AUF in 34:37 Description:
I have a really long history with this game, it’s probably the first game I ever experimented with as far as looking for tricks and shortcuts (at the age of 13, I’m 22 now). I knew I’d do a legit speedrun of it someday. Cygnus's 2005 single-segment Operative run in 40:40 is ok for its time considering it was done before youtube/cybesrcore/emulators made it easy to share strategies/level times and do extensive testing. He continued to play the game after his run and got some really nice IL times. After watching his 40:40 I decided on doing a segmented run to show just how far the game could be pushed, I had a ton of little tricks & strategies in my head that Cygnus didn’t use and wanted to show them off. I chose to play on Operative because the higher difficulties do not add any extra objectives, the enemies just become tougher and my health would run out quicker. My goal was to showcase the fastest ways through each level and implement all the worthwhile optimizations known, 00 Agent would have made that impossible. Even on Operative some of the levels were pretty hard to survive in a speedy manor (Cold Reception and Mediterranean Crisis are the biggest offenders). I also found new timesaving tricks as I began running the game, most notably in Fire & Water. I was able to shave 36 seconds off of the best Cyberscore time for that level thanks to a couple of cool sequence breaks. Besides Cygnus's 40:40 run, there were 0 speedrun videos for this game online so I haven’t had much to go by when trying to compete with times on Cybercore even though I did beat/tie many of them, even without the use of gold reward unlockables that everyone else used ;). Last notes before I get to the segments: This game is timed using the in-game times for each level, which are then added together to get a final time. The timer does not run during cutscenes. Jumping just before stairs/ladders and over curbs prevents speed loss so you’ll see it a lot in the run. I use controller setup 3 and I suggest everyone who plays the game do the same, the default controller setup is awful.

On with the segment notes!
Trouble in Paradise (1:45) –Ducked under the door after picking up the briefcase. I hit the second elevator's button from outside of it to get it moving sooner. I duck as I come off the second elevator. You can cut Zoey’s lock through the pole from a good distance away. This is the fastest known time for this level by 1 second.

Precious Cargo (3:46) – This is on-rails. Collisions with other cars will slow you down so you need to avoid that. Time sensitive moment #1 @4:25 - The barrels on the right must be destroyed before you can continue. Time sensitive moment #2 @5:20 - Must destroy the two cars on the left to continue. Time sensitive moment #3 @5:40 – Blowing up the large fuel tank at juuuuust the right time will make your car move really quickly through the beginning part of the building. Too early will cause the game to basically soft-lock itself, too late will make your car come to a stop before moving on. This shot is actually really hard to aim and time, I wasn’t even able to get it consistent in emulator practice. Thanks to Cygnus for revealing this trick to me. Time sensitive moment #4 @6:05 – Hit the red switch as soon as it becomes hit-able. Time sensitive moment #5@6:12 – Shoot the cable (can’t hold the control stick direction during the cutscene, have to move afterwards). This is 1 second off of the best time on Cyberscore (no proof).

Dangerous Pursuit (0:52) – Pretty easy aside from having to manipulate traffic. This time is slower than most of the Cyberscore times because you can come back later after unlocking the Lotus supercar which is faster than the BMW.

Bad Diplomacy (1:07) – Cygnus showed me the jump at the beginning that lets Bond go clear over the railing. There are two ways to get back to the bottom floor after accessing the computer, the normal route shown here is fastest. This is 1 second slower than the fastest known time.

Cold Reception (1:40) – This level is deceptively hard to speedrun. It’s really easy to get shot to death and have your path blocked by guards. At the start I jump from a potted plant onto the stage, the door switch on the desk can be hit from the front. I duck as I come off the second elevator. You can jump from the railing through the window of the little shack at the end but it only saves a tiny fraction of a second IF you do it perfectly. This is 1 second slower than the fastest Cyberscore time (no proof).

Night of the Jackal (2:29) - I wait for the first indoor terrorist to come to the doorway because he'll run backwards into the room if you charge at him and I need his ammo. Killing all the terrorists without running out of KA-57 ammo is a must so that I don't auto-switch to the Ingalls in the middle of shooting. The Jackal (female boss) doesn't take damage until after she finishes talking which is why I wait to blow the tanks behind her. I headshot the pilot ASAP using an aiming setup. Standing on the helipad at the end makes the level end sooner (go figure haha). This is 6 seconds slower than the fastest Cyberscore time (no proof), the Gold PPK/Gold grenades probably make the Jackal fight very fast.

Streets of Bucharest (6:52) – I came up with ~10 seconds of routing improvement over Cygnus's single-segment driving route. Going left after the destroyed bridge saves ~5 seconds vs going straight. The tank section is on-rails, collisions do not slow the tank down. Time sensitive moment #1 @19:03- If you blow up the left car just before the tank normally comes to a stop (can’t be too early or too late) you will not slow down at all. Time sensitive moment #2 @19:36 The chopper takes 1 mortar shot to kill but has invincibity until around the moment that the rocket it fires makes impact. Time sensitive moment #3 @22:12 – You can shoot the gas tank on the train as you come around the corner before the cutscene starts, this saves ~9 seconds. Like in Dangerous Pursuit, you can use the Lotus supercar to get a faster time in this level so I won't compare to the top Cyberscore time.

Fire & Water (1:57) - The hardest level for sure. After triggering Block's cutscene (this is required for the pump room to load) I do a sequence break over the railing to the big area that saves 4 seconds and prevents a lot of enemies from loading (meaning no damage taken). In the pump room I use a really precise clawshot trick to skip straight to the third floor early. Hooking that spot quickly (which is a few pixels big from that angle) and then surviving until after the zip line is the hardest part of the entire run. Once I come off of the zip line the elevator comes down after a set amount of time. After the elevator I jump through the window to cut some distance. This is the fastest known time for this level by 23 seconds.

Forbidden Depths (6:48) – On-rails. Time sensitive moment #1 @26:29 - I aim at a specific spot so that the auto-aim jerks my crosshair to the right, headshotting the guard in front of the hidden panel ASAP. As soon as he dies the panel will open and can be shot. Time sensitive moment #2 @28:44 - The door in front of me opens after a set amount of time (killing enemies nearby is not a factor). Once the door opens I headshot the guy in the car with the shotgun which causes a 1-hit death. Once the boss fight starts I kill the 3 henchmen as fast as possible to start the next phase. To finish-off Block quickly you need to get 1 headshot and 1 high-torso shot consecutively. After Block, 3 more henchmen need to be killed but this time they have more health than before. This part is very hard to do with a single ammo clip, and I failed it. However, something lucky happened in that the last guy I needed to kill blew himself up by launching a rocket at me point-blank. The final phase requires you to blow-up the 3 flashing things up above. I detonate the missiles just before they impact to save a few fractions of a second each. This is the fastest known time for this level by 2 seconds.

Poseidon (1:47) – There’s nothing worth commenting on until the room just after the first load-time. I need to collect two PS100 ammo drops, kill a total of 6 guys, and acquire the 3 signals before I can leave this room. The 3rd guy I kill in this room is usually farther off to the right and I need to travel towards his area to see him, but I got a really lucky/rare occurrence where he decided to come to me which saved a second or two over the normal way. I hit the 3 green signals in the cloning room from afar quickly (this is tougher than you might think, they have very small hitboxes). In the last room I jumped a tad too late over a box and bonked it but the luckiness that happened earlier in the enemy-killing room more than made up for it. This is 1 second slower than the fastest Cyberscore time (no proof).

Mediterranean Crisis (2:46) – This one is hard to survive. It’s also difficult to navigate through cleanly due to tight spaces, faulty stair jumps (these stairs tend to cause bumping/bonking when you land on them), and random-blocking enemy behavior. The moment before the first load-time when I missed the shot on the super thug did not waste any time at all despite the appearance. Killing him has nothing to do with loading the next section, you just need to be close against the center of the door at a certain point during Zoey’s talking to trigger the load quickly (this is another one of those odd triggers in the game that responds differently depending on your position). This is the fastest known time for this level by 5 seconds.

Evil Summit (2:48) - I enter the shack on the right to get a PS100 to speed up silo room 1, and the sniper rifle for Bloch. You can skip the shack and use the PPK for silo room 1 and the D17 for Bloch but it's slower and less consistent on average for console unless you have the Gold PPK. The jump through the tunnel window is a sequence break that most people know about I’m sure, I jump back out and fall to my death just for fun (the next section always loads before you actually die). The first silo signal in the big room is glitched and can be acquired even though it's red, no need to kill the 4 guards and save the hostages. In silo room 1 I do a strict jump to the ladder which saves a couple seconds over clawshotting the spot to the right. After the last silo room I jetpack up the elevator to hit the load zone sooner (saves a second). In the boss fight, to make Bloch run to the far end of room (below the hatch he opens) you need to stand still and rack up damage on him. After I sniper-shoot his head I jetpack and graze the bottom of the rafter which unloads an invisible wall blocking the 3rd floor, letting me clawshot ASAP instead of having to get onto the rafter then turn around and aim (saves ~3 seconds). Not getting blocked by the guards at all between silo rooms is crazy lucky, can’t stress that enough. This is the fastest time for this level by 20 seconds.

Well that’s the run, hope you enjoyed it. In total I worked on it for 1 year 4 months 14 days (on and off). If worthwhile improvements for any of the levels come to my attention I might go back and re-do some to keep this run current. What’s really nice about this run is that anyone can improve the segments, similarly to an IL table. On Operative difficulty there’s no way you’ll ever unlock a gold reward that will be visible in a proceeding level so it’s very easy to fit a new segment in anytime without worrying about it not matching up. If you want to match the exact look of my segments: Enter the level then choose start>quit level, then wait for the silhouette girl’s legs roll to the left before mashing A, then once the level’s done let the time get shown for about 2-3 seconds before pressing A to exit to the level menu .I can confidently say that I put everything I had into this speedrun, I treated it as seriously as Goldeneye 007 speedrunning even though it has a much smaller fan base. I think this is one of the best Bonds for speedrunning and I hope others join in and try to get some speedy level times. Thanks to Cygnus for digging the few old IL runs off of his hard drive for me to learn from, and to the past players of this game on Cyberscore who gave me goal times to reach, and to Phazon who linked me to the 007 AUF Cyberscore page which I had no idea existed. What’s next for this game? Hopefully a 00 Agent TAS :D! Also considering beating Cygnus’s Operative SS run time, but on 00 Agent.