Game objectives
- Emulator: snes9x-1.51-rerecording-v7-win32
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
About the Game
The game is loosely based on the 1995 film Judge Dredd, which was spun-off from the Judge Dredd comic book. In 22nd century there only one form of the law that exists anymore are Judges. Typical Street Judge has a big set of actions available: walking, running, jumping, crouch, crawl, climb up and down ladder, kick, hand-punch, use a lot of various weapons, and even make an arrest criminals.
Weapons:
- Pistol - first available weapon, has unlimited ammo.
- Grenades - Useful at beginning of game, and also in some is places later, when you can throw it at an odd angle unavailable for normal weapons.
- Rubber bullet - non-lethal weapon, able to disarm some criminals. Also it can be ricocheted off the walls and hit Dredd. Sometimes can be useful to to get temporally invulnerability.
- Homing missile and Double homing missile – no benefits, almost not used at all.
- Fire bullets weapon - used to kill weak enemies (ninjas and sky-serfers) with 1 shot and also to destroy some mobile boxes.
- Armor-piercing bullets - this awesome weapon able to shoot thru the walls, which open great opportunities for speed running.
- Rocket weapon - powerful weapon, used to defeat bosses from moment when it become available.
- Plasma-superweapon - this is the most powerful weapon, but it can be found only during fight against Rico and all of them was used immediately.
- Ghostbuster weapon - this weapon able to catch ghosts.
There are 12 stages in game, each stage consist of two or three missions. Nearly all missions has primary and secondary objective, however to unlock exit from mission only primary objective must be completed.
Stage by Stage
Stage 1 - Heavenly Haven
1-1
Main task to destroy all solid blue boxes, they can be destroyed by grenades (also by Rockets and Plasma-superweapon, but at this point of run they not yet available). Boxes must start explode in sight of Dredd or they stay unhurt even if they got direct hit. Mobile square boxes is not a part of main task and they can be destroyed by any weapon. When all the grenades used up - pack with new 3 grenades is appear in some places on map. So we need waste all grenades in this mission to get +3 new in beginning of 1-2, so 1 superfluous grenade was used to destroy mobile box which blocked the path before last ladder.
1-2
Main task the same as in 1-1. During destroying big group of 6 boxes Dredd find comfortable place on one of them for shooting and for jumping back on ladder.
Boss
Zed can easily be killed by 5 grenades, however collecting them is pure waste of time -
good Street Judge must be always ready join the battle being unarmed. And so at that day Dredd bring justice in Heavenly Haven by kicking Zed to death.
Stage 2 - Aspen Penal Colony
2-1
Main task to visit all terminals. Remarkable moment - at terminal#4 happened strange glitch skip of entering animation. Maybe somehow it is possible (or impossible) replicate this glitch on all others terminals or at least on some of them, i was not able find how to do it in other places. It is one of possible improvements.
2-2
Descent into the sewer system under prison blocks and continue visiting terminals. Nothing special here.
2-3
Boss
Staying in safety point in the centre. Weapons are still little, homing missile almost useless rockets. Start run away while he's still alive, but grenades did it's job.
Stage 3 - Cursed Earth
3-1
Main quest is to find Former Chief Judge Fargo who took the Long Walk into the Cursed Earth to "bring law to the lawless" until his death. At the end of mission human player is supposed to fall down, but with accurate jump it is possible to jump over the precipice and go directly to the exit.
3-2
Main task to find the Book of Law.
Boss
Throw a two prepared grenades from above even before fight.
After death Mean Machine Angel drop the book and we collect it.
Stage 4
Both missions are very short, and even no boss at the end. Main idea of these short missions is give to player enough weapons for future hard stages. A lot of weapons available but we can grab only a half without time wasting, it was risky decision to leave here so many weapons, particularly i worried about armor-piercing bullets, because of if at some point in future they suddenly will run out it can be a big problem, fortunately further calculations proved that we have enough them for all tricks :)
4-1
Destroying boxes somewhere in Sewer System.
4-2
Destroying boxes somewhere in Mega City One. There are two type flying devices available for Dredd - portative magneto-electric belt and stationary flying platform. In this mission they both on map, portative belt allow reach platform with boxes slightly faster.
Stage 5 - Council Chamber
5-1
Main task to collect key-cards. Small trick (ok, very small) - one of key-cards is possible to get through permeable ceiling.
5-2
At beginning held a demonstration arrest while waiting electric field cycle (just for fun). In places where low ceilings Dredd can't jump while run, it mean he cant get a hit without loss of speed, so in such places must avoid all hits, in some it require a little more aggressive behavior than usually, but nothing difficult.
5-3
Mega City One Bike Chase. This mission will finished as soon as you will break air-bike.
Side fact: In Genesis version of game this level absolutely different than in SNES.
Stage 6
6-1
Statue of Liberty. First meeting with ABC Robots - main destroy all of them. On the way we grab some weapons, all of them will be useful later.
6-2
Janus Lab. There are funny glitch - first robot is fall down thru the floor. First platform have very terrible bad timing. If it was possible to destroy first ABC Robot only about 30 frames faster it allowed to jump on end of previous platform cycle and save several seconds, but we doomed to wait it is sad. But enough about sad cool tricks with armor-piercing bullets finally enter the scene! - Destroying some robots thru the walls allow reduce route. Btw when unfinished clones or "zombies" explode this damage take away 50% of full health so trick with hitting yourself ricochet rubber bullet was really useful in one place (in some other levels it useful too).
Stage 7
7-1
Janus Lab. Main task to visit all terminals. Nothing special here.
7-2
Boss
Ladder glitch: During climbing animation Dredd able penetrate inside solid wall and start epic fight with his beloved brother Rico near Statue of Liberty a bit earlier.
Stage 8
8-1
Janus Lab. Main task kill all ninjas. There only 3 ninjas and all of them located near the exit.
8-2
Sewer System. Main task kill all ninjas, this time a lot of ninjas. Tricks with armor-piercing bullets made it very nice and smooth for speed run.
Boss
After Rico bosses are quite easily. They all can be defeated very fast by rocket weapon.
Stage 9 - RC4 Processing Plant
9-1
Main task destroy all barells. Great mission for speed run, a lot of small and big short cuts, all glory to armor-piercing bullets. Accidentally completed both quests (second task was to release all hostages).
9-2
Another great mission for speed run. Main task the same - destroy all barells. In this mission player supposed to find location of two secret rooms with barrels, but map weakness + armor-piercing bullets allow destroy all barrels and to skip both these rooms!
Stage 10 - City Towers
10-1
Main task to kill all sky-serfers. Bad position of one of them forced us to lose one long flying platform cycle :(
10-2
Main task to kill boss of all sky-serfers.
Boss
After defeting boss continue using stationary flying platform to fly directly to exit, it fast.
Stage 11 - Justice One
11-1
Main task to visit all terminals. Nothing special here.
11-2
Main task to visit all terminals. Nothing special here.
11-3
Main task to find and get Inter-Dimensional Jump Device.
Boss
Weird alien monster. Can be found twice in previous levels of the game. Rockets again.
Stage 12 - Cursed Earth
12-1
Main task to find and kill Dark Judges. They have no fixed position where they appear, they can appear in a few different places if you located nearly for a sometime. They appear in the same order - Boss #1: Judge Fire and Boss 2: Judge Fear. After defeating their physical bodies by rocket weapons need to use also Ghostbuster weapon to catch and destroy their spirits.
12-2
Killing last two Dark Judges. Boss 1: Judge Mortis and Final Boss - Judge Death. At second incarnation "flying head" Judge Death can be defeated only at moment when he open mouth to fire.
Possible improvements
- This is my first ever movie, and optimisation is far from perfect, more skilled TASer will be able to save frames here and there in all levels. Also i did stupid systematic mistake at several screens during scores calculation (i tried to fix it but all attempt to shift input made movie de-synced).
- Figure out is it possible or impossible to replicate glitch skip animation at entering terminal on other terminals.
- Fight against Rico in 7-2 is very complicated, and it definitely can be improved, at least a little bit.
- If is possible somehow to save long cycle of platform in 6-2 or/and in 10-1 it can allow to save a several seconds.
- Find new tricks/glitches.
feos: That's quite a borderline case in terms of optimization. However, looking at the viewer reception, and considering the overall look of the run, I think we can allow that sub-optimality, for the sake of having a nice-looking movie. Accepting to Moons.
