Max Payne - Single-segment (DoA) [Attempting]

[ridd3r.]

And... Its finished! Finally managed to polish off the last level today leaving a final time of 29:22. The in-game timer states 29:25 but I redid part 2 chapter 2 and improved it by 5 seconds. I also used 4 manual saves in the run meaning I incur a 2 second save penalty so that works out at 29:22. So an improvement of almost 10 minutes over the previous run and this will replace it as a segmented run. I originally planned to only use the autosaves at the start of each level but the need to optimise levels with regards to the super jump meant this was not feasible on 3 of the levels.

Its taken almost 2 months of intensive play to complete, hundreds and sometimes thousands of attempts at some levels and I am very happy I broke the 30 minute barrier. I will be able to submit this tomorrow so hopefully it will be on SDA before long. I am going to take a bit of break now but I will come back and redo the single-segment, dead on arrival run before too long. I am also considering a SS, NYM run, those will be my last runs. I will do an audio commentary for this run as well and I will make sure it is on a second track instead of external!

If you are interested in seeing the run its all on youtube ->
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=31DB7220085E4BCD

Super jumping action from part 1, chapter 4 onwards!!

Let me know what you think.

[honorableJay]

I'm thinkin you need to put this on DVD and mail it to the remedy guys and laugh at their par time

[quadrazid]

Sweet, good job!
Looking forward to look and listen to commentery!

[Inexistence]

Great job man, I've been keeping up with the topic for a fair while and I'm really happy to see it finally finished. Awesome work

[IsraeliRD]

Well done, looking forwards to see it.

[mstew721]

The practice shows, nice work.

[ridd3r.]

Thanks guys!

I'm thinkin you need to put this on DVD and mail it to the remedy guys and laugh at their par time

I know I should like eat my lunch in the middle, take a nap or go for a run (or a leisurely stroll!) and still beat them haha.

Run should be ready to verify now so again if your reading this and can verify it would be much appreciated

Finally I would like to ask peoples opinions on a SS NYM run? I am definitely going to redo the SS DoA but that won't be for a while and as it will be my last run I will take a long time over it and get it amazing. If I were to do a SS NYM run then I have done all the hard work and would just spend a bit of time adjusting the route then casually play it over a period of time until it got done. Would there be interest for that though? If so then I may well do it but at the moment I am not sure.

[ridd3r.]

OK well I think I will just redo the Dead on Arrival run then. Thinking about it the segmented NYM run would overshadow a SS NYM run because it uses all shortcuts and gets every super jump first time. In terms of a SS run I think DoA would just be much more impressive; a SS NYM run would not bring anything new to the table, just as a segmented DoA run wouldn't (compared with a SS DoA run).

So, at some point in the hopefully not too distant future I will tackle it. The NYM run has brought my Max Payne knowledge and overall skill to a new level. Sub 1hr 10mins (12 + mins improvement) should definitely be feasible and hopefully roughly 50% accuracy on the super jump but even if that proves impossible, 30% accuracy would only add about 40 seconds. 0 deaths and as optimal as possible, I will really try and make this something special.

In the mean time I will be spending a small amount of time, over a long period of time on editing my NYM run to show it in real time. Basically this means speeding up bullet time and rolling to real time, using the in-game timer and vegas I can edit it to show just how fast he moves in bullet time. I have already done the first 4 levels and it helped illustrate to me how to optimise NYM speedrunning. I have made a trailer which shows a glimpse of what to expect. Overall it should be close to 29 minutes but it will be a bit longer because of some cutscenes (I will exclude a lot of them though, I want to to be action only really).

EDIT: I have finished the real time run, or at least what I want to of it; I decided to just do Part I. The reasoning for this is, apart from not really wanting to spend a lot of time on it, I intended to show what bullet time looks like in real time and I have done that. Part I is just over a 1/3 of the run so it does a good enough job I think. I never committed to doing the whole thing and to be honest, I don't want to divert people from watching the actual Speedrun which I worked so hard at. Anyway, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d9yw6Iyl0A - 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFNv8TouRmY&feature=channel - 2/2

[tekknej]

nice idea with the real time thing) go for it!

[ridd3r.]

Over the past week or so I have been doing a practise run for the obsoletion, or should I say decimation, of my old DoA SS run. I want to get a practise run done while all the skips and general Max Payne skills are fresh in my head, then when I am ready I will do attempts (may be busy for a bit). Although one thing I have found is that once all the planning and practise are done for a SS run, it can be much less demanding on your time than a segmented run as you just chill out, take a few attempts a day and after a long time get the run.

So far I have done the first 2 parts doing a segment a level and I have already shaved off almost 12 minutes! I am timing it the exact same way the old run was timed, starting to losing control minus the loading screens. So, even if I were to make no further improvements, I would still finish around 1hr 10mins; thanks in large part to the super jumps but the whole run, my new strategies for fighting, time saving tricks from the NYM run etc. have resulted in a very significant improvement as well.

My practise run should finish around 1hr 5mins with NO major errors at all. It is basically a segmented DoA run but not quite as optimal, obviously I am bearing in mind it is a SS run. So, I will aim for within 1 minute of this practise run which will push me a lot but hopefully not too much. The fighting style, and some tricks are quite different from the NYM run meaning I can implement some extra stuff (like the pro1 super jump) and I am just astounded at how much faster I am generally, how much stuff I am finding for a real time run and not just with the super jumping. Once the practise run is finished I will post the final time and maybe upload a selection of levels to give you an idea of just how much better this run will be! I have certainly learnt the value of segmenting a run in order to find the best strategies, its just the only way to optimise any run.

Let me know what levels you want to see from the practise run and thy wish shall (maybe) be granted (hint p2c2).

[honorableJay]

One idea I had to show off just how much time you're saving would be to rip the video from a level from the previous run, and put it side by side with the practice run (kinda like how the 2p coop quake videos are done). Granted this is heavily time consuming, but it might be a cool thing for when you actually finish the run (would be even cooler to have it published on the site too).

[ridd3r.]

One idea I had to show off just how much time you're saving would be to rip the video from a level from the previous run, and put it side by side with the practice run (kinda like how the 2p coop quake videos are done). Granted this is heavily time consuming, but it might be a cool thing for when you actually finish the run (would be even cooler to have it published on the site too).

How do you show 2 videos side by side? I can do it in vegas, is a video editing program the only way?

Update on the practise run: I have now got up to p3c6 so not much left to plan. Part 3 is such a bitch to plan, I have to do most kills in bullet time and can't just run past people.

I have just spent ages trying to work out how to get the p3c5 super jump and normal jump consistently. My conclusion is you need to super jump in exactly the right spot, then hold forward, he will either slip off fairly quickly (you didn't jump right) or he sort of lock on and then I just press jump. Its much easier and better than alternately spamming jump and forward and hoping for the best. If I don't manage the jump before my bullet time meter runs out its run over but its just such a big time saver I cannot afford to miss it out. In fact I have barely missed out any super jumps. Basically, any jump I miss is because it only saves 1-3 seconds and if you miss it once its slower.

p1c8 I don't do the 2nd super jump as unless you get it 1st time its actually not faster due to enemies coming behind you, who you would have to kill.
p2c2 I don't do the 1st super jump as you will die from the shotgunner unless you get it 1st time. I go a different way and cut the 4 super jumps near the end down to 2 and even if I would have got all 4 super jumps first time (HA!) it would only be 1s faster.
p2c4 I do 2 jumps instead of a super jump over the fallen shelves.
p3c1 I attempt the super jump but if I don't get it first time I have a contingency plan.
p3c2 Obviously I just jump up instead of super jumping up.
p3c4 I don't do the 2nd super jump as unless you get the jump first time its 2-3 seconds slower.

So far, just over 15 minutes faster with a predicted time of 1hr 4mins. Actually, I think aiming for the practise run time wouldn't be out of the question as I have made some different weapon choices and noted them in the video which may save some time and just generally I will be able to be tighter in places so it will be interesting to see.

[honorableJay]

I'd say check with Nate and see if a specialized script can be generated for anri, otherwise you will have to use a video editing program to generate a raw video output that can be fed back into anri (and will take a ton of HD space).

[ridd3r.]

Well the practise run is finished, final time 1:03:58. Thats about 18.5 minutes of improvement!

For the SS run I will aim for sub 1hr 5mins. Completing this run at all will be a serious challenge and significantly harder than last time. Anyway, I will start attempting at some point in the future, all that is left now is to do the run!

More super jump info:

p3c6 I miss the 2nd and 3rd super jump and do the 1st and 4th.
p3c7 I miss the final super jump (for obvious reasons)

Well thats it! Total of 20 super jumps in this run with 2 more which I have 1 attempt at as they are on the way, if I miss them I just keep on running as they only save about a couple of seconds and attempting them 2 times would end up being slower. The 1st super jump will be done 1st time, after that who knows but I can only do my best with them. Frame perfect tricks in a SS run... I can't expect perfection.

[ridd3r.]

I put up a video on youtube which is a sort of trailer for the run, using the practise run. The video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goXAZRlTkjU  Yes I know the dual berettas sawn-off! is quicker for kills in the kitchen so I will implement this.

I found a very easy way

clip1=AVISource("c:\path\to\file1.avi")
clip2=AVISource("c:\path\to\file2.avi")
StackHorizontal(clip1, clip2)

to put two clips side by side and this trailer shows p1c4 from both runs side by side. If I did this for my improved run then the best way to do it would be for each level otherwise my new run would just get hopelessly ahead after the first few levels .

Anyway, stand-by for the improvement I guess. Like I said, its not that much work as you just do a few attempts a day, it just takes time so who knows I may start attempting soon (especially since attempts don't tend to last long on dead on arrival). I may also post about my desperation soon enough at how badly attempts are going since this will be a very difficult run.