Exciting TAS news + stuff

These days are VERY EXCITING times for TASing. So exciting that every time I went to make this post, I would notice some new exciting thing that renders what I was going to say moot or incomplete.

I guess none of this matters a whole lot since anyone who is interested in reading TAS news probably already knows this stuff, but whatever, I'm doing it.

New Super Mario Bros 3 runs

So the warpless and any% movies have both been obsoleted using the same new Bowser trick. This ranks up there with Dr. Mario's break the targets for things that I didn't expect to see obsoleted in my lifetime. Actually there seems to be an influx of little improvements for some fairly contested runs - Super Mario Land, A Link to the Past, Tetris, even Super Mario Bros (but it doesn't quite count). This one I think is the most exciting, though, because I, along with everyone else as far as I could tell, was absolutely positive that every possible frame had been squeezed out of the game.

Super Mario 64 runs

I was expecting the Any% update to be another minor one, but it's looking to actually be pretty huge. All three Bowser stages have slightly new routes, there's a faster Dire Dire Docks skip, navigation on the third floor is much faster, and all sorts of new punching and kicking tricks have added up to quite a few sections with faster movement. It's a good thing people have moved past that stupid drama with the one frame on the first Bowser stage. I can't even begin to understand what the actual issue was there, I'm just glad it was resolved. Even more exciting is the prospect of a new 120 star run. The video is out of date and I think individual Star runs exist that beat all of these times, but it represents an effort and a willingness to take on this huge task, which is even more important. A huge team, especially one that spans the globe, will make this project very difficult to coordinate, but I also think it'll be the only way to make it feasible. I still hope there's more progress with hexing together individual Star record files, because that seems so much easier and quicker. I don't know the logistics with luck manipulation, though.

N64 Starcraft

So I'm getting more and more into Starcraft, but mainly just from the theoretical and high end strategy side. I like watching matches and such, but actually playing the game I find very stressful. I'm horrible at it, actually. It's a combination of stubbornness (which affects my strategy), laziness (I will just a-click, bun micro) and forgetfulness (lol what happened to my economy?). Basically I will try one thing that I feel like doing regardless of the matchup or what my opponent is doing. If it doesn't work, I will try it harder. If it does sort of work and the game transitions into a "multiple-base 20+ minute you have to tech up to all sorts of stuff" sort of endgame, I will realize all the mistakes I made at the beginning and get frustrated and lazy and usually quit. However, I am also incredibly bad at early game rushes. So basically there's no game length I like, it's either too sudden or too dragged out to be useful. Argh.

Anyways, I do have a lot of interest in the game still, and I'm trying to improve. In the meantime, I'll just read articles and such. One of the things I'm interested in is perfect play, because Starcraft is one of the few games where one's ability is always somewhat limited by your playing speed. APM obviously doesn't account for success as much as good strategy and levelheadedness, but having the ability to micro perfectly will win you a lot of battles quicker and the ability to build and upgrade with perfect timing reduces redundancy and optimizes your economy. The N64 version is obviously a poor substitute for the PC version when it comes to theoretical speed, but I don't see how TASing the PC version would be possible. I read somewhere that the N64 version could still hit about 900 APM, which really still is more than sufficient for some mindblowing play. The other problem is that the N64 only offers single player campaign missions, all of which would get steamrolled by the player. By exploiting the AI, one could probably get away with extremely simple builds, and any element of "strategy" would probably be lost.

What I'd really like to see is some sort of mod for the PC version that allows for multiplayer frame advance. Basically it would be like a turn based strategy game where both player submit their inputs and then the game is advanced by one frame. This would be extremely tedious and almost impossible to actually play "optimized" without save states, somewhat defeating the original purpose, but the results would be unbelievable. I cannot even speculate on the sort of things we'd see. I remember hearing about BW bots that could kill Sunken Colonies with a single Marine. At any rate, I don't expect to even see a work in progress of this for quite some time, given how difficult it would be to optimize, but steady progress seems to be being made. Get hype, etc.

Super Mario Sunshine

The opposite of the aforementioned type of run where progress is made behind the scenes and a fully completed run pops out unexpectedly afterwards is that where the run is uploaded continously as it is made. I'm not sure which I prefer, but someone on Nicovideo has been running Super Mario Sunshine in this fashion and watching each video as it comes has been very entertaining. As far as I can tell, the video was made by dumping the game continually and editing out the savestate usage later, as opposed to the preferred but at the time unreliable input recording (more on that later). I'm not sure if that's actually the case, though, as he has sound, and I didn't think frame dumping gave you sound. Anyways:
http://nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11736407
http://nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11793403
http://nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11853416
http://nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11946929

There's the first four parts. Even though this probably isn't optimized and certainly isn't eligible to be on TASvideos and thus be the "official record", it's definitely going to be helpful to any future TASer and is very very fun to watch. Sunshine was a pretty excellent game, all things considered.

Ocarina of Time

So, Bloobiebla finished his long, long, long awaited any% run. And man, it is amazing. I was pretty ignorant about the current route, so the run kept me guessing as to his plans. RBAing the warp song I found especially brilliant. This run was definitely worth the wait. Accept no unoptimized Nicovideo substitutes!

Majora's Mask

Recently the unassisted single segment run record was set by Jiano in a very entertaining commented run. It's really entertaining and educational, definitely worth a watch. It also really illustrates the differences between TAS and non-TAS, and the benefits and negatives of both. As if to demonstrate this contrast further, Mr Grunz uploaded a rare WIP for his upcoming Majora's Mask TAS run. Comparing it with the unassisted run for the same areas I think is one of the clearest ways to show the beauty of good TASing. Even with that comparison aside, this segment is simply beautiful. I've watched it many times now and I still managed to be surprised by some of his tricks. I think his Deku Palace route is maybe my favorite thing I have ever seen done in a video game.

Mario Kart DS

I've wanted to TAS Mario Kart DS for awhile, having played it extensively and such, but quite a few people have beaten me to it. Oh well! These videos are really amazing, though.

Final Fantasy VII

This is another one that I'm very, very excited for. A few WIPs have been uploaded, but antd's progress is too fast for him to have time to stop and encode. Wow! Unfortunately, he says he'll be slowing down in September, but he really has earned his break. I didn't expect to see a run of this for years, but he seems to be aiming to finish it by 2011 at the latest. Again, wow. Wow.

Dolphin Input Recording

So Dolphin's been pseudo-TASable for awhile now, but making effort on a big project when it's still so unreliable seemed pointless. I remember me and a friend at one point having some ambition to try to fix it, but the problem ended up being something I don't think either of us would have thought to fix. Point is, it's fixed now, and I eagerly look forward to all sorts of Gamecube runs.

Mother 2 (J) and Pokemon TCG

These two runs really caught me off guard. The Mother 2 improvement was something I think I had heard about at some point, but had no idea that it was actually going to be used in a new run. It's pretty impressive, almost as much as the glitched Chrono Trigger run.

The Pokemon TCG run seemed really out of the blue. I had no idea it was being worked on. The run itself was pretty entertaining, mostly just luck manipulation. Pretty nostalgic.

Anyways, that's some TAS stuff.

Hey uh if you like TASing stuff, why don't you do some yourself?

Maybe I will. Not sure what game to do, though.

Stuff that isn't TAS stuff: Blog Stuff

I've decided to put some ads on the site, maybe get some CASH MONEY. Or probably not. It can't hurt, at any rate. Also, looking at the blog stats reveals some interesting stuff: one person arrived at the blog by searching google for "keatsta one piece blog". Whoever this was, I love you.

Actually I think that was me when I forgot the url of the blog.

Uh...

Stuff I'm Listening to:

Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People

I have to say, I wasn't a huge fan of this originally. It seemed to lack the subtlety of other releases of his. The title track gave me that sense, at least. The orchestration seemed a bit too bombastic, and his little vocal bends at the end of a lot of lines seemed more like he was going for "Sufjan-y" music than actual good sounds.

But, it grew on me! And fast! The opening track is really quite beautiful, and although no single element is very complex - most of them being more manipulative "tricks", I mean, the lyrics and such especially - but the way he manages to craft together a 14-minute song that is both catchy and fun, seamless in it's transitions from theme to theme and still somewhat poignant. This is a theme that carries over to most of the other tracks. His lyrical themes fall into the pattern of tragic events portrayed innocently a bit too predictably I think, and without the subject matter base of something like a state, the lyrics come across as either too vague or immediately personal. Anyways, in spite of all these little qualms, the songs are all still very moving. "The Owl and the Tanager" is especially haunting. In all, it's quite an expansive little EP. Not sure why it really exists with his new album coming out soonish - did he feel these tracks were unworthy? Did they not fit thematically? - but this has only served to increase my hype for it. 8.4/10

More Sufjan Stuff
I'm back into a phase of listening to Sufjan Stevens a lot, like, listening to this new EP and both state albums twice a day a lot. I've hit on something that explains why I like him so much, I think, and that's his sincerity. So much folksy indie rock is tarnished by irony, false nostalgia, subversions of traditional music, etc, etc. They sing about their real life and sound fake while Sufjan tells stories that clash with his biography enough that I'm almost sure they aren't true, but you wouldn't believe it otherwise. One strikes me particularly these days. I've been listening to Michigan the most lately. It doesn't have the variety of Illinois, but I've found that Sufjan is one of the few artists where I look forward to the slow and quiet songs, which Michigan really has in spades. I've been listening more to the lyrics and such, and I never really noticed this whole undercurrent of despair that a lot of the songs have. It's this weird depiction of the depression going on in Detroit that swings between pride, confusion and sadness. It's beautiful. Look at the lyrics of The Upper Peninsula - it's a beautiful song on its own right, but I now realize what a vividly descriptive and disturbing depiction of lower class American life.

Anyways I've also been listening to Greenthink, but not enough that I want to talk about it much right now. So far: "good but not as good as cLOUDDEAD".

Also One Piece is on break, argh!