Same SETTINGS as before: I change the GAME SETTINGS under the main title options to the following: Bullet Cam = no Then, when you start a new game, I change CONTROLLER SETTINGS to Turn Speed = Max, Motion Center = no

CHAPTER 4.1

Here's a pretty solid stretch of gameplay -- the goal is straightforward, but there are just enough tricks that the section is still pretty fun. Though most sections of the game begin with a drawing of McClane's gun to make him run, runners will want to begin 4.1 by crouching and THEN drawing the gun. Also, you do not want to hold forward during the load, because McClane will get momentarily "stuck" and crouching can be difficult. Regardless, you exit the ventilation shaft and head for the next one a few rooms away. It's there we have our first exploit, the ONE-CYCLE TUNNEL RUN.

ONE-CYCLE TUNNEL RUN Now, the title is a bit of a misnomer here, because we won't be one-cycling the entire subway track but simply one-cycling what the developers intended to be two cycles: making it to the next safety alcove (lit by red lights). I say "intended" because while pulling off the one cycle run isn't too hard, the timing is pretty tight. The way the one cycle is achieved is that as you exit the vent shaft into the room that leads into the subway tunnel, you use crouch just as you McClane is un-crouching mid air. Now, normally McClane leaps into the room, which takes time away from your heading for the alcoves. But by crouching mid air McClane's arc is lessened and he lands more quickly. Remember, just like in 3.2 McClane sometimes has trouble standing up after landing in a crouching position, so my advice is to not even try to un-crouch until you're in the subway tunnel proper (note where I un-crouch in the video above).

Once you've pulled that trick off, making it two more alcoves is easy -- you've got plenty of time now, and maybe some players will find that they can make it a little farther to the crouching alcove just ahead of where I stop during the second cycle. Regardless, once you've made it past the subway tunnel proper, it's time for our next trick, DOOR SHOOTY SHOOTY

DOOR SHOOTY SHOOTY Those who've played this game will wonder how shooting the door that leaves the subway tunnels is a trick. Well, that's because normally we are expected to use the gatling gun to do so, when in fact you don't have to use that gun at all. This door can actually be shot down by any bullets at all. Now, you'll notice how in the video I have killed both enemies waiting on the platform. This was actually a mistake on my part -- though you will lose a good bit of health doing so, the best way to approach this door is to only kill the enemy on the right (the non-gatling gun enemy) and to let the gatling gun enemy help you shoot the door down. Though I don't do it in the video, if done correctly you should be able to one-cycle the door (one cycle here referring to your ammo clip) by allowing the gatling gun to finish the door after your clip is emptied.

The remainder of this section should be evident -- do your best to jump right into the manhole so as to avoid the climbing animation that McClane will attempt to do. Do that and it's time to perform some cool tricks that are not actually as helpful as they look.

CHAPTER 4.2

Those who've played this chapter will recognize almost immediately a different strategy that I use: the backwards sewer. Now, this strategy is two fold; while the tricks you see here save a significant amount of time, they don't save as much as they could. This is where the community's efforts will come heavily into play, because while I have laid out a pretty interesting route, there is still a particular issue to be ironed out. I hope that my routing here will inspire others to find new tricks to bring the time on this chapter way, way down. Anyway, on to the strat....

BACKWARDS SEWER Alright, the thing you need to know right off the bat is that McClane is a lot skinnier than you thought he was -- so skinny in fact that with just a little effort he can literally leap between the bars of the sewer doors you find throughout this section. From what I've gathered, the reason this works is due to two things: one, the smallification of McClane whenever the player both jumps and crouches at the same time; and two, an oversight on the developer's part regarding one side of the door model used in this section. Regarding that second point, note that on some uses I jump to the left of the door and in others I jump to the right. This is not an accident -- these individual doors will only allow McClane to jump through them on one side. My guess is that the oversight in the door model is only located on one side of the model and that the devs simply placed the door "differently" from one spot to the next, sometimes facing one way, sometimes facing another. Regardless, we can actually use this trick on every single sewer door here -- if fact, you can jump right to the end of the chapter by door-leaping left at the start of the section, though due to the fact that you don't have the key to the final door it won't do you any good.

Nevertheless, I have found some good using this strategy. First off, I encounter Von Laben prior to when you are supposed to. Though he won't assist you until you find a number of painting pieces, we can still use this to save a little bit of time by letting him begin some of his dialogue while we are running away that we'd normally have to sit around and listen to. This is why, as I pass the spot where we normally first encounter him, I back up for a few moments to allow him to have his first line of dialogue. Doing that saves about five seconds where you'd normally just be standing around waiting to speak to him.

Now, there is something else we are required to do in this chapter: collect the laptop. To do this we need to make our way to a room that is tucked between two larger sewer areas, one section of which we are skipping completely. You see a glimpse of that skipped section as I head past the room under construction and then seemingly turn back around for no reason. However, I do have a reason: a person we need to kill in order to acquire the laptop doesn't not spawn until we pass a certain trigger point, which my seeming deviation does. This bring us to our next trick in this section, DIALOGUE COMPRESSION.

DIALOGUE COMPRESSION One of the major setbacks of running this game is that there are a LOT of stand-around-and-listen-to-someone-speak scenes. We bypassed one at the very beginning of the game, but we are not always able to do so. In chapter five, for example, we are forced to speak to two prisoners one after another in order to move on. Well, in that chapter we will use dialogue compression, and we will use it here, too. The way it works is like this: normally in DH:V, an NPC's dialogue is "attached" to the NPC -- often with a radius of "conversation" around them. Leave the radius, and the conversation ends. However, by traversing a section backwards, we can sometimes trigger an NPC's dialogue without the NPC having been loading into existence yet, which effectively detaches the dialogue from them and the radius in question.

That's what is happening here -- I am effectively "dragging" the dialogue from the two men holding hostages in the room prior to the laptop room with me as I head into the laptop room. This allows us to jam the "use" (in this case "speak") button and blast through a dialogue between McClane and the man on the laptop screen very, very quickly. Moreover, though walking away from the laptop conversation (as it HASN'T been attached to us) would normally stop the dialogue, you only need to actually be around to hear McClane cough. This indicates when it's safe to leave and return to Von Laben. (Be sure to duck left as I did leaving the laptop room to acquire the painting piece.)

Here's something interesting: had we traversed the sewer as the developers intended (though using a bit of that jump mash trick which I will get into in the next guide), we would actually arrive at the laptop room about two seconds earlier than running the sewer backwards. I'm pointing this out because it is the above conversation compression and the early start on Von Laben's dialogue that make the backwards sewer viable, saving about 15 seconds total. Maybe that's a lot of re-routing for 15 seconds -- but hey, this is a speedrun, not a slowrun, so.

You'll note that in my return to Von Laben I make some goofs. For one, I left alive the enemy to the left of the door that led us to the non-appeared hostage takers; that was a mistake. Continuing to miss him when I come back through is also a mistake. But the good news is that we have a really cool and easy skip here that lets us bypass an annoying puzzle involving manipulating a sewer pipe to get us across a large gap. We simply do some creative jumping.

Additionally, on the way up the ladder back to Von Laben I also goof a little -- first by accidentally reversing direction for a moment, then by climbing all the way up instead of using jump near the top to exit the vertical pipe earlier. I'll let you perfect that.

Now it's time for the bad news: you know all the cool tricks you see from the return to Von Laben on, from my leaping through sewer doors to my arriving at the last door of the level without triggering the sewer flood from the grates above? None of it means anything. I'm serious, I've timed it both ways -- one escorting Von Laben normally and the other just leaving him behind once I get him to unlock the initial door block "our" path -- and every time I get exactly the same end time. What this means is that Von Laben, if left behind, will utilize the path of least resistance to get to the end of the level, in the same way that our escorting him to the end would do. So why do I still run the level out of order at this point? Well, for one, it's easier. Arriving at the last door and having nothing to do allows me to check the news while I wait. Not that that's preferable for a speedrun. But that leads me to my second reason why I run the level this way from this point onward: so that other runners will see the trick and get inspired to figure out a way to get Von Laben to the final door more quickly.

Can you do it? Please, please find a way :)

--hindu