This is an any% run of the playstation platformer 'Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back'. Originally I wanted to make a 100% run of Crash 1, but after I switched to any% I chose to use my extra motivation to make a run of this game.
Aims for Fastest Time
Heavy Glitch Abuse
Takes Damage to Save Time
Any%
Genre: Platform
NOTE: I didn't experience any desync while recording this movie because I used the TAS sound plugin. However, this plugin is not particularly good for this game. The music is fine, but the sfx is almost completely lost. Eternal emulates the sound perfectly, but it may be a massive pain in the ass to edit in for whoever encodes this. Unfortunately I lack the experience to do it myself so hopefully it is not a huge problem either way.
Notes on Tricks, Glitches and Optimisation
Movement: Crash's fastest movement speed is on ice (v=15), but under normal circumstances it is when sliding (velocity = 18), however due to the pauses after each slide a mask is faster over all (v = 12). The game removes your masks for each boss and 'Boulders' style level so collecting them is not as fast continually sliding. Spinning is the same speed as walking in this game (v=10).
Gripping: This trick can be used to clear normally impossible gaps. Crash's grip of platforms is very buggy and he can be surprisingly far into a ravine while still having an active ground flag. This is used in many places, but it is not particularly obvious in real time.
3rd Dimension Abuse: This game has many 2D levels and the designers attempted to have these within 2D parameters, however in some 2D levels it is possible to jump towards the camera and bend around normally impassible objects.
Traction Glitch: A very cool glitch that I stumbled across. Crash's speed when on ice is 15. When crash comes off the ice this reverts back to 10 usually, however on the frame of landing it is possible to press X and preserve the 15 velocity. This velocity can be held for as long as you can proceed without landing for more than a frame.
I'm getting a desync with TAS Sound Plugin 0.2, just after the first quicksand pit in Turtle Woods. When I used Sound Plugin 0.1, I can go a bit further, but then Crash dies in the level's third bottomless pit.
These are the specs I use to run the movie, although I usually use Sound Plugin 0.2, which as I said desyncs too
So what am I doing wrong?
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!)
My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Make sure you have "Movie sync mode" enabled in the sound configuration. I used all the v0.2 TAS plugins and both Mukki's movies synced fine without any issue. I didn't use any ISOs, but the real discs..
It seems I'm the only one who has watched these movies so far, so I'll give some feedback.
This one was a lot better than CB1, but they're both absolutely great. CB2 was particularly very fast-looking. The only bad thing was the sound (which isn't Mukki's, the game's or even PCSX's fault, just mine), but I got used to it rather quickly.
Very entertaining movies, thanks a lot for making them.
You're just fucking stupid, everyone hates you, sorry to tell you the truth. no one likes you, you're someone pretentious and TASes only to be on speed game, but don't have any hope, you won't get there.
Still desyncing with movie sync mode turned on. And I did...something to the sound plugin, I'm not sure what. It's like half of the sound effects just don't play.
You know what, I'll just wait on the encodes at this point. Could you do them, mz?
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!)
My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
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Posts: 1360
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As much as I can tell that a lot of time and effort has been put into making this (it's basically a prerequisite for a sufficiently good-looking run any sufficiently 3D game), I just didn't find it all that entertaining. Perhaps this is because I haven't really dealt with this game before, but it felt like I was watching the same two or three levels over and over again.
I suspect that fans of the game would enjoy watching this, though.
Meh vote.
That was incredible. I was totally entertained the entire way through. Maintaining momentum after being on ice is really an awesome trick, especially in levels like Cold Hard Crash, where it's done over a really long distance. Great job, easy yes vote.
Sync'ed fine for me.
Is constantly sliding on the ground, including the dead stop at the end really faster than just sliding once, jumping, and keeping the momentum just like with ice? Same should work for those speed-boosting arrow floor plates in some levels. Even if not, what about doing a really quick jump at the last instant instead of stopping dead?
I just have memories of being able to slide-jump everywhere, and that being super fast. the jerky slide/stop movement in this tas just seems slow, and if I'm right, 5+ minutes could be saved without a route change. But I might be wrong (either the speed isn't conserved in the jump, and the slow air-time negates the time that could be spent sliding again after a stop, or I'm thinking of Crash 3 which I played more of), so I will abstain from voting until I get more information.
Also I thought that the victory dance after defeating a boss could be skipped with triangle. Maybe that's not an option for first-time defeats, only for repeats, blah.
Anyway, apart from the above, the rest of the game, especially the boss fights, was entertaining!
I have the same feeling as above... your bouncing performance in that ice level was one of the best part.
I could provide an encode, but I'm still getting the mysterious crashy black screen with kkapture :/
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
bkDJ wrote:
Is constantly sliding on the ground, including the dead stop at the end really faster than just sliding once, jumping, and keeping the momentum just like with ice? Same should work for those speed-boosting arrow floor plates in some levels.
Perhaps momentum is the wrong word to use. Ice has the strange property that your velocity on the ice is the same on the ice as it is in the air after coming off the ice. Velocity on the ice is 15 and it is still 15 after jumping. When sliding on normal ground your velocity is 18, but when you jump it always reverts to 10 meaning that you will have to slide again when you hit the ground to return your velocity to 18. Ice terrain and ground terrain are different are are treated different. After jumping off the ice onto normal ground your velocity will be 15 and when you land on normal ground the game does a check and discovers that you are on normal ground rather than ice and reverts your velocity back to 10 accordingly. As I briefly mentioned in the submission text under 'gripping' the jumping flags are quite buggy in this game. In the above scenario it is possible to jump on the frame before the terrain check is done therefore keeping the 15 velocity rather than having it change back to 10. Therefore it cannot really be called momentum abuse as it is closer to an abuse of the terrain flags. Thus it does not work with sliding so as to preserve the 18 velocity as the game automatically reverts the velocity to 10 after jumping because Crash is on normal ground (jumping after a slide on ice will revert the velocity to 15 due to the terrain). The same thing happens with the arrows. An arrow increases your speed to 28 but it reverts to 10 if you jump.
I hope that that explains it and sorry for any confusion.
bkD wrote:
Even if not, what about doing a really quick jump at the last instant instead of stopping dead?
The thing is that because you are sliding, and sliding is the fastest form of movement, there is no such thing as a "really quick jump" because a jump while sliding will always be a high jump. Despite what it looks like Crash's velocity while continually sliding is 18, it reverts to 0 for only two frames and then returns to 18 again. With sliding plus jumps it would be 18 for the slide and then it would return to 10 for the duration of the high jump. I did my testing on this months ago when I first started recording on the first stretch of turtle woods and it was faster, but not much faster only a frame or two.
bkDJ wrote:
Also I thought that the victory dance after defeating a boss could be skipped with triangle.
Worked ok for me. I don't know if the settings were different or anything but it worked.
Oh yeah! Gr8 run. YES Vote. But however there was a lot of lag so I wouldn't be suprised if an encode might take a while...
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
Thanks for clearing up the confusion! Voting yes.
BTW: the audio is messed up as mentioned (And the music for the 2 jet pack levels isn't nearly as full-sounding as it should be... some notes get cut off instead of being sustained), but also there are a few places in the firefly level (Night Fight?) where the ground texture is broken, or the light doesn't work properly. like, ugly black squares. I know that there are bottomless pits in that level, but what I'm describing is actual ground being black. I don't know if that's just my computer or what, but I hope it doesn't affect any encode.
played through fine for me, no desyncs, yes vote
the music is fine, but sfx seem to only play about half a second of each one
using 0.1.1 and my config:
Still haven't seen the movie, but I'm surprised the poll has 3 no votes and the replies in the thread are all positive except for one.
Maybe we should write a script that only allows votes if you post? If the purpose of the voting is to help the judges, it's not much help if all the negative votes are anonymous.
People could still vote anonymously after the movie has been published, if they just wish to affect the movie's score without stating their opinion.
It's my understanding that votes during submission no longer affect the movie's score, since they were leading to massive score inflation compared to the old scoring method.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
Anonymous No votes are just as easily ignored as anonymous Yes votes. Either way, the votes are more or less there to help the judge decipher what the community is leaning towards if the discussion itself doesn't have an evident representation.
Its not realy even the matter if they are easly ignored or not, the question is rather how does x2 no vote unexplained and silmultaneous on 17/18 movies in the bench contribute in any sort, i think trolls are never something good to have around, regardless how harmless (or not) they are.
I guess having the option to turn (certain) peoples vote off will be good at some point
hmm somehow the forum ate my post. Anyway, about the sounds problems. There are three ways. TAS SPU (minimal SFX), Pete's Midas (some SFX (tip from Atma)), or Eternal SPU (seemly all SFX). The first two syncs fine while Eternal desyncs to hell. I think I may jump this run for 1 to see if it is easier to do 1 first.
quick and dirty encode http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D088T735
Like a few of the other people the game didn't want to end after cortex
Not sure what to do with the sfx problem, the aren't in the console like with the music from the punky skunk run.
I didn't like this as much as the first one, it's probably because I never played this game but the bgm didn't seem as good and the levels seemed repetitive. Overall these games are harder then they look and that isn't a good thing for TASes.
So what am I doing wrong?
