the rest of the stage, I have to make gradual turns so I don't lose speed. This means I have to take some weird lines, especially near the fourth 007 Token. I could not find a decent way to do this without spinning out and crashing into a wall or an enemy. In the end, I settled on a cool-looking drift that helped me keep a lot of my speed. Ideally, I wouldn't have needed to drift at all, but I guess I can't be disappointed that there is now a TAS where James Bond is drifting on ice while dodging rockets. In the end, I'm happy with the way the driving here looks even if it's certainly not perfect. I'm not an expert when it comes to racing games so it's possible that time could be saved if I improved some of the lines I take, but the driving in this stage was done to the best of my ability and I'm proud of the result.

The boss fight at the end is rather trivial. I simply shoot rockets at the enemies as early as possible so I can kill the guards quickly. Because this TAS starts with all the weapon upgrades, I am only able to shoot 4 missiles at a time instead of the normal 2 missiles you can shoot in an any% run. This also has the downside of reducing my fire rate compared to any%, so the boss fight here is a little different because of that. The bottleneck for this fight is the time it takes to lock on to the first two enemies. Everything after that is basically shooting the next set of rockets as early as the game will allow.

Number of Tokens: 7

The first section of this stage revolves entirely around a civilian named Alexander Mayhew who will give us information about Operation Nightfire. Before he does that, though, we need to escort him to his secret bunker where he will be safe from the Yakuza. The gameplay in this part of Double Cross is essentially guiding Mayhew along while killing enemies up ahead. What makes this interesting is that Mayhew runs faster when he is being rendered, so I make an effort to keep him on-screen as much as possible to save precious frames. There are also two tokens in this section. The first is in the starting area in the far corner, and the second is on the second floor in the last room before the bunker.

When the level begins, there are three enemies trying to kill Mayhew. In times like this, Mayhew curls up like a baby while I do all the hard work. Not only do I kill these enemies as quickly as possible, I also get them to have fast death animations. Mayhew won't start moving until the enemies are dead and their death animations are completely done playing. To get Mayhew to start moving even sooner, I jump into the garden area up ahead. For whatever reason, Mayhew starts moving sooner when you go into certain areas, and the garden is the closest one to my starting point. This is convenient because there is also a token near the garden. So I hang out there for a while, being sure to keep Mayhew on-screen. He'll stop moving for a second when I jump out of the garden toward the token, but that's unavoidable as far as I'm aware. As a result, I grab the token and get back in the garden as quickly as possible. Next, I go up ahead to kill a few enemies that will eventually stop Mayhew from moving. From there, I keep him on-screen while he's being shot at by multiple assassins. It's at this point where I have to run ahead to dispatch some enemies and collect another token, since I won't have time to do that while escorting Mayhew. In the last room, I throw some stun grenades and do a few precise jumps to reach the second floor sooner. When I grab the token, I immediately jump back down and start looking toward Mayhew again. From here on, the rest of the second is just walking Mayhew to his bunker.

Sections 2 and 3 revolve around rescuing four of Mayhew's servants. These ladies are being held hostage by some assassins which I'll have to take care of. Of course, there are also some tokens to collect, so they'll have to wait. There are three tokens in section 2. The first is at the other side of the first outdoor area, the second is just across the water after rescuing the first hostage, and the last one is a room near the second hostage. When I leave the bunker and head toward the first token in section 2, I narrowly avoid jumping into the water when I go under the bridge. Getting into the water causes a small speed loss, so you won't see me do that. Once I get this token that is really far out of the way, I head toward the first hostage. Fortunately, I only have to shoot the hostage taker to rescue the lady. The rest of the enemies in the room don't matter. After getting the next token, I hug the wall so I can jump from the small ledge there into the next building. There are several ways to jump into that building from the opposite side you're intended to, but this is the fastest one I'm aware of in this category. The next hostage is in the final room just beyond the next sliding door. Instead of shooting the hostage taker in the head, I shoot a fire extinguisher near him to kill him while I'm turning toward the next token. This means I can kill him and rescue the hostage without losing any time at all. This isn't possible in any% as far as I know because the enemy's death animation when the fire extinguisher kills him is really long and drawn out. However, I have plenty of time since I need to deviate to get the token anyway, so his death animation is complete long before I'm able to finish that part of the level.

In section 3, there are a few objectives I need to complete and two more tokens I need to collect. While I'm waiting for the dragon safe key to slowly go through its animation, I use a submachine gun to destroy some bottles of hard liquor which Mayhew won't be needing anymore. After that, I pick up the key card and tilt a painting on the wall to open a secret passageway. The hostage in the next room is a real pain to deal with. She's standing in the worst possible spot, assuming she wants to live. Once you kill the hostage taker, two more guards right behind her start shooting toward Bond. One of these guards has a shotgun, and the spread from that gun kills the civilian way too often. I had to do some weird movement to prevent that from happening, but I think I did a good job of making it look normal. After that, I do some really tough jumps up the stairs before doing the first out-of-bounds glitch in this level. Side note, aleckermit TASed this part in the any% TAS and I don't know how he didn't pull his hair out during it. The jumps up the stairs look easy, but you can't jump while moving up a sloped surface. I have to come at the stairs from a weird angle, stop slightly before hitting the ground, then jump again after that. It sounds easy, but trying to keep as much speed as possible while getting the jump at a good angle was harder than I expected it to be.

After the jumps, I go to the left instead of going out the window because I'm going to do the first glitch in this level. This clip is really convenient because I can collect the token that is just behind that wall and save some time along with it. Next, I kill the sniper on the other rooftop then shoot through a window to rescue the final hostage. The level is almost over, but there is one token remaining. I'll pick up the sniper rifle since it's on my path and because it'll be useful for the upcoming boss fight. To get the final token, you're intended to go inside the building I'm standing on top of and navigate through a short series of rooms. Instead, I can take advantage of another out of bounds glitch to clip down from the rooftop straight into the room the token is in. There is one problem with clipping into a room, however. The door is shut. That doesn't sound like a problem, and to be honest, it's not. But doors in this game never open toward the player. When I open the door from the inside of the room, the door will open outward, which means I have to take a few extra steps to go around it. I can avoid this by looking at the wall toward the other side of the door and then pressing A to open it. The game thinks I'm opening it from the other side and therefore pushes the door into the room. Now the door is out of my way and I can save a handful of frames as a result.

The fourth and final section of Double Cross is a relatively straightforward boss fight with a ninja. He can be quickly and easily killed with one sniper headshot on Operative difficulty, which is pretty hilarious. There is one difficult part about this boss fight, and it's that I need the ninja to do a cartwheel to the side. Enemies in this game are invincible during scripted animations, and the cartwheel is the shortest possible animation the ninja can start with. I make an effort to jazz up the boss fight a little by jumping off Bond's car and quickscoping the ninja in the face. The ninja also has a quick death animation, which ends the level much sooner than expected. I believe that's the fastest death animation possible.

Number of Tokens: 7

Night Shift is the only level in this run where nobody gets killed. It’s a stealth level where the guards are innocent civilians, so they must be taken out with tranquilizer darts or a melee hit. This level, much like Double Cross, features only a few glitches, so the general gameplay is pretty straightforward. I simply collect each token while occasionally clipping through a wall every now and then to cut off some travel time.

The first area is really simple. I collect two tokens and clip through an elevator door to skip unlocking the door and opening it normally. With that out of the way, the second section is where some new strategies are introduced. First, an out of bounds clip after using the Q-worm on the office computer saves a few seconds because it skips a part where Bond has to crawl through a vent somewhat slowly. Shortly after that, however, is where a totally new type of wall clip is used. When you bring up the keypad on these locked doors, Bond still moves for one frame after everything else stops. During this frame, Bond ignores collision on most objects, including walls. This means you can move toward these keypads and mash A and B to bring up the keypad and close it, and Bond will go through the wall one frame at a time. This sounds like a crazy exploit, and it is, but it’s only useful in this one spot in this one level, because it only works with keypads on locked doors.

Outside of one out-of-bounds glitch later in the level, the rest of the mission is pretty straightforward. It’s just about getting to the end of the level and completing objectives along the way. The only unintuitive thing I do here is wait during one of the cutscenes before the elevator starts going up. This lets me get on the elevator right as it starts going up instead of waiting there for a while. Waiting during the cutscene doesn’t save any real time, but the in-game timer pauses during cutscenes in on-foot levels, which is nice. This TAS doesn’t aim for in-game time, but I figured I’d do this since it doesn’t lose any real time.

Number of Tokens: 7

Chain Reaction is one of the more complicated levels in this TAS. There are lots of crazy out-of-bounds glitches combined with some small time saves all over the place.

The first two tokens in this level have something in common: they’re both close to things I need in order to finish the level. The first one is in the room with the first objective, where you have to take a picture of the jetpack prototype. The next one is in a room with the Phoenix Ronin, which allows me to save a bunch of time later on. The Ronin is a briefcase turret you can place down that will automatically shoot any enemies it can see. Getting one is not an objective, but it may as well be since it is useful for a sequence break. When I get out of that room, I grapple up to the 2nd floor of the hangar toward the next token. However, the level designer responsible for this amazing level didn’t expect you to get there from the grapple spot. You’re intended to go all around the level grappling a few times to get to a zipline that will take you there. Instead, I grapple to the other side and walk along a very narrow ledge on the metal support beams to get there. It’s very hard to pull off, but that’s not an issue in a TAS. From there, I head straight to the final warehouse building, clip inside, then jump up a broken staircase to cut off some travel time.

In the next section of this level, I place the Phoenix Ronin down on a ledge near a broken ladder. Normally, you’re supposed to get on this ladder near the end of the mission, since it’s too high up to reach from below. However, the Ronin is just tall enough that I can get a boost from standing on it and jumping across. This allows me to skip the entire outdoor part of the level and basically go straight to the warehouse, which is where the end of the level is. Before I do that, I grab one more token, then I clip out of that room and jump into the warehouse from the out of bounds space. From here, there are two more objectives and two more tokens. The first of these objectives is to take a picture of the prototype laser weapon. The other objective is to use that laser gun to blow up the blast door, which blocks the path forward. Conveniently, the next 007 Token is up on the ledge with the laser, so that’s a really easy one to get. The final token is a little out of the way, but it’s part of the game so I need to go there. Finally, I use the Ronin one last time during the Mission Complete screen just to add a little bit of flair to the run.

Number of Tokens: 7

Phoenix Fire is the shortest level in this TAS, and for a good reason. While it has 4 maps or “sections”, as I call them, two of them are almost entirely skipped due to some out of bounds glitches.

At the very start of the mission, you’re expected to walk into the first room and kill two enemies that are about to hurt a civilian. This TAS completely ignores that and jumps out of the elevator toward the side of the building. Why? Because there’s a 007 Token there, and that’s what really matters. As an added bonus, there’s also a grapple spot above the elevator you start in, and it saves a bit of time in this category if you go that route. It gives you access to an air vent, which drops you into a room near another 007 token. I’m not satisfied with going “near” these tokens, though. Instead, I’m going to clip through every wall I can to get exactly where they are. When I’m done with that, I’m going to clip through the floor and fall down the building instead of taking the stairs. That’s pretty much how this level goes.

The next map is much more interesting, in my opinion. Just like before, there are two enemies right in front of the starting point and a civilian next to them. The differences here are that the enemies don’t know about Bond yet and there’s no side path to take. Unfortunately, the two enemies are in a really annoying spot, and turning to shoot them with bullets would take time. Instead, I’m going to take the grenade launcher I picked up earlier and blow them both up instantly. I shoot the ground directly in front of me so I kill the enemies, but the explosion is far enough away from the civilian that it doesn’t hurt her too badly. The explosion also makes her stop moving, which means she doesn’t get in my way. I also grab a Ronin that is conveniently placed in the same hallway because it will be useful for yet another sequence break.

On my way to the next token, I place the Ronin down where I need it. I do this now instead of later because you can’t clip out of bounds immediately after placing a Ronin. This is because you have to crouch, then pull out a weapon or a gadget while standing up again to clip through objects. Since I can’t switch weapons until after the animation where Bond places the Ronin finishes, it’s better to get that out of the way while I’m on the way toward the token instead of doing it on the way back. Once I get back to the Ronin, I jump on top of it, crouch, then stand up and pull out a weapon at the same time so I can get through the wall. The Ronin is useful here because it gives me the height I need to clip through this wall. After a tight walk on a narrow seam, the rest of the map is about taking the shortest path to the remaining tokens, with a nice out of bounds glitch at the end to skip unlocking the elevator door. I also take my one chance to use the black Desert Eagle, adding to the list of guns that are shown off in this TAS.

The rest of the level is very straightforward once you know to expect Bond to go through walls and floors. Normally, you’re expected to wait on the long elevator ride and fight enemies along the way, but a simple clip through the floor allows Bond to skip all that. The game doesn’t care how Bond gets to the ground floor, just that he gets there in one piece. The next map is also very short. I just use the grenade launcher to break the window to the security room, jump in, open the front gate, and escape while picking up the two remaining tokens along the way. I also shoot a grenade up at the ceiling to break most of the glass up there, which causes a ton of lag when you’re playing the game on real hardware. It’s pretty hilarious, but the effect isn’t really there on the old version of Dolphin this TAS plays on.

The last few seconds of this level requires a bit of an explanation. In short, anything you do on the last frame of the mission doesn’t count. That’s why I was able to die and finish the level at the same time. The results screen (which isn’t visible in the TAS) still says every token is collected, any rewards you get for completing the mission still count, and the next level is still unlocked. There are no side effects to dying and completing the mission at the same time. The reason I know this is because the mission completes before the death animation does, so the mission hasn't failed yet as far as the game is concerned. You can even see the blood animation stop at the same time the screen starts fading out when the “Mission Complete” text is supposed to go away. That text isn’t visible because of the death screen, but the mission has still been completed, so everything goes on like normal.

Number of Tokens: 6

This level and the next one are very straightforward. If you’ve watched the run up to this point and discovered you aren’t a fan of the shenanigans taking place, the next two levels are for you. They’re straightforward and to the point, but they do take a while. Deep Descent is a relaxing driving level that takes place underwater. I tried my best to make it entertaining while also taking the best lines I could. The main challenge with this level is that you have to focus on racing lines in all 3 dimensions. It’s quite a challenge to optimize this level.

Most of the tokens are in odd locations I wouldn’t expect people to find on their first time playing. They’ll be tucked in a corner somewhere you can’t see without turning around, or placed behind an object you normally drive past without thinking much of it. The token at the very end is the most awkward one in the entire game. It’s so far out of the way that it’s the one everybody knows you’re talking about when you say “that one token in Deep Descent.”

I won’t go into detail about every little optimization in this level, but there are a few clever bumps here and there where I purposely bump into a wall to get my car turning in the right direction a little sooner. A good example of this is at the part where I disable the nuclear missiles, just before the yellow submarine chase. When I place the last mine, I bump the back of the car into one of the missile supports, which gets my car turning toward the exit a little quicker. This saved a little bit of time because I would need to hit the brakes anyway, so the speed loss from bumping into the wall didn’t hurt me. There are a few other moments like that in this level, but that is the most notable one.

Number of Tokens: 4

As I mentioned before, this level is pretty straightforward. I try to throw in some nonsense here and there to keep the run entertaining, but driving from point A to point B as quickly as possible is still the main goal. One example of some “nonsense” in this level is where the two enemy SUV’s blow each other up for no reason. It’s little things like that which are the difference between a good TAS and a great one, in my opinion.

Island Infiltration is split up into 3 sections: one where you drive an SUV Bond and Alura stole from the enemies, one where you Alura flies a plane, and one where Bond operates an anti-aircraft turret to defend Alura while she activates some bombs. Unfortunately, the last two sections are mostly scripted, with very few ways to speed them up. I did my best to make them entertaining, but that can be hard to do when Alura is flying a plane slower than physically possible and there are no enemies to shoot at. Anyway, the last section, where Bond operates the turret gun, is easier to make entertaining since there’s always something going on. Since this part is entirely scripted, I take some time to mess with the enemies and cause some weird things to happen. The only thing I need to do to finish the level is shoot the submarine as early as possible.

Number of Tokens: 7

Countdown is a pretty big step up from the previous two levels. It starts off with a trick to move through the vents faster. All you have to do is crouch as you grapple up into a vent. The grapple will interrupt Bond’s crouching animation, and Bond will be put in a weird state where he’s able to crouch without slowing down. It doesn’t last forever, though. Eventually, I have to crouch again while I’m inside the vent and move at normal speed.

When I get out of the vent, I place three remote mines where Rook, this level’s mini-boss, will spawn. You have to kill him to progress, and this is by far the fastest way to do it. You have to spend some time placing the mines and you also have to take a small detour to get a few more later on, but it’s still much faster than shooting him. From there, most of this level is about moving through the hallways optimally while dealing with all the enemies. The best way I’ve found to fight them is to look down and shoot their feet with the crossbow. Frag Grenades also work because enemies will run away from them. The grenades probably won’t kill, but all I care about is getting the enemies out of my way.

The 2nd part of the level takes place in the missile silos, and this is a fun one. Most speedrunners would be pretty upset about getting only one AIMS grenade from the Phoenix Commando earlier in the level, but that's all the TAS needs. It's used right at the start to shoot through a gap in a door and blow up some enemies and a laser trip mine. The mine wouldn't have killed Bond, but it's best to avoid taking damage if it doesn't lose any time. Speaking of taking damage, I run straight through the array of trip mines in the next room. It does much less damage than I would have expected before making this. The final speedrun trick here is an out-of-bounds clip that lets you skip most of the silo area. It doesn't save that much time in All Tokens, since you have to backtrack a little, but it's still faster than running through the rest of the map normally.

The third section is mostly straightforward. It starts off with a clip through the first door, which saves about half a second, then another clip that lets me skip unlocking the next door. It's even better in this category because I have to go to that side of the room for a 007 Token anyway. When I get down into the hallways, I change the direction I'm facing because it lets me open the next couple of doors a little sooner. Thankfully, turning around like that doesn't waste any time since I have to wait for the door to open anyway. After that, the rest of the level is mostly scripted. The only thing that matters is that I kill the last wave of enemies as soon as possible, which is easy to do when you place remote mines where they spawn.

Number of Tokens: 7

Equinox is the final mission in the game, and it’s pretty much entirely scripted. There are two time-sensitive moments in the whole mission. First, you have to kill the first two enemies before Drake finishes his monologue, then you have to kill Drake as soon as he spawns. Everything else, including the nuclear missiles that are going to blow up the world, don’t really matter as far as a speedrun is concerned. Just disable them and get around to killing the remaining enemies and everything will be fine.

007: Nightfire doesn't play nice with the aspect ratio. In short, the on-foot levels and the driving levels run at a slightly different aspect ratio. Both aspect ratios are close to 16:9, but neither is exact. Dolphin 5.0 doesn't expect this, and all frames after the first aspect ratio change will be garbled and glitchy. The only way I know to solve this is to stretch the game to fit a perfect 16:9 no matter which level it's in. The game will be slightly stretched, but it's not something anybody will notice. This is how the any% TAS was encoded and, as far as I know, it's the only way to prevent the visual glitches.

Another very important note is that this game uses FMV cutscenes, which are garbled if you have an Nvidia graphics card. The only way to fix this is to either use an AMD Graphics card, or switch Dolphin to use the Direct3D 11 Renderer and set it to render using your CPU. It's a lot slower, but it works.

Another oddity I've noticed with ancient versions of Dolphin like this one is that the resolution you dump frames at is based on the size of the window, not the resolution the game is set to. You can set the window size you want in Dolphin's config files. There's no GUI option for it. Also, Windows 10 seems to have a maximum window size, and it's based on the resolution you're using. I wanted to dump frames at 4K, but that required me to use multiple monitors and stack one vertically on top of the other, so the maximum window height could be taller.

This is frame 42263 in the YouTube video.

arkiandruski: Claiming for judging.

arkiandruski: Looks great. Accepting as a full completion branch.

EZGames69: Processing...

EZGames69: just as a note for anyone in the future who re-encodes this run, there’s two issues you need to watch out for:

1. Sometimes the loading screens will disappear for unexplained reasons. Something to do with alt+tab with the emulator window or something, but this also happens in full screen mode. Be sure they display properly and not just show the colored dots.

2. There’s a chance the run will desync around the 30:53 mark, the cutscene showing the turret appearing wont be skipped, thus the run desyncs. This seems to be an inconsistent desync, but usually the culprit is resolution settings. I was able to sync that section more consistently with 4x resolution. I’d reccomend making a savestate near the end of the previous level so you can better test which syncs and which doesn’t.