Submission Text Full Submission Page
On a personal perspective, I believe a lot of people totally disliked this game and the way it was played. Some of the reasons include the physics, the GFX, the controls, and perhaps even the story. As a movie, you see everything. As a game, it skips several acts including the "2 weeks" scene.
But the objective here is to TAS this game to the extreme, whether it sux or not. After you watch this, you'll see this game is known for walking in the air after coming out of stage 3 (security hall checkpoint), a red soldier moon-walking on a subway train, and finally the infamous dance to enemy gunshots at Quaid's apartment.
As explained in the previous runs, Quaid knew what all to do. And watching out for signs of lagging is important. One symptom is picking the right time to fire shots. Another symptom of lag is in the driving stage of Mars, you'll notice the screen slows down like a camel while Quaid's green car starts heading toward the right-hand side of the screen. If you experience these problems, chances are, this might result in a sloppy run. For an entertainment system more than 20 years old, most games will put too many objects (like vehicles in Mars) or even too much speed (like Zelda II - check out the glitches Inzult used), that's where NES's processor has a hard time keeping up with "everything!" From there on, that is where things get sloppy. But here, it's the game's fault, not mine.
This is a run improved by 4 seconds, leaving me to settle with barely under 7 minutes. This my third TAS attempt for this game as I already contributed a lot of speed with a little entertainment to this game within the past week or so. But 7 minutes is still the fastest I have seen and done thus far.
Emulator used: fceu-0.98.15-rerecording
My goals are about the same as before:
(1) Aim for fastest time
(2) Take damage to save time
(3) Manipulate luck
(4) Abuse programming error(s) in this game
(5) Do not die (no death)
Big thanx for the support! Also, more thanx to mmbossman for his honesty and input. =)
And now a pre-encoded movie is available on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqMxri-42E
$/X

NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Oh! I also corrected the ROM name.
  • You indicated Total_Recall_(U)_[!].nes
  • I updated it to Total Recall (U) [!].nes



TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15574
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1956: p0rtal_0f_rain's NES Total Recall in 06:59.98
Joined: 10/31/2004
Posts: 62
This game should be totally recalled.
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
Here's my analogy for recalls: E. Coli is to meat as a programming error is to games. If I'm correct, you guys should see my point. =) Oh, and I re-read the responses from my other submissions and found this:
mmbossman wrote:
In just the first minute, you jump with a bullet following you, but end up getting hit with it.
If that snapshot I uploaded is what you're talking about, then that is one of the backalleys that a drunk guy was hiding in. If I kept walking and never intended to jump, not only I would be shot to lose life, but I would also kill more frames fighting in the backalley. That was one of my purposes of jumping here. My other purpose was to take the bullet so it can speed me up a little bit. In other words, "taking damage to save time". There is at least two things to deal with when Quaid gets up to that point: a bullet from behind and a drunk guy in a backalley coming at Quaid at the same time. Here's proof:
Joined: 4/30/2008
Posts: 89
Location: Northeast Kansas USA, GMT -06:00
I didn't really care for the Total Recall movie, but it would surely work best if this game was put out sooner! Of course, for those that haven't watched Total Recall, they had better get their tush into a video store and rent the DVD of it, and then load this submission. Good luck, Symbolic X.
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
I thought the movie was pretty good. I paid little for the bandwidth to download it. Thanx!
Skilled player (1827)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
This run desyncs for me after ~2700 frames on emulator versions 0.98.13, 0.98.15 as well as 0.98.16. The ROM check-sum matches and I'm playing it in NTSC speed. Has anyone else had problems watching this? I'm also experiencing graphical glitches on all emulator versions for this game (the screen scrolling looks really bad). Is this how it's supposed to look?
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
I used emulator "fceu-0.98.15-rerecording". Link: http://www.filespace.org/nitsuja/fceu.zip Perhaps it would be a shame if I had to post the exact same time using a different version. Nothing else, I could be one that needs a better version of the emulator. The more versions of FCE that go out to the public, the more confusing things could get. Should I start encoding this movie into H264 and then sharing this on YouTube? I can have it ready in a few hours =)
Experienced player (828)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Most of the big mistakes I saw in the previous versions are gone, and the small stops, especially in level 4, have been minimized. I still would not be surprised if there was more optimization to make, but without trying it myself, I can't list anything. So since it's short, has some decent variety, and the quality has improved enough for me to consider it publication worthy. Voting yes.
Living Well Is The Best Revenge My Personal Page
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
And now, a pre-encoded video is available on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqMxri-42E
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
The fights in the backalley of stage 1 (NES Robot snapshots) was not part of this movie. Is there really a problem with the emulator or even its version? If we can come up with some more rules, like the recommended version of the emulator that the TAS'er must use, would it be easier or harder that way?
Player (206)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I think the emulator version could have its own field in the submission form, or even a bullet list of emulators, to help standardize which one is used to play the run. At least that way NesVideoAgent might not put up ten pictures of a desynchronization.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Banned User
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 742
Location: Gone
Cancelling this submission, hopefully for the last damn time. I just played this game again and beated the movie by about 5 seconds. We're talking 300 valuable frames here. I'll resubmit the new one. Big thanx!
Skilled player (1416)
Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 1978
Location: Making an escape
I just gotta say... Wow at the last screenshot NVA took. O_o
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
Just because its a bad game doesn't mean its not publishable, just look at Widget. IMO this game is definitly publishable but as others have said its not very optimal espeacially when compared to other simalar genre games on the site. I hope you make a new and better one :-) And yes definitly watch the movie as it has my fave Arnie quote: "You think this is the real Quaig... It is..."
Player (121)
Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522
Agreed with Mr. AKA ... this game has definite potential. It just needs some frame advance love :)
I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs