By Simon 'Sorcerer88' Schmid.
Author's comments:
This is my third and probably last try at an any% speedrun of THPS3 with Bam Margera, finally in English, with 60 fps and less than 6 minutes long!
While there are three small mistakes in the run, they only sum up to 4 or 5 seconds lost, and neither of them has ever happened to me before in hundreds and hundreds of attempts. There are always surprises and random events in a tony hawks game, I can't meet each of them.
So, overall, i'm more than happy with this run and its ~41 seconds of improvement over my last record, which result purely from a single route tweak and tiny tricks.
At first, I will only comment on the new stuff in this run. If you want to have the route and tricks explained, see the additional info section at the end of the page.
The one thing I changed about the route is that I get 4 status points which I use to maximize speed. I noticed that it saves much more time than it costs, I really should have figured this out earlier. Now to the individual levels:
Foundry - the 5-seconds-per-target-level
No mistakes - and a 2 seconds improvement over the last run! There are several small new tricks I implemented here.
Collecting the K is more direct now, but also way harder. Jumping from the rail first rail into the K needs to be done at the very last moment ( note that you can jump in mid-air in this game ), and you need to jump off the second rail very quickly to not miss the jump. Then, you need to land in the correct angle to be able to jump the valve. If you overdo it, you bail. There are more tiny details, like jumping off the valve, which is probably some milliseconds faster than falling off it, landing slightly off-angle after the TC-50-50 rail and the last valve, or jumping to the right, cutting the curve, before the T. These details contribute to the 2 seconds saved, while the K-jumps should make up most of that time.
Canada - *yawn*
No big changes here, other than getting the 2 status points and jumping off the around-the-horn-rail one pole respectively ~0.792 seconds earlier.
Rio - The 15-seconds-competition
Nothing new, as there is nothing to improve. Oh, there probably is, but that's a thing of mathematical optimization, once you have a complete model of the game engine ;)
Suburbia - DOH!
The most insignificant, yet ugliest mistake - skating against that damn ledge. Honestly, that didn't ever happen to me in a lifetime of Tony Hawk's experience and hundreds and hundreds of runs! I'll let it stand as a monument of the randomness running the game, and forget about the parts of a second lost there.
My first combo is different, shorter, so together with leaving out the manual after the third pumpkin where I jump to the inner yard, I have to pay attention not to miss the 200k points goal. In this run it worked perfectly, but in other attempts I had to make additional points.
Airport - Another 15 seconds
No changes, but I wasted a lot less time than before by expecting when i'd have the 300k needed, which is approximately at a combo of 20,000 x 15.
Suburbia - 17 seconds - 2 = 15 (OMG!)
Nothing new here again, other than the magical number of 15 snugging into our minds, slowly gaining world supremacy.
Los Angeles - The run killer in person...
... with a new kick-start. And a strange jump through a tree. Strange because it's possible. The 4 earth-quake-rails differ pretty much in when you need to start and end the grind to get the special for the target. At this one, you can jump off early, while you need to be careful not to miss an inch of the third rail.
Another surprise were the balls, which went nearly perfectly. They can be as insolent as infants.
Even the combo went perfectly, not a great deal of points wasted, so i'm really happy about my performance in this level.
Tokio - The Grand ( or maybe not so grand ) Finale
The ledge trick at the beginning was completely unintended and unexpected. It did waste time, but only about 1 or 2 seconds, as I had a higher multiplier and score compared to the second run, which allowed me to end the combo earlier. By the way, I didn't show my stats and tricks after the competition, because the stats are shown in the middle of the run, and you can clearly see that I don't use any non-standard tricks, especially special tricks.
That's it, I hope you liked this final version of my THPS3 run. I don't think there is much more time to be saved using Bam Margera. I'm glad I completed this run and with all the randomnesses and issues of the THPS games, I will probably end running them after I have completed THPS4. But, of course, you never know :)
DING DING DING DING
probally using a gamepad