The Elite Forum
The Big Three Plus One => GoldenEye 007 => Topic started by: GoldenGreg007 on April 30, 2012, 09:59:09 pm
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I've found a few things that may be useful for all of you, some a little older, but many I just found recently. One of the recent finds is something that may actually be useful for speedrunning, albeit in an incredibly frustrating way. Since this is probably the longest post I've ever made, I decided to section it up for ease of navigation in case you don't feel like reading it all. I apologize for being tight-lipped about these things, but I guess part of me thought that I would actually take the time to put them to use or learn about them more (or motivation to get a surprise Woll untied), and just haven't for one reason or another. I really do hope these things prove useful. But without further ado..
Section 1: Differences Between JAP/PAL and NTSC
Using a combination of WinMerge and the ever-useful Goldeneye Setup Editor, I compared level setups between JAP/PAL and NTSC. I lump JAP/PAL together, because their level setups actually came up identical, which says to me that they were both released/finished slightly later than NTSC. I'm aware of the body armor difference between the two, but that's apparently a game-wide setting, as opposed to a level specific setting. Anyway, six levels came up different:
Silo: Four additional intro cinemas. Everyone already knows this one.
Frigate: Engine room cinema is slightly different. It looks like a fix to how the intro looks in cinema mode. Here are screenshots showing the difference:
NTSC:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_intro_ntsc.jpg&hash=f5d2d035d7a71d8d07a823522f8601d07d530b23)
JAP:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_intro_jap.jpg&hash=e56fd3c3afc3b1a1268cff95aa7b846478f8d69c)
Statue: If you kill Valentin after objective A completes in NTSC, nothing happens. If you do the same in JAP/PAL, you fail all objectives.
Train: Some as of yet unknown condition with Natalya and Xenia. Additional logic that didn't exist in NTSC, but exists in JAP/PAL. I can post this if anyone is curious, but I plan to contact one of the hackers about it to see if they can clairify.
Jungle: Many minor logic additions and changes. Again, it's unclear what these are for, but they look like they deal with how the game recognizes certain objectives as complete. I killed Natalya many times attempting to find the difference here. Sadly, she died in vain. Many times.
Cradle: A couple minor logic additions, one seems to be for detecting better if Bond is near Trevelyan, while the other seems to be some sort of bug fix for the end cinema of the level. I could not find a difference when comparing them side by side though.
Credits: There are a bunch of additional names in the credits.
Misc: In JAP/PAL, f you have 2x weapon cheats on, they show up in your weapon list when paused and you can pull out a single gun instead of both. In NTSC, neither of these are the case.
Section 2: Immediately Useful Findings
Frigate: First of all, I want to thank Jimmy Bauer for helping me test and learn more about this one. Using 2.3, you can release a hostage during the intro cinema:
Frigate - Release Hostage During Intro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cupo24URYkM#)
I was playing with a keyboard, which is my excuse for lack of strafing in that video. As you can see, the hostage taker is not directly in the middle of the screen, so you need to raise the aim all the way up and then begin shooting. There is also the computer with a bomb strapped to the top of it that will more often than not get blown up when trying to shoot the hostage taker. Luckily, we found a way around this..
This is where things get even more interesting. If you go straight to Frigate from starting up, you will have to deal with the potential computer explosion killing the hostage. However, if you play another level before Frigate, depending no the level, you will NOT have to deal with this computer. Why is that? Because objects will not load into the cinema:
With Objects:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_with_objects.jpg&hash=8e81264e230c3e94fef699e32b64624b49fdee53)
Without Objects:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_without_objects.jpg&hash=daab3b86484669e1609192a30505ff4263470175)
Note: The level you pick before Frigate is very important. If you play Dam before Frigate for example, you will not only have no objects in the cinema, you will have no actors either, i.e. no hostage taker to kill, no hostage to save. This condition is only prevalent in the above cinema and the one that shows the front of the boat:
With Objects:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_with_objects2.jpg&hash=cb5a35f3e064433c16e8fcd407ec193c47083895)
Without Objects:
(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thengamer.com%2Fwoll%2Ffrigate_without_objects2.jpg&hash=0eff8fe1b4c3ab8b4f4b60edf5070085310c44bd)
A good pre-Frigate choice seems to be Surface 1, as this will give you an object-free cinema that still contains the hostage and hostage taker. I'm not entirely sure how consistent it is, because there are times I've played Surface first and still had objects there.
There are potential problems here. There are several other guards in this room which will now be well aware of your existence and will run straight to the agent hostage area, potentially ruining your run. We didn't find a good way around this. The other obvious problem is the fact that you have to do a certain amount of the level with 2.3. This could be slightly faster than the current SA strat, due to the last hostage being released before the level starts. At the very worst, releasing this hostage during the cinema could greatly increase completion consistency on the level assuming someone is able to get through the first part of the level with 2.3. If that's out of the question and no one wants to get good enough with 2.3 to make use of this, hopefully it can at least be beneficial for TAS runs.
It would also be interesting to know what other aspects of the game may be affected by this "object load glitch". If the objects aren't loaded in the cinema, what else could be missing? I experimented a little bit and couldn't find other cinemas that were sometimes missing objects (it seems that a few cinemas on Dam are always missing the objects).
Jungle: If you run backwards to Xenia, she will not be "activated" until you are in her line of sight. There is a certain point that she can be "activated", thus you have to start running backwards before the bridge obviously. Here is a video demonstrating the concept:
Jungle - Backwards Run To Xenia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxDvK5zIgMo#)
The most obvious application of this strategy would of course be DLTK. You can hide behind the tree and let Natalya do all of the work for you. I timed one Xenia kill at several minutes faster than the current Jungle DLTK WR run. You are entirely at Natalya's mercy here though. I could not consistently get her to start attacking Xenia quickly, but it is certainly possible. Note: I was looking down intentionally, because if I had looked up a little bit more when turned towards the tree, Xenia would have been activated.
Section 3: WTF?
Bunker 1: This is an old video. I'm sorry for not posting this sooner, but I really wanted to figure this one out before I attempted to explain it. Needless to say, I've never been able to replicate it:
Bunker 1 - Equipment Switch Without Pause (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMRusAmvPV4#)
In case you didn't catch it, I switched from Key Analyzer to Datathief without pausing the game. I'll give you a second to recover.
..
Okay. Here is my theory on it: I was hammering Z as you can hear by the constant analyze noises, while getting hammered by the guards. Somewhere in there, I gave up on the run (this was during my trials for Bunker 17), and pressed start to quit out. Due to the timing, I encountered the frozen Bond glitch. Eventually I was able to pause the game, at which point you can see I had the Datathief equipped. The Key Analyzer is the only item in the game that auto-switches to another item when used, though obviously normally it is the Goldeneye Key. I have no idea why it decided to switch to the Datathief instead. It'd be nice if we fully understood how the frozen Bond glitch works. Better understanding of it may help figure out what happened here, perhaps to the point that it is replicable. This seems like it could potentially be the most insane timing ever, that frozen Bond happened when the Key Analyzer attempted to switch to the key, and somehow confused it into switching to the Datathief. Your guess is as good as mine.
This concludes my enormous post. Even if none of this ends up benefitting anyone, I hope you all at least found it interesting. Long live GE and the Elite!
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Great stuff, Woll! So THIS is what you've been up to for the past few years...
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Awesome stuff, i might have to test out that frigate strat since i'm already good at 2.4. ;)
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I've been telling Clemens that 2.4 seems highly favored over any other style for Runway Agent as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that it could open up a Runway Secret Agent untied as well...
I failed over 100 Runway Agent 23's in just a couple hours (yup, I'm trying for 22) and it was ridic how easy it was. I'd get 23's with like a 3:0 ration AND terrible strafing (making the turns in the key room IS difficult).
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Very interesting stuff, Wolly. I've played around with the differences myself and discovered the 2x weapon difference as well. Cool to see an in-depth comparison. Right on dude! :p
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Frigate Secret Agent 2-pause strategy is now very possible.
- release bridge hostage in cinema
- take normal route, kill guard, switch to 1.X and throw bug
- continue normal route, pause for bomb defuser in bridge room
- do not switch weapons, pipe warp with defuser in hand, defuse bridge room, exit level
The possible WR is entirely dependent on when you release the 3rd (now final) hostage and his escape speed from there. There was a TAS thread where it was posted years ago but I don't want to dig that up right now.
It definitely appears that sub 1:00 is a far more real possibility now.
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Nice thread, I love this kind of stuff.
The non-activated Xenia stuff raises an idea that could cut many seconds if possible: On Statue, do you guys think that it might be possible to leave the 006 talk without the game recognizing that you crossed the line that triggers 'early leave -> mission failed'? Maybe with a technique similar to that backwards running Xenia bug? You could be near the helicopter before the 006 objective completes :D
- do not switch weapons, pipe warp with defuser in hand, defuse bridge room, exit level
Urgs, sounds tedious :-X
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Awesome investigative work Greg! You know how much i love doing these things myself so this was a truly interresting read for me.
Frigate is obviously the big wow here (pretty cool finding another cinema bug use after this long), can it be useful for Agent as well? If you only need to release 1 additional hostage then the chances of completion should increase dramaticly (chances of that hostage choosing right path = 1/6, so only the damn chair would be in the way).
Not sure how this will affect SA, but the 2-pause strat might indeed be useful now if only hostages can escape fast enough. Might be useful for the full-game TAS as well.
Also very nice DLTK strat for jungle :)
The non-activated Xenia stuff raises an idea that could cut many seconds if possible: On Statue, do you guys think that it might be possible to leave the 006 talk without the game recognizing that you crossed the line that triggers 'early leave -> mission failed'? Maybe with a technique similar to that backwards running Xenia bug? You could be near the helicopter before the 006 objective completes :D
I don't think the situations are equivalent at all, obj B failed is triggered on Statue at the same spot always, independent of where you look at, Xenia however is very dependent on Bonds viewing direction.
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I've been telling Clemens that 2.4 seems highly favored over any other style for Runway Agent as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that it could open up a Runway Secret Agent untied as well...
Yeah i agree with this, full speed beginning plus bryans 2 boost beginning strat might give 22 on SA.
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I don't quite even remember how the frozen bond happened but I remember it happens alot on speedruns when trying to pause out too fast or something.
heh maybe when bond freezes you are in the pause even though you can't see it, I really haven't played enough GE lately though so I'm like just shooting in the dark almost.
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I Love This Topic! <3
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Frigate is obviously the big wow here (pretty cool finding another cinema bug use after this long), can it be useful for Agent as well? If you only need to release 1 additional hostage then the chances of completion should increase dramaticly (chances of that hostage choosing right path = 1/6, so only the damn chair would be in the way).
The problem is that using this strat makes guards run into the hallway and on agent they'll block you on your way back after the bug throw. Maybe there's a way to get around this problem? If so it will definitely be useful on agent.
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Hmm i see, is it impossible to get past them?
Also, what happens if you watch all/no cinema? I.e, can you use cinema to time it right to make sure they aren't in the way?
Btw, if you only have to kill 1 hostage taker and only rely on him, then 22 shouldn't be so farfetched right? Maybe even easier than 23 is with current strat?
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Well I didn't test tons or anything but from what I remember is that I was nowhere near fast enough to beat them before they got in the hallway. And if you watch the whole cinema and you're slow they'll even beat you to the hallway!
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Might be useful for the full-game TAS as well.
Sadly I'm pretty sure it won't be actually, due to the behavior of the "object load" glitch. I would expect that after playing six levels beforehand, you won't even have the hostage taker to shoot during the cinema. But again, there's surely a lot to be understood yet about this glitch, so I could be wrong. Assuming my expectation is correct though, it'd still at least be a neat standalone TAS.
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What's the fastest the first and second hostage can escape on the normal route from release? I have an idea for a strat.
Awesome topic btw, good job on the discoveries.
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http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=14453.0 (http://elite.speedrunwiki.com/forum/index.php?topic=14453.0)
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Nice, thanks!
This might be super inconsistent, but might work in theory. Make the hostage kill during cinema to work and as soon as you start playing pause (you already need to pause once in the level). Select the tracker bug and change to whatever control style you normally use. Run to the tracker bug throw and hope not to get stuck on (new attracted guards?) and the one at the end of the corridor. As you wait for the bug to land, open the hostage door, look back for B:complete. Quickly kill the second hostage (lower escape time) and quickly run back to the boat and hope to god the hostage is fast. There might be guards and stuff in the way right, but shouldn't you be able to run through them pretty easy with a weapon?
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Nice thinking Patrik, I think this might at least be useful for more completions around 24-25 pace.
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You'll have to lose time for that hostage to escape fast enough Im sure. He usually escapes at the top of the ramp or halfway down on a 23 run, and thats only like 2-3 seconds before the level finishes, and a pause is like 4 seconds..