Speed Demos Archive - Aliens vs. Predator 2

Released in October 2001, Aliens vs. Predator 2 was popular for allowing people to play a variety of Predator and Alien variants in multiplayer. The game takes place around 50 years after the events of Aliens and Alien 3.

Note of importance: This old game is not 100% compatible with the hardware I was running it on, resulting in lots of rendering errors. If you notice graphical anomalies it is not the result of editing or cheating, that's how the game behaves on my computer.

I guess it was about time I improved this old thing, and I'm actually surprised no one else did this before. The old run was by no means bad, but for some unexplainable reason a lot of tricks refused to work. Well, now I have managed to get them to work and polished the playing even further, resulting in an even faster run. I also decided to make full use of the game's autosaves to prevent possible penalties for browsing the menu when saving. Using the autosaves also has another nice effect, some cut scenes aren't played at all, saving a couple of seconds here and there. There really isn't that much more to mention since most of the things used in the run have already been known for years at the time I'm writing this. But I'm going to bother you with it anyway, just for the record.

Level 1: Birth.
Without doubt one of the most boring levels in the game. I started off by changing the way I'm climbing up the ladder in the beginning. Instead of just climbing straight to the ceiling and then drop down, I climb around to the opposite side of the shaft so I'm facing the proper direction right away when I get up. This turned out to be about 0.4 seconds faster than going via the ceiling. In the big ventilation shaft just after the area with the 2 pipes I found it was possible to pounce all the way up, saving about 1 second. And shortly after that I'm pouncing into the wall in the vents followed by a really quick wallwalk. I'm not sure if this actually saves any time, at least it is just as fast as pouncing straight up there, maybe 5-6 frames are saved by using the pounce-wallwalk combination. Jumping over the boxes in the server hall is another "new" small timesaver, knocking off about a second. Coming up to the lightning arc area I finally managed to get one of the crucial tricks to work, saving about 2 seconds. Whenever I tried going through this arc when doing the old run I would always die instantly no matter how much health I had, but for this run it just started working. Right after the arc is the biggest timesaver in the level, skipping the scientist chatter. Just as with the arc in the old run, the guards would always kill me instantly when trying to pull this off. But for whatever reason they started reacting slower when I made this run, allowing me to pull this huge timesaver off which is worth 20-25 seconds. The rest of the improvement comes from things already done in the old run, but they have been slightly polished.
As for the chestburster part, I really wish they made this part of the game more interesting, or removed it completely. It's so pointless, sneak past a few guards and you're done. Anyway, screw sneaking, full throttle straight forward and don't stop for anything. It will work just fine. Sure, the guards will be a little upset, but who cares? The only new timesaver here is the double bite right in the beginning. I found that doing a cold boot (no pre-loading of levels and things like that) and holding the attack button during the loading screen result in a double bite, allowing you to complete the chestbursting about 0.5 seconds faster than normal. The double bite only works on a cold boot, so attempting this part was quite annoying. Other than this I just polished the crawling a little, cutting about 7 seconds from the old time.
Level 2: Surprise.
Again, the game is announcing this level as Escape (which is level 3) in-game, but this game is obviously confused or has a problem counting to more than 1, could be a combination as well.
Anyway, the first part of this level is all about the pouncing. You have to get all the pounces at just the right length and angle or the entire segment will be screwed up. And trust me, it is a lot harder than it looks.
The second part of the level is also a lot about pouncing. The reason the 2 first guards are missing is because pulling off a pounce fast enough when you land in the cafeteria will prevent those guards from spawning at all, allowing you to preserve some health and take a more optimal route to the ventilation shaft. For the ending of the second part it is also important that the guards cooperate, not standing in your way and so on. Destroying grates and consoles using the normal attack is also faster than waiting for the bash attack. The bash attack is more consistent but it's almost a second slower each time you use it.
Coming to the third and final part of this level. In the beginning there is a really nice timesaver. If you push and hold the +forward key at just the right moment you will be teleported ahead of the actual starting point, saving about a second. Pounces are very important in this part as well and you have to get them just right. The reason I tail the guard wielding a shotgun is to preserve health, and make the heavy guard at the door I have to bash start moving towards where I'm coming from. The heavy guard is wielding a flamethrower, and if I get hit by that while bashing the door the attempt is over, and therefore I have to get that guard away from the door. The only real obstacle in this level is the final grate. The hitbox on this grate is so dodgy and you can only destroy it from very few angles, and it seems to be completely impossible to destroy it on first swipe. Getting it on second swipe is probably as fast as it can be done.
Level 3: Escape.
As usual a lot of pouncing is required for both parts of the level, and it's important to get all the pounces just right. The first actual change in the first part is the very long pounce just after the first ventilation shaft. This pounce has two very good functions, and the most obvious one is the time it saves. The less obvious function is that it somehow makes the doors near the end of the level to open, and normally you would have to destroy two fuse boxes to open them. Those boxes are "hidden" so not having to bash them saves around 30 seconds. Thanks to this I can just head straight for the exit.
For the beginning of the second part I didn't really change anything at all. Bust the grate, drop down the shaft and make a quick pounce just as I land. When I get to the big corridor the changes are quite obvious, I go to the left instead of the right. The left path forces me to run straight towards a couple of sentry guns, but thanks to pouncing I can get past them before they even activate. And since the left path allows for more pouncing than the right it is several seconds faster. Once again I turned the Predator fight into a joke with a new bug. Somehow I managed to deal massive damage with the claws, killing it with just six hits without the help of a headbite. Now that's ownage. I also discovered that I don't actually have to leave the room to be safe from the explosion, there are a couple of safe spots inside the room which I make good use of. Getting out of POC is almost the same as in the old run, a few modifications are done and they save a small amount of time, but not very much.
Level 4: Vengeance.
I first thought this level would be really hard to improve since I spent so much time trying to get it as perfect as I could for the old run. It turned out that I have evolved quite a bit as a speedrunner since then, because I really turned the old time up-side down with the new run. Against my will I was forced to use wallwalk (which is not a good thing for speedruns) more than I wanted to. There really aren't any big changes, most of the improvement is coming from small refinements and overall better playing. There are only 2 quite big changes and both of them are in the second part of the level. The first one is in the storage facility just after I get out of the second ventilation system. Instead of jumping up to the platform with the crane controls I wallwalk up there, a lot riskier but it's a lot faster as well. The second big change is the exit of the level, timing a pounce so you hit the exit trigger just as your xenomorph buddy breaks the fan which activates the trigger. I really doubt you can do the exit better than I did for this run.
Level 5: Abduction.
Now, this level is just total bullshit to speedrun. I have no idea why but for some reason the length and speed of pounces in this level seems to be completely random. And since you have to pull off so many (already difficult) pounces, this level quickly turns into something that makes you want to kill little puppies. What makes the pounces in this level so difficult is that no surface is flat. When pouncing off a sloped surface you will often get a sort of slide effect, and the pounce will end up really short. So to get off the ground properly I have to aim the pounces a lot higher than usual, which in turn often leads to too long pounces and you end up bumping into walls and so on.
The first improvement comes from landing the second pounce in the beginning right on the entrance to the hive. The pounce to the first detonator was also revised heavily. Unfortunately the synthetic prevents any attempt from landing right on the detonator and break it, so that little extra pounce is required. Breaking the detonators with the claw attack is slower, and it's completely impossible to do it with the tail attack.
Up to the second detonator everything is pretty much the same, the pounces got polished a bit. For the second detonator I use a trick I discovered for this run. Somehow it's possible to pounce straight through the detonator and break it, without losing any momentum on your pounce. It is possible to pull this trick off on the first detonator as well, but the pounces for the rest of the level won't line up if you do, resulting in an overall slower run. The reason I look back on the detonator is to check that I did actually break it. I played this segment without wearing my headphones so I could focus more on what I was seeing and not on what I was hearing, and I couldn't hear if I broke the detonator and therefore had to check. But since I'm running backwards while checking I got to the pounce spot in time anyway, so no time was lost doing this. Shortly after the second detonator comes the most annoying pounce in the level. Getting that pounce in the big cavern to hit the far end of the tunnel is so hard. And the drop shortly after is not a miss, I did actually find out through testing that dropping from the wall and do a short pounce is faster than just wallwalking all the way over the small slope.
For the end of the level nothing is changed except for skipping the last detonator since I found out you can actually exit the level without bothering with that one. The pounces were heavily polished though. Trust me, speedrunning this level is a lot harder than it looks.
Level 6: Pursuit.
Once again the game hates me enough to not give me any loading screens in this level, which is really annoying since this is one of the levels where you would need a free autosave the most. Tricky timesavers and just plain hard sections are all over this level. The bash attack is also a general annoyance through this whole level. There are several things you have to break, each one capable of activating the bash attack.
Starting off in the beginning I have a really tricky pounce to pull off. For some reason hive ground (that black stuff) is sucking the character towards the ground while pouncing, making it really hard to control height and length of the pounces. I found out that just touching that small bump would launch you off the ground at just the right angle to get through the opening in the tunnel. Just pouncing off the ground without the help of that bump wouldn't get you through like that, you would either hit the ceiling or simply not get over the slope at all.
It's very important to not get hit by the sentry guns in the beginning as well. If you do get hit you won't have enough health to get through the level fast, sometimes not even enough to get past the first gate you have to open. I also have to do a headbite on the guard at the first gate to refill health, otherwise I have no chance of getting through this level in a timely fashion. Shortly after that headbite, killing the guards with the pounce attack is another health preserving requirement, as well as doing a headbite on the last guard before entering the ventilation system.
Once in the ventilation system I have to deactivate a large fan by smashing 3 fuse boxes. When doing a speedrun you never get along with these things. The bash attack is activated without warning, you can't smash them from certain angles and so on. And when you finally manage to get all the way here and smash all of them, the positioning of the fan blades when the fan stops is completely random. If one of the blades stop in the place where I go up the attempt is over, because you will lose a whole second getting out of the way and go up somewhere else.
The next really hard thing is to get the pounces just right when moving around the truck with the queen. You don't even have to touch the truck to get instantly killed by it, just get within a certain limit and the game will telefrag you. And yes, it is possible to pounce up and hit the console with the pounce, but thanks to the truck the angles are all wrong for such a stunt, so doing that would require me to wait for several seconds and then get in position. Not exactly the fastest way.
For the rest of the level it's just squeezing in as many pounces as you can, without getting stuck on anything or losing too much health. It is required to kill the synthetic just before the end, otherwise the doors won't open, and there is also an interesting thing about this synthetic. If you hit it with a pounce attack you have to hit it 6-7 times with the claws to kill it. But if you don't hit it with the pounce you only need to hit it twice with the claws. That's why I cut the pounce a little short.
Level 7: Freedom.
This level is total bullshit to speedrun. It's almost like the better you play the more weirdness the game throws at you. All of a sudden sentry guns are activated sooner than normal, you start taking damage through walls, and the hitboxes are buggier than ever before.
The first part of the level started off in an interesting way, because I actually had "too little health" to pull the segment off. However, I found out that the door at the top of the elevator shaft won't open until the elevator has gone all the way up. So by abusing the spawn-teleport-glitch and doing a quick pounce to get ahead of the elevator, I could get an early headbite to refill just enough health, without losing any time. Tailing the guard just behind the first door is necessary to preserve health. Unfortunately I can't ignore the synthetic in the generator room, once again it's to preserve health for the next part of the level. The second headbite is also needed in order to get just enough health for a very important timesaver in the next part.
In the beginning of the second part I abuse the spawn-teleport-glitch again, otherwise you don't have enough time to pull the shortcut off. Normally you are supposed to chase the elevator up the shaft, but I managed to find a way to get on top of it, and this is also why I needed all that health from the previous part. Those smartgunners eat away your health really fast. Since Eisenberg can't give you any health (he's a synthetic, remember?) it's no use messing around with him, I already have all the health I need for the rest of the level anyway, thanks to the smartgunners. The pounce in the ventilation shaft is also a lot more random than it looks. Pouncing in a shaft that tight normally forces you to stop, but sometimes you can glitch the hitbox and get a full length pounce, saving a lot of time.
The third and final part is really tricky. First I have to abuse the spawn-teleport-glitch, then pull off a really fast pounce and hope that the game will allow me to hang on to the edge of the platform. And since the game will always turn your character 180 degrees when doing this, I have to back over the edge and onto the platform, then perform an almost perfect 180 degree turn while the wallwalk mouse acceleration is still active. After all that it's still up to the game if the Predator is going to miss or not, and since all the weapons the Predators use are one-shot-one-kill... well, you can probably figure out how much I hate those guys. At least I managed to come up with a really fast way to take the second Predator out.
Since the second Predator won't engage you (it tries to shoot nets at you from a distance while you're busy with the first one) until you have killed the first one, you can lay a nice trap for it. When you have killed the first just aim for its' head so the headbite attack is active, then wait for the second Predator to land on the platform and thus making it vulnerable. Perform a headbite, but instead of just going for the dead Pred's head you quickly aim for the second. Voila, killed in one hit no matter where the headbite hit it.
The final important thing is also the last thing you do in the entire game. Make sure the pounce hits Eisenberg directly.

Predator in 0:23:47 by Richard Karlsson done in 7 segments appended to one file.