Huge Speed Run Discovery Found In GTA San Andreas

[Rhoda]

I just wanted to share something exciting in regards to the state of GTA San Andreas speedrunning. For years, people have been exploiting mission duplication glitches (dupes) to skip entire blocks of missions, under a category formerly known as Any%. However, now another exploit has been discovered which has brought the time down from 3 hours and 57 minutes to just over 25 minutes. The explanation is long, complicated and confusing, but we're fortunate to not only have a video of the entire process but also a guide from the man himself detailing just what is going on and what parameters must be met. This is also only possible on the Windows Store edition because of the line of "wrong" code that is being manipulated - this line of code doesn't exist in other ports or versions, and if it does, it's different enough for this to not work. I was first informed of this skip from watching Joshimuz's attempt and reading the very detailed FAQ which says the research for this method stretches over 3 years worth of work. It's insane. I am in no way trivialising the work that has gone into this by having a comparatively brief post reporting it, but honestly the conditions for this to work are mind-numbingly precise and can be found in both the guide and the FAQ linked above. Congratulations to everybody currently playing this strategy.

 

I am aware that there isn't much talk of speedrunning here, but I do know there's at least a few members interested in it. This completely changes how the game is run, with the previous Any% category being renamed and a new category being created for this very strategy. I sense that there'll be a number of players now battling for that world record. There are already optimisations to be found in Powdinet's run. I just wanted to share this because it's a huge skip, and it's quite exciting.

[Eternal Moonshine]

I just found out this was discovered. It's crazy that after all these years we have finally found a way to completely break this game. I'm still waiting for someone to do a world record progression video on San Andreas. I love watching these and it's surprising that nobody was interested in doing one. VC was already covered by English Ben, now it's time for SA

[Rhoda]

Yeah, I remember the major gamebreaker for VC being covered. I believe the world record for that category is a staggering eight minutes and thirty eight seconds. Those that fear that the game will forever be tainted by these skips shouldn't be worried, as the classic and/or all missions categories still remain and are still popular. I'll be honest, I tend to prefer runs that have more of the game in them. Part of the magic for me is watching how quickly things can be done, not cutting enormous chunks of it out for a quicker pace. Some of my favourite runs to watch are the 100% San Andreas ones, which do exactly what they say on the tin. In fact, the previous world record for this category was broken around two weeks ago by DatesL with this run.

[Ron Horse]

I think they should recategorize these things as bug exploits, not necessarily speed runs.  It's cool and all, but eventually they'll probably all end up like masterjun essentially bugging the title screen to go to the end credits in SMB3.  At some point, you aren't even playing the game any more.

[Rhoda]

I mean, they kind of have. Before this skip was found and utilised, the Any% category was chock full of time saving exploits. I see the term meaning "by any means necessary", hence why this skip has been included. That doesn't render the rest of the categories redundant, especially because this glitch is incredibly difficult to pull off. It's like in Super Mario 64 - it's now possible to beat the game with no stars whatsoever, or 1, or 16. The 70 and 120 star categories are still active because on some level runners do still enjoy playing the game. I do agree that there's a point that it all becomes arbitrary and you might as well not be playing at all, but I admire the ingenuity behind an exploit for a game that has been run for years and still has discoveries to be made all this time later.

[Rhoda]

Sorry for the double double but this has exploded lately. Today alone there have been SIX individual runs, all within 90 seconds of each other. A more consistent method involving the arcade machines in the bar on Grove Street has been discovered, which is said to be an easier way to achieve the om0 state. Here is a link to the run set today by glitch founder Powdinet.

 

For those confused, GoldenEye and Perfect Dark speedrunner Karl Jobst made a video a few days back breaking down the technique, as it isn't clear at all if you're simply watching the runs.