QdQ Q2dQ2 FAQ
A brief trick and route summary plus other questions


Q2dQ2 FAQ

This FAQ refers to the 21:06 Quake2 done Quick2 speed-run. It attempts to give more information on the run than you can find in the text file. If you haven't already read the text file already, we suggest you do that first.

Much of the intent of the FAQ is to explain some of the tricks used more fully. Quake2 gameplay physics has a lot of quirks, and the QdQ team use them frequently to help us get a good time. When people see the tricks used, especially from a recammed perspective, they can often look unfamiliar. A distrustful person might be led to think maybe we had cheated in recording the runs. Part of the purpose of this FAQ is to ensure that people understand that we didn't.

All QdQ runs are recorded without cheating. We post-process the completed normal recordings in various ways before release, and it is theoretically possible to make mistakes that introduce errors into them in doing this, but the intent is always to present a record of the original normal gameplay in a transparent manner, and we hope we succeeded in this. (If we have made any mistakes, let us know!) We hope that the explanations below will help to assuage any doubts. But I hope that the best evidence of all is simply to say that we love these games and the challenge presented by beating them. We really can't see any point in cheating, or trying to deceive people... it would be such a pointless thing to do.

"You didn't complete the game properly, you missed stuff!"

Quake2's flexible unit-based layout means that some short-cuts mean we can avoid fulfilling some of the goals set by the computer. In some cases we get to avoid visiting a few levels altogether (although in general the level design enforces the intended route on the larger scale.)

Our intent in Q2dQ2 was to "complete the game." Expressed in this manner, that is somewhat ill-defined. Certainly we start at the start, play normally, and get to the end, so in this simple sense we complete the game. In fact we decided that completing the game also meant fulfilling all of the primary military objectives as described in the "TCM Intel Brief" within the Quake2 readme.txt: 

Your primary objectives are to establish a communications uplink, destroy 
the planetary defense systems, disable the interplanetary gateway, and 
assassinate the Makron commander.

The text goes on to describe these four objectives in detail. We do fulfill these four goals in our run, by establishing the Comm Uplink in base3, destroying the Big Gun in biggun and the black-hole generator in command, and taking out Makron in boss2.

(The text file is somewhat ambiguous as to whether or not calling in the airstrike counts as a primary objective, but in any case we do fulfill this goal in strike.)

From a story perspective there are other goals it might seem interesting to fulfill too; for example, to stop the end of unit cinematics from being incorrect! Viewers looking for a run like that will probably have to wait for something like a "100% complete" version of the run though.

"How do you jump so much higher than normal?"

To start, I expect you took into account things such as rocket-jumps and grenade-jumps, which should be familiar from Quake1.

Details: whenever an entity is damaged in Quake2, it receives a velocity boost proportional to the amount of damage it has to deal with. In general the boost is less than in Quake1, but for some specific attacks there is also a special extra "knockback" effect that increases the boost. One easy way to get a big upward boost is to take damage from below, and a good way to do this is to detonate a grenade, or a rocket, or an explodable crate, or even a combination of these, underneath you.

One can also angle the explosive force more horizontally when one wants a speed-up boost rather than to jump as high as possible.

"Yes, thankyou, everyone knows about rocket-jumping... I'm talking about jumps that don't use explosives.

If you don't already know about slope-jumping from Quake1, then we should start by explaining that (it works just the same in Quake2; you jump higher if you jump whilst running up a slope.)

Details: when you jump, a fixed constant (270 pixels per second, in fact) is added to your upward velocity. If you are running up a slope when you jump, you already have some upward velocity from doing this. Unlike in real life, the jump velocity ends up being added onto this existing velocity, so you start with a greater upward speed and so you jump higher.

There are a multitude of intricacies to achieving good vertical jumping height in Quake2, but the most significant are ledge pull-up and its extension to double-jumping. These tactics are already familiar to most keen DeathMatch players. Pressing against a small vertical ledge moves you up to the top of that ledge, and if you jump the moment you receive the pull-up, the new jump is added into your current one, giving you a "double" strength jump.

Details: the basic movement algorithm for the player says that when you push against a vertical wall, you stop moving. In order to ensure that the player doesn't get stuck on low stairs and steps, there's a special exception: if the vertical obstruction is low enough (18 pixels) then the player is "pulled-up" to the top of the ledge automatically.

However, as normal, the physics contains a bug/feature: this works even if you are in mid-air at the time. As a result, if you jump up against a higher barrier (such as a box), if you get near enough to the top surface you will be pulled-up to this surface if you press against the side of the barrier.

Further, having done this, Quake2 assumes you are now on solid ground again; this means you are able to make another jump. However, as long as you jump right away, it doesn't clear your existing jump velocity first and instead adds the new jump to what is left of the old one. This enables a player to "double-jump" to reach new heights in physics abuse. In some circumstances you can reach more pull-up ledges in the same jump and so repeat the trick.

Most of the non-explosive unusually high jumps in Q2dQ2 work by double-jumping. Some of them are surprising because we sometimes double-jump off of surfaces that a viewer may not realise are useable: two examples are the thin top of a button on a wall, or off the top of the head of a monster or their dying corpse.

"Forget high jumps - what about jumps that are too long?"

Jumps that cover a bigger horizontal distance than normal almost always use some form of strafe-jumping (we tend to use the term "bunny-hopping" in QdQ and speed-run circles.) This works by strafing to one side as well as going forward to momentarily break the normal speed-limits that Quake2 tries to impose, and then jumping to maintain that increased velocity. Circle-jumping (turning a one eighty in the air) seems to be another way to take advantage of this bug.

"But you said the run didn't use bunny-hopping...?"

Not exactly...

We decided not to use unrestricted bunny-hopping in the run. Some of the reasons we decided to restrict the use of bunny-hopping are sketched out in the text file. Without restrictions you would see a very different style of run, since if you do nothing but bunny-hop, you can build up very high speeds by bouncing along doing one jump after another; this is sometimes known as turbo-running. We didn't do this for our first run. We haven't ruled out doing it in the future.

The restriction we decided on is admittedly arbitrary, but it was the result of a lot of thought of discussion, and it is well-defined. Here's the relevant part of the text file: "We bunny-hop only when it is necessary for us to do so in order to perform some trick (more precisely, to follow a particular route through the Quake2 environment at a certain cost of damage.)"

Internally we formally defined exactly how different two routes had to be for them not to be considered equivalent, but basically this definition accords with common sense, and the intent is that cutting a corner counts as a different route, but following a slightly different trajectory through the air before landing in around the same place doesn't.

At some places in the run it may not be obvious exactly how or why we applied the rule, because the alternative tricks and routes that have to be taken into account may not be evident. These cases are described within the details of the run found below.

"How do you soak up so much damage?"

Power armor, sometimes enhanced with other forms of armor, is the key. Watch for the green glow, especially in the recams. (Of course, if you see a red glow, then the invulnerability power-up is being used, which is even better.) We collect as many cells as we can and very rarely use them for weapon ammo, instead saving them as power for the power armor. After we collect power armor in jail3, we never run out of protection until the very end of the run, and so from there on in health and normal armor only have to absorb one third of the total damage.

"There's this particular bit in this one level where I don't understand what happened..."

Check the details in the run description below, it tries to describe all the tricks used, including a few special ones, the most notable of which I'll list now:

  • blocking a door with a guard corpse (ware1)
  • blocking a door with ammunition boxes (ware2)
  • hopping straight through lasers (jail3)
  • crawling under a knocked-back tank (jail4)
  • popping out for extra adrenaline (mine3iii)
  • complicated bunny sequence (fact1)
  • split-second duck (fact2)
  • using a forgotten trigger to open the unit exit (power2)
  • rocket-jumping either side of Quad use (hangar2)
  • ducking supertank rockets (city2ii)
  • finding the weak laser (boss1)

Run summary
base1 (Outer Base)
  • Trick: The jump at the corner is both a slope-jump and also an incidental bunny-hop. Using strafe and a jump together at this point is necessary to cut the corner, hence the only way to follow this route involves a bunny-hop.
  • Trick: A double-jump off the explosive crate is used as a short-cut to the exit.
base2 (Installation)
  • Trick: Detonating the explosive cannister allows a damage-boosted jump to reach the girders above the start room. Since we don't need the full blast, we detonate the cannister near the peak of the jump so as not to take unnecessary extra damage.
base3 (Comm Center)
  • Weapon: We pick up our first machine-gun.
  • Trick: The jump to the catwalk is a combination of a double-jump from the top of the explosive cannister together with a damage-boosted jump from detonating it.
  • Trick: We use a bunny-hop in order to get enough length to leap over the protective lasers.
  • Primary Military Objective: The Communication Uplink is established.
  • Item: We pick up the blue key - this opens the door later in this level.
  • Item: We pick up the envirosuit - and never use it. The reason for collecting it was that when this demo was recorded, we hadn't yet found out we could avoid the waste system levels, and believed the suit would be handy there.
base2ii (Installation)
  • Weapon: We collect our first hand-grenades.
  • Trigger: Pulling the lever removes an invisible barrier that blocks the far side of the bridge in the next room. We don't need to lower the bridge to cross the gap, but id hacked in this illogical barrier to prevent the obvious short-cut. This is a very ugly bit of level design.
  • Trick: We use pull-up from both the small and large crate in order to reach the top of the large crate just before the exit with a single jump. We want to get there because...
  • Item: ...we need to collect the Quad to use later.
bunk1 (Ammo Depot)
  • Weapon: We pick up the super shotgun.
  • Trick: The guard gets shot, and we double-jump off his dying head to get back up quickly.
  • Trigger: The switch opens the door. Meanwhile we place a grenade...
  • Trick: ...and use a grenade-jump to take a short-cut to the catwalks that are toward the end of this level.
ware1 (Supply Station)
  • Trick: A double-jump from the button allows us to make the distance needed to jump straight across to platform atop the crates, where...
  • Trigger: ...we press the switch that opens the door to the rest of the level.
  • Trick: The door we just opened will close behind us within a few seconds. So, we kill a guard, being careful not to gib him, so that his corpse ends up underneath the door. Now whilst we are away collecting stuff, his corpse will stop the door from closing and trapping us.
  • Trick: We use a combination of double-jumps to get to a high platform, where...
  • Item: ...we pick up a power-cube. That's what we came to this level for.
  • Item: Since we're on only 2 health, we grab the adrenaline for a full recharge.
  • Trick: We bunny-hop back across the big gap from the high platform.
bunk1ii (Ammo Depot)
  • Trigger: The power-cube is used to activate the lift.
  • Trick: We use pull-up from the ledge at the top of the lift to speed our ascent.
ware2 (Warehouse)
  • Trick: We explode a grenade off of a box to perform a grenade-jump to the catwalk without having to place the grenade and wait.
  • Trick: A second grenade-jump takes us from the conveyor belt to the door.
  • Trick: A wide gap is jumped directly with a bunny-hop so that we don't have to start the circling lifts.
  • Trigger: We press a switch and explode the crate that is delivered, to blow open a door.
  • Trigger: In order to open the exit rooms, we have to press a switch in the computer room.
  • Trick: id intended that this should trap us in the computer room so that we have to battle the first tank in the game and re-open the computer room door. Instead we drop several ammo boxes underneath this door, to keep it open just long enough for us to be able to duck back underneath it before it closes. This normally means sacrificing some of the ammo boxes (they explode as they are crushed) but in this run we got particularly lucky; the ammo boxes trapped a parasite under the door and he took the damage instead. So we picked up the ammo we'd dropped as we went back under the door.
jail1 (Main Gate)
jail2 (Detention Center)
  • Item: We collect a blue key and open the doors to the main part of the level.
  • We also collect the bandolier; this increases our ammo capacity. We need the capacity to hold extra cells and bullets later in this unit.
jail3 (Security Complex)
  • Trick: We use a bunny-hop to pass through (and not over) the deadly lasers without taking any damage. This takes advantage of the fact unlike other entities, lasers do their own collision detection, and they only check to see if anything has touched them ten times a second. If the player is entirely on one side of the lasers the one time they check, and then moves fast enough that they are entirely on the other side of them by the time the next check occurs, the lasers never notice the player crossing through them in the interval. The bunny-hop gives the necessary speed to cross through in time.
  • Weapon: We pick up our first chain-gun...
  • Item: ...and most importantly, the power armor.
jail5 (Guard House)
  • Trick: We use a sequence of double-jumps first from a button, then from a door frame, to ascend to higher platforms at the start.
  • Item: We collect some cells, and activate the power armor. From now on as long as we keep stocking up on cells, we can wave goodbye to two-thirds of the damage thrown at us.
  • Trigger: We press a switch to open up the inside area where...
  • Item: ...the pyramid key is acquired. That's what we came here for.
jail3ii (Security Complex)
  • Trick: The lift up to the catwalk is not activated until the player has completed jail4, because we are supposed to use the long front-door route into the jail4 level. Instead we get up to the catwalk by performing a grenade-jump off the head of an infantry. This lets us take the quicker back door route into jail4. We move backwards before jumping so as to make the boost push us as much horizontally as it does vertically.
  • Trick: We double-jump off a lowering door toward the end to get over the waiting infantry.
jail4 (Torture Chambers)
  • Trick: The tank blocks our way and would take a long time to kill even with the chaingun. We crouch and fire upwards at him with the heavy shotgun. This weapon has a big knockback effect and it pushes him far enough into the air that we can crawl underneath him.
  • Item: We collect the security pass from the crucified marine. He has to die before he will drop the pass... rather than slowly crush him with the ascending cross, we put him out of his misery quickly and directly. The pass is what we came to jail4 for.
jail3iii (Security Complex)
  • Trigger: The pyramid key and switch open up the pyramid itself, causing an icarus to emerge, and the lift to come slowly upwards...
  • Trick: ...rather than wait for the lift to go all the way up and all the way down, we instead drop down onto it and squeeze underneath the icarus. This blocks the ascent of the list halfway and it immediately starts going back down, saving us some time.
  • Trigger: The door to the next level is opened with the security pass.
security (Grid Control)
  • Trick: We use a grenade-boost to speed up progress through the long laser-trapped corridor.
  • Power-up: The Quad from base2ii is activated. Quadded chain-gun is so powerful that even a tough baddie like the tank boss dies very quickly when faced with this weapon.
  • Trigger: We kill the tank boss to open up the exit to the security grid control.
  • Trigger: Destroying the security grid opens up the unit exit.
mintro (Mine Entrance)
  • Weapon: We pick up our first hyperblaster.
  • Trick: A grenade-jump gives a short-cut up from the island in the lava.
  • Weapon: We pick up our first rocket-launcher by blasting open the secret alcove.
  • Trick: We perform a slope-jump off of a little wall decoration in order to get straight up to a hight platform.
mine1 (Upper Mines)
  • Trick: We use a combined grenade+rocket-jump to jump a very great height up through the gap in the fan-blades up to the upper catwalk.
  • Trigger: The ventilation system is shut down; this opens the level exit.
  • Item: We collect a Quad damage power-up by blasting open the secret alcove.
  • Trick: A rocket-jump is used to avoid the minor diversion of going via the stairs.
  • Trick: We use a circle-jump to jump the big gap without waiting for the bridge to extend across it.
  • Trick: We drop down through the deadly spinning fan-blades as a short-cut straight into the exit room.
mine2 (Bore Hole)
  • Trick: A mostly horizontal rocket-jump is used to get down into the middle level of the borehole.
mine3 (Drilling Area)
  • Trick: A mostly horizontal rocket-jump speeds our progress down the stairs.
  • Trigger: The lever lowers a bridge; more importantly it opens up the way through mine3 to mine4. That's what we came here for.
mine2ii (Bore Hole)
  • Trick: We use a circle-jump to get enough distance to clear the jump across the lava down to the lower level of the borehole.
mine3ii (Drilling Area)
  • Trigger: Blowing the two fuses now opens up the door.
  • Item: We pick up an Invulnerability power-up having blasted open the secret alcove.
  • Trigger: We activate the drilling laser to open up a hole to the next level.
mine4 (Lower Mines)
  • Power-ups: We activate both the Quad damage (from mine1) and the Invulnerability (from mine3ii) the moment we enter the level. This means we can use very powerful Quad rocket boosts to push us through the level without taking damage.
  • Trick: We don't waste time operating the trolleys; instead we use a Quad rocket-jump to get up the mine shaft.
  • Trick: A couple more Quad rocket-boosts take us out of the water...
  • Trigger: ...to operate the drilling laser which will open the way forward. Meanwhile...
  • Item: We destroy the tank with Quadded chain-gun and collect a replacement Quad damage power-up that he was holding.
  • Trick: Five more Quad rocket-boosts and jumps speed up out progress through the remainder of the level.
mine3iii (Drilling Area)
  • Trick: A rocket-boost is used to push down the long straight corridor to the exit lift.
  • Trigger: We activate the exit lift. Now, it so happens that the level will end when the lift reaches the roof, and whether we are in it or not is irrelevant. So...
  • Item: ...we skip out of the lift as it rises, recharging our health by collecting the adrenaline just before the level finishes.
fact1 (Receiving Center)
  • Trick: A sequence of three bunnies is used to cross the bridge across the lava without taking any damage. This is the most complicated case of allowable bunnying in the run. It turns out that all three bunnies are necessary in order to take this route without damage.
    1. The first bunny is used to jump over an invisible trigger. If we touched the trigger, the bridge would blow up, preventing us from running on it as we do.
    2. The second jump officially counts as a bunny since we still have strafe-induced velocity from the first bunny-hop, and jumping again immediately maintains this velocity. But we have to jump at this point in order to get directly onto the bridge, so it is a necessary part of taking the route that we do.
    3. The last bunny is needed because without the extra speed it gives, the guards on the bridge always trip a second trigger that detonates the bridge and collapses it before we can get across, causing a bath in lava.
  • Trick: A final rocket-jump is used to jump over the gladiator and get to the exit as quickly as possible.
fact2 (Processing Plant)
  • Trick: We duck very briefly to slip through the grid of protective lasers. Ducking for longer would cost more time.
  • Trick: A rocket-jump is used to avoid having to kill the tank in order to get up to the higher platform.
  • Trigger: Pressing the pair of switches opens up the door.
  • Trigger: Throughout the rest of the level, there are many switches that must be pressed to shut down machines in the processing plant. In all cases, more importantly they open the way through to the next room of the level. These are: raising a bridge and opening a door by deactivating the organic material liquifier, opening a door by deactivating the Strogg bio-assimilation tank, opening a door by deactivating the ionization catalyst chamber, opening an elevator by deactivating the emulsifying flesh press unit, and opening a door by deactivating the final enemy processing unit.
  • Trick: A second rocket-jump means we don't have to wait for a slow lift.
  • Trick: A second lift is left unused by double-jumping off the button that operates it.
  • Trick: We shoot a parasite to make it stand still ("Stay boy!") and then double-jump off of it's back to avoid operating a third lift.
  • Trick: A fourth lift is avoided by using a rocket-jump instead of calling it down.
  • Trick: A final rocket-jump takes us across a lava pit rather than having to go and trigger the bridge that crosses it.
  • Trigger: The last exit doors are opened with a button that also opens up the unit exit back in fact1. That's what we came here for.
fact1ii (Receiving Center)
power1 (Power Plant)
  • Trick: A mostly horizontal rocket-jump is used as a speed-boost.
  • Trigger: We blow the barrels to open up the "secret" area that contains the BFG. We don't have any use for this weapon and it takes a while to get, so we use this route just for the short-cut it provides to the exit.
power2 (The Reactor)
  • Trigger: Killing the chick opens up the grating allowing access to...
  • Item: ...the data CD. We'll use this to open a door a little later in the level.
  • Trick: Using a rocket-jump is quicker than taking the stairs.
  • Trick: A second rocket-jump is used to cross from one catwalk to the other.
  • Trick: After the CD door, a third rocket-jump to a catwalk above cuts out the middle third of the level.
  • Trick: Well, maybe it was an accident, but the berserker was fooled into railing a gunner who was chasing us.
  • Trigger: The main switch begins the process of shutting down the reactor. This is a long process involving visits to four more levels. However, we have other plans...
  • Trick: We use a rocket-jump from the reactor infrastructure to hit a secret trigger up in the top of the level by the exit door.
  • Trigger: This trigger, presumably the remnants of some level-testing machinery, explodes open the door leading to the exit from this unit!
biggun (Big Gun)
  • Power-up: We activate the Quad that we collected in mine4.
  • Trigger: The flying boss is quickly taken out using the Quadded chain-gun. This opens up the big gun computer rooms.
  • Primary Military Objective: We press the handy "self-destruct" switch that evil aliens always build into their most powerful weapons, shutting down the big gun.
hangar1 (Outer Hangar)
  • Trick: A simple bunny takes us across the chasm without having to extend the bridge.
lab (Research Lab)
  • Trigger: The first lab door needs to be opened with a button.
  • Weapon: We collect our first grenade-launcher. We now have all the weapons we'll use in the game; the rail-gun doesn't help speed-running and there was no convenient BFG.
  • Item: We press the switch and collect the blue key for a nearby door.
  • Trigger: We extend the glass bridge over the lava...
  • Trigger: ...and use it to access two switches opening up the door to a new lift chute.
  • Trick: We start the elevator going back down before we leave it, so that we can drop straight down when we return.
  • Item: At last, the tank commander's head: it's what we came here for.
  • Trick: We've been jumping and running over monster's heads all the way through this busy level, but this last occasion is probably the most head-skating that we do anywhere in the run.
hangar1ii (Outer Hangar)
  • Trigger: Using the tank commander's head opens up the door to the exit. There's another secret trigger for the same door up in the corner of the room; but it requires the commander's head to activate just as the normal computer button does, so it is useless.
hangar2 (Inner Hangar)
  • Items: We collect the ammo pack (increasing ammo capacity to its full amount), plus the adrenaline from a shootable secret.
  • Trick: We need cell supplies for the power armor. A double pull-up from a small/large crate combination is the quickest way to get it.
  • Trigger: We deactivate the fans, allowing us down the hole, and open up the floor platforms to the water areas.
  • Item: We detonate a crate as we run through it, collecting a handy Quad damage power-up.
  • Trick: When the floating crates are in the right pattern, a sequence of two normal jumps and then a rocket-jump takes us to the far platform without having to press the first one.
  • Power-up: Now it is safe to activate the Quad damage power-up (if we'd done so before, the rocket-jump would have hurt us too much.)
  • Trigger: Pressing the switch lowers the platform from the ceiling.
  • Trick: We use a Quad rocket-jump to make the large jump to the top of the hangar. Quad is needed; even a BFG+grenade-jump is not enough to get the height. In fact the Quad jump normally gives us too much height, which would waste time in mid-air, as the narrow hangar window means we have to jump pretty much straight up rather than at an angle. However, performing the Quad jump starting in the water slows us down just about the right amount to get the perfect height.
  • Trigger: Pushing the lever closes the hangar bay doors, Hal.
  • Trick: The Quad power-up wears off just in time to let us make a final rocket-jump up the exit chute. Half a second earlier and it would have hurt.
command (Launch Command)
  • Primary Military Objective: The black hole generator innards are very poorly defended. We take them out from outside the barred window with some carefully aimed rockets. As well as satisfying the third of our four primary goals, this also opens up the exit and means we don't have to bother opening up valves and doors.
  • Trick: Of course, we need to do a rocket-jump to get into position.
  • Trick: We also use a rocket-push along a long wide corridor...
  • Trick: ...and a rocket-jump to get up to the circular catwalk around the pump.
strike (Outlands)
  • Trick: We use two horizontal rocket-boosts to cover some of the open spaces in this big level quickly.
  • Item: The airstrike marker is collected...
  • Trigger: ...and set in place, so that the airstrike will blow the exit open. Whilst we wait for it we collect cells from the flyers.
city1 (Outer Courts)
  • Trick: The gates to the city are protected by a big flat invisible trigger that causes the portcullis to close. We do a bunny-hop onto the head of an icarus and jump off again to activate this trigger late enough that there's time to slip under the portcullis before it closes.
  • Trick: Two rocket-jumps are used to climb the spiral staircase more quickly.
  • Item: We collect the data spinner; we'll be needing this to help open up the blue forcefields later.
city2 (Lower Palace)
  • Trigger: We switch off the red forcefields.
  • Trick: We use a rocket-jump to...
  • Item: ...collect the Quad damage power-up from atop the pillar...
  • Power-up: ...and activate it immediately to help kill the supertank at the end of the level.
city3 (Upper Palace)
  • Trick: We use an "up-and-over" rocket-jump...
  • Item: ...to collect the data CD (it's what we came here for) without having to get the security pass, etc.
city2ii (Lower Palace)
  • Trick: We turn the chaingun on the supertank who is guarding the computer, playing "duck and weave" to avoid being hit by his rockets.
  • Trigger: We insert the data spinner and data CD, and activate the computer...
  • Item: ...then collect the "reprogrammed" data spinner. (In fact this is no different to the one we had before, but the act of reprogramming it flips some triggers.
  • Trick: A rocket-jump is the short-cut back towards the exit...
  • Trick: ...and a second rocket-jump off the beserker takes us up the chute faster than the lift would go. We use the hyperblaster toward the end as we finally have some cells to spare.
city3ii (Upper Palace)
  • Item: We collect a Quad damage power-up from the lava-filled secret to help with killing Jorg and Makron.
  • Trick: Another rocket-jump takes us to back up to the communications platform.
  • Trigger: Having reprogrammed the data spinner, the alcove is now open. We shut down the communications laser; this makes a trigger in the corridor that deactivates the yellow forcefields live. We have to wait for a short while in this corridor to hit the trigger, but in any case the supertank up ahead needs a little time to come round the corner.
  • Trigger: Finally we open up the unit exit and leave the city.
boss1 (Inner Chamber)
  • Trigger: Touching the door starts the lasers that destroy it... some security system.
  • Trick: No less than four rocket-jumps are used to push quickly down the corridors. We have quite a lot of health and armor to burn towards the end of the run, so we don't waste it.
  • Trigger: The two switches lower the lift to the final area...
  • Trick: ...another rocket-jump helps accelerate progress up the lift chute.
  • Trigger: Now, the lasers at the end seem to have a mistake in them. Three of the four lasers are deadly to touch, but one (the one that protects the far switch on the right) only does finite damage. So, we only bother to deactivate the laser that protects the left-hand far switch by dodging in to press the right-hand near switch, and whilst pressing the right-hand far switch, we put up with taking the damage from the weaker right-hand laser rather than wasting time in switching it off with the left-hand near switch.
  • Trick: Whilst pressing those two far switches, we use yet two more rocket-jumps to leap the barrier and then get quickly to the exit teleport.
boss2 (Final Showdown)
  • Trick: A final rocket-push down the corridor uses up the last of our power armor.
  • Power-up: We activate the final Quad, and prepare to use the bullets we've been saving up in using the Quadded chain-gun to destroy Jorg. There's a small delay before Makron emerges from Jorg's shell...
  • Trick: ...so we chuck in a Quad grenade to explode as Makron appears in order to get a quicker kill...
  • Primary Military Objective: ...which is just as well, since that BFG bolt is getting close as we complete the assassination of public enemy number one with the Quadded chain-gun once more.
  • Trigger: With Makron destroyed, we jump in a capsule and head off into the unknown.