(New Strat/Route Guide) : 1. Townsend Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xybDcaJaJhM&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=2&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 2. Hollywood Boulevard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMeKoF-XYO4&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=3&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 3. Chinese Cinema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-FtheoybrQ&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=4&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 4. LA Subway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtN1Fs-nbrc&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=5&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 5. Century City Police Department

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNtlr_TzdIY&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=6&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 6. Hollywood Film Studio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q7JIeDdndg&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=7&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 7. Sierra Correctional Facility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8wsbmRWWCM&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=8&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 8. Cesar Tuna Factory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goK-MDokV5c&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=9&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : 9. Fernandez Warehouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlhNXmje9cM&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=10&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : x10. Nakatomi Plaza

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQS7IKPYcIc&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=11&t=0s

(New Strat/Route Guide) : x11. Holmes Observatory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBuceO1RCew&list=PL3JOJQ_HJ4u0hF9z0ZSGB6etSZ7k0Qnmi&index=12&t=0s

1. Strats and Exploits: Chapter One

https://youtu.be/fRjv2nfb4AA

SETTINGS: 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

Here's the tech that I use in this chapter:

BODY JUMPS: McClane tends to jump at the edge of a surface; we use this to our advantage often (though in some chapters I negate the auto jump by holstering and walking backwards). However, it turns out that McClane will also auto-jump off of someone's head, too, which makes using bodies for boosting purposes quite easy to do. 

URKEL SKIP: In this first chapter I use body jumps for a skip that I lovingly call URKEL SKIP. This skip involves forgoing the long forced dialogue with Al (the actor being from the TV show Family Matters, hence my use of the name Urkel) in order to open the door into the museum. Instead, I body jump off of the cop to the left of the door, which allows McClane to land on top of the man working on the door. Then I position McClane so that he is partially inside the door. It's at this point that I can use a variation of McClane's crouch-jump (to be discussed at a later date) to complete the skip. For this skip, you simply: A. get McClane partially inside the door as I have done here; B. hold jump, and if you've positioned McClane correctly, you'll see and hear him vibrate in the door; C. once you've started vibrating, you then hold crouch and push forward. With a little practice, you'll be through the door in no time, saving about a minute.

SOFT LANDING and DASHMAN SKIP
When most people playing DH:V's first chapter cross the atrium (the large, open-ceiling, two-storied room with a statue and pool in the middle), they head downstairs and then get annoyed by the enemy who is scripted to run between the pillars at the bottom (I call him Dashman). We can negate this script by not using the stairs and instead jumping from the top floor to the bottom. However, in an effort to reduce fall damage, I have McClane jump down firmly onto the base of the statue. There are some irregular objects in the game that do not cause fall damage, and this statue's base is the first of several I use in my full run. Of note: McClane does not auto-jump off of this base, so you have to force the jump (what other games simply call "jump") in order to not waste time falling into the water. A potential optimization here would be to jump backwards once you've landed on the statue base. Regardless, you'll find Dashman in his corner awaiting a script that will never come.

The rest of this chapter is simply movement and reload optimization and enemy patterns. Now, this run is not as perfect as I'd like it to be -- for example, I would like to be able to one-cycle (one ammo clip) the final set of enemies just prior to rescuing the daughter (the eight standard enemies as you round the corner into the helicopter area just before the hostage battle). As is, I try to line up the first three enemies to conserve ammo, and I want to line up the two enemies on the raised platform, but they're a little trickier. If we came up with a reliable strat for shooting the hostage taker w/o wasting ammo on the flower pot to stun him, that would help immensely.

ITEMS I HAVE NOT FOUND A USE FOR YET
As you exit the museum at the end of the level, you can actually get on top of the pillars surrounding the sitting statue, and from there the roof of the platform that separates the two sides of the open area. By switching between long and short jumps (weapon-ready and holstered) you position yourself on the statue's head, then you use a trick we'll discuss later called mash-jumping to get to the boards running across the pillars. Once you've done that, you mash-jump to the roof, and from there you're actually able to jump atop the helicopter's spinning blades (which results in a fun glitch). Maybe someone out there will find a use for that :) 

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I hope that the tricks inspire you to find something new or to develop your own strats. Please let us mods know and we will disseminate the info to the community!

--hinduc.

2. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Two

https://youtu.be/eQRZRo1c1OE

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 

So here's a pretty straightforward chapter, made up of mostly movement optimization and the occasional exploit. Don't worry, the next chapter will be much cooler.

CHAPTER 2-1

A pretty cut and dry section honestly; I back into the section instead of pushing forward (in DH:V, movement inputs are recognized just prior to the level appearing), and I skip everything that isn't required for completion of the chapter, but otherwise it's hard to play this section wrong. In the video here I could have been a little smoother in my positioning outside the bank doors, and I wish I had landed the jump through the office window toward the exit a little smoother, but beyond that a runner might be hard pressed to cut this time down by much. (Though I would love it if someone found a way into the bank without resolving the hostage situation.)

CHAPTER 2-2

This section is more technical than the first, and more can go wrong. 

ALLEY SKIP
In the opening of this section, casual play sees McClane making his way to the far side of the alleyway to jump up onto the roof and back across; the body jump here skips that. Pulling off the ALLEY SKIP can be a little finicky, but the rule of thumb is that you want to leave YELLOW (I'm referring to the enemy colors) alive and stunned so that you can boost off of him. A pattern that I find successful to achieve that is to kill WHITE, kill RED, then walk to RED's position and shoot WHITE one time. This prevents WHITE from killing the hostage and stuns him in position to body jump to the shorter roof. That said, in the video above you will see a slightly different (accidental) pattern where auto-aim jumped to WHITE early, leaving RED alive until I moved into his position. Try whichever pattern works best for you.

A NOTE ABOUT BODY JUMPS
Body jumps have a nice little technical aspect to them I'll mention here. Depending on how close you are to an enemy, you can choose to use a short jump or a long jump, which is done by either jumping with your weapon holstered (short) or un-holstered (long). Now, the resultant boost from a body jump also changes based on which holster state you are in, but that can be modified mid-jump, i.e. you can short-jump to an enemy and unholster in the air to turn the boost into a long jump. This will be useful for marathon runs where the enemy AI tends to side step out of your cross hairs and can limit the space between you and them you have to work with.

CLOTHING STORE STRAT
Okay, so this scene requires slowing down unfortunately, due to forced stealth and conversations. Later in the game we'll see ways that we can skip and compress dialogue, but I haven't found a way to do that here. Anyway, when you approach the store, make sure you're carrying only one weapon and that as you enter the store you holster that weapon. I use the 9mm because that way you can switch to double 9mms for the rest of the chapter. Once you've grabbed the enemy, you then have to wait for the other enemies to drop their weapons AND pick them up (you'll hear the sound of a weapon being picked up). Once you've arrested the enemy, I grab the clothing before I initiate conversation, otherwise the last line of dialogue will start over. I also use this moment to switch to un-holstered, but you could probably do that during the ensuing conversation, because there's plenty of it.

ITEM USE EXPLOIT
The tiniest of exploits here, but for some reason when McClane uses an item in his inventory he also "uses" doors, switches, etc. As I enter into the private club, I use this to both change clothing and open the door at the same time, though now that I think about it I could simply change clothes during the previous forced conversation. I'll make a note of that for future runs.

TRACTOR SKIP
Though I played it a tad too safe in the above video, you can use the tractor's bucket to slide across the pit instead of jumping into the pit as the developers intended. You don't even have to do anything -- just jumping into the bucket slides McClane across the gap. Nice!

ITEMS I HAVE NOT FOUND A USE FOR YET 
In section one, on the right side of the bottom floor of the bank, there is a useable door that will take you into an inaccessible part of the alleyway from section two. If you use the door as a boost point to mash-jump from, you can clear the gate and get into the area. There you'll hear the dialogue of the hostage from the beginning of section two, though the model won't be present, nor the enemies. The objects that allow you to climb up are not present in this version; however, if you boost onto the door and then cross the fence to the other side instead of jumping down, you can jump up to a platform and try to enter the door (pro tip: it's now all concrete inside). Of note is that you can end the chapter from this side of the building, by either jumping high enough near the window you're supposed to jump out of, or attempting to get close to it.

3. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Three

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmsaCg88OUE

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 3.1

This section is pretty straightforward, not unlike the first section of chapter 2, except this one is even faster. Don't hold a direction before the level loads, because before you know it McClane will be pointing at the moon. (You will, however, being using this in the next section....) I got some bad enemy AI here, but you want to kill the enemy closest to the exit in order to get a second 9mm for the next section.

CHAPTER 3.2

Who knew John McClane was so agile! Well, he is, and with a little bit of practice you can be too. Note that in the opening of the section here McClane is already pointing at the ceiling. Prior to the section loading, hold up and forward to set yourself up to shoot the banner hanging from the balcony. Though we won't be using it to climb as the developers intended, shooting the banner is required for two reasons: 1. we'll be using the irregular properties of the banner's base when we return here (recall the statue base from chapter 1), and 2. you won't be able to pull off the SEAT JUMP in the area that we need to do it in if the banner is in the way.

SEAT JUMP
So here's my second favorite glitch in the game, and it would be my first favorite if it existed anywhere else but this level. Unfortunately, the glitch involves the specific geometry of the theatre seats and I can't find another object that allows for this trick. The best way to understand how it works is to look at the second time I use the glitch near the end of the video. What's happening there is that you holster your gun and, um, rub McClane in between the seats until he sort of "clicks" into place. After that you simply un-holster your weapon, hit crouch and -- boom, you're airborne. After that you simply have to add a directional input at the exact moment you hit crouch.

The first time I use the glitch, however, is a slightly less effective version that I call a running seat jump. By scrubbing the seats and HOLDING crouch you are able to boost McClane up onto the balcony above. It can be pretty difficult to face the correct direction for the trick (the more parallel your sights are with the seats the more likely you are to miss the balcony, and the less parallel you are the less likely the trick is to work), but as you see the angle I use here works pretty well. If done correctly, you should land somewhere near to where I have landed.

Depending on whether McClane went high enough to touch the ceiling or not, he will be crouching when you touch down. He can be a little finicky about standing up after this move for a few moments, and you see in the run above I sort of ping pong back in forth between the seats for this reason. Regardless, after you've completed the trick the following scenes are simply movement, aim, and reload optimization until you return to this balcony. Do note that I take a wide berth upon my return through the double doors -- it is in my experience that this either loads or routes the two uzi enemies close to the double doors instead of staying in their original position when you came up. The uzis are essential for surviving long enough for the next seat jump.

If you've gotten good at the running seat jump, your run will either succeed or fail based on this gunfight. Since we didn't kill any enemies on the way up, there room is completely packed with enemies now, and if you do nothing you'll be dead in a matter of seconds. I like the pattern I used here for dispensing of the enemies, especially since it took care of the enemy carrying the enforcer pistol (you'll note that he's the first enemy I kill when I land on the ground floor). Good luck with whatever pattern you decide to go with. Regardless, in order to conserve health, you'll want to jump off of the balcony the way I have here. Due to the banner being an irregular object, McClane is able to land in its general area and not take any fall damage. Once you've landed, you'll want to head for the fifth row and perform the seat jump (the fifth row, first gap is in my experience the best spot to do it in, though you might experiment with others if you like). Up and away you go!

(Note that the seat jump can be done without turning around to face the stage. I simply find the trick easier to pull off facing the stage -- and cooler looking.)

Once you land on the stage, you'll need to un-crouch and head for the backstage. Please note my absolute terrible aim regarding the weights on the door. I guess nobody's perfect. This lack of perfection is extended to the end of this section too, when I for some reason had the hardest time shooting the vent and climbing inside it. Ugh, McClane, why do you move like that!

ITEMS I HAVE NOT FOUND A USE FOR YET 
Due to the reach of the seat jump, runners may find some other use for the glitch. I know for a fact that you can use it to reach the two smaller balconies on the left and right side of the theatre. Outside of the glitch, the chandeliers above the theatre might be useful to you. I've tried using them to jump across the theatre (both as they are falling and not), but I haven't yet been successful. One thing you CAN use them for is to mark the fifth row of the theatre seats, which might help with performing the final seat jump -- the chandelier closest to the stage falls in such a way that it marks the jumping-off point nicely.

4. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Four

https://youtu.be/6Q20-DtRQ-w

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

5. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Five

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUi2Tyz9B9A

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 5.1

Like other first sections, here we don't do much more than run, run, run. I use crouch jumping to shave off a little time as McClane enters each floor of the parking garage, but otherwise there isn't much to worry about until you reach the bottom floor of the garage. There you will need to crouch jump through a window, hit a switch, and then crouch jump backwards back through the window. In the courtyard, there's more of the same running (note that I screwed up my first shot at the lock on the door). There is another way through this section that I will describe at the end, but it's really, really hard to pull off and saves about three seconds at best. Once you're back inside and heading upstairs to save Thornberg, be sure that you don't accidentally shoot him after you bust through the window. He dies real easy :)

CHAPTER 5.2

Like chapter 4.2, this chapter sees us worry mostly with dialogue management. In fact, the only trick I use the entire section is just that, unless you count the backwards crouch jump I use exiting the room where Carl is held hostage. The first time you see me using dialogue management is after arriving at Lucy's and Von Laben's cell -- I trigger the first line of dialogue and then run down the hall to kill the enemy (if you don't kill him he'll just come after you during your conversation, so this trick saves no time). In the video you'll note that I do not fire at the bullet-proof glass until Lucy says the line about being optimistic, but this is an error on my part -- if you fire at the glass prior to this line (say, after she first begins dragging Von Laben away) John will skip a line of dialogue about firing at the glass being of no use. Regardless, Lucy will hit the glass with the chair and you are supposed to shoot in the general area at the moment she does. The way I do it is I aim for her head the moment she says she's going to hit the glass, then move the reticle slightly up and to the right.

After you've busted the glass, you'll have to talk to Lucy about some plot stuff. Eventually she'll give you a key to the jail cells on the next floor down. Now, regarding those jail cells, the devs have intended for you to speak to both Nitro and Herbert, one after the other, then wait for them to (very, very slowly) walk to their respective locations and complete a task. We're going to skip just a bit of that with a little bit of dialogue compression.

JAIL CELL DIALOGUE COMPRESSION
So, as you'll recall from chapter 4.2, most dialogue in this game is attached to an NPC, and is consequently reset anytime you walk away from said NPC. However, by maintaining a very careful distance between the two NPCs here, I am able to speak to both of them at once during some lines of dialogue. The order should be evident from the above video, but I will hit the important points here:

1. Talk to Herbert. 2. Once you've initiated Herbert's dialogue, you can immediately begin inching toward Nitro and get close enough to start HIS first line of dialogue. 3. Now, with Nitro, you won't be able to inch back to Herbert until Nitro begins his line that starts with "Oh, I know two other things, Holmes." 4. At that point, you simply finish the dialogue with Herbert, being sure to let him out of the cell before he finishes. 5. Now finish your conversation with Nitro, being sure to let him out too.

If done correctly, this saves about 45 seconds. But if you were looking to have a little celebratory run, this is not the time: after the scene in the basement jail, you have literally nothing to do for about two minutes while you wait for Nitro and Herbert to arrive at their destinations. If you happen to be marathoning in the game right now, go ahead and have a pee break.

CHAPTER 5.3

There isn't much strategy to this section -- your only goals are to claim the briefcase (located forward and to the left from your starting position when you emerge outside) and kill every enemy. My advice is that once you've acquired the briefcase, make a bee line for the back of the stage, killing what enemies you can on the way. These enemies will gradually move toward you, but the enemies at the back of the stage haven't been triggered yet, so you want to make sure you're heading in their direction at all times. It is of course best to shoot enemies as you come across them rather than wait; nevertheless, if you find yourself reloading, it's best to head for the back.

THINGS I HAVEN'T FOUND A USE FOR YET

MR. CAT
On the second floor of the parking garage in 4.1, you'll find a cat (note that around the 20 second mark in the above video you hear a fairly loud mew from nearby. The cat is located between two of the cars on that floor). As far as I can tell, the cat is not intended to do anything -- if you leave it be, it continues mewing; if you shoot it or approach it, the cat runs away. However, one thing you CAN do with the cat is that you can use it as a spring board to get out of the level. If you make your way in front of the cat and position yourself so that the cat is directly facing you, you can then shoot the cat and jump on top of its head as it leaps up the fence. If done correctly you'll find yourself pushed up inside the wall and the ceiling. Aside from falling forever out of the level, I haven't found a use yet.

SLIGHTLY FASTER COURT YARD
In the court yard of 4.1, instead of making your way up and around the circular walkway, you can actually leap up on the thin railing in front of the locked gate, then leap to the right lamp post block, then leap into the alcove near to the lamp post, and then use mash-jumping to get on top of the lights (I will finally discuss mash jumping in the next chapter). It's super, super hard, and even if you land it perfectly you only save about three seconds. But hey -- you want to speedrun, don't ya!

6. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Six

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVSaXAb7p0o

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 

So here it is, my favorite chapter in the game! Why is it my favorite chapter? Is it because story, characters, and set pieces are so expertly refined? No, it's because we're going to go very fast through a chapter that is meant to be kind of slow. 

CHAPTER 6.1

Now, the intended path for this section is as follows: we are supposed to shoot open a locked gate, make our way to the far right side of the film lot, talk to some officers pinned down by sniper fire, receive a key to open a door back on the other side of the map, head back there, fight our way through a set, cross a raised walkway to arrive behind the sniper, and shoot him.

Yeah, we'll do SOME of that....

YIPPEE KI-YAY SKIP
So here's what we're going to do: we are going to use the low-poly curve of the center of the barrier to get to an inaccessible ledge, then we are going to use that to jump across to another inaccessible ledge, and then we will jump from that ledge to the raised walkway mentioned above. In order to do most of that, however, we'll need to discuss two exploits in a little more detail. The first exploit, encountered as you jump from inaccessible ledge A to inaccessible ledge B, is the elusive MASH JUMP.

MASH JUMP
Here's where marathon runs go to die. This exploit only appears a few times in the run, but it is without a doubt the most difficult trick in the game. The reason it is so difficult is because the exploit is frame perfect: basically, when McClane's jump is almost-but-not-quite high enough to clear an obstacle, his movement will "stutter" as he contacts the obstacle. You can imagine the edge of his hit box just grazing the edge of the object, but not quite overcoming it. Well, by pushing jump at the exact frame of his grazing the edge, you can force a jump -- and that's what we do here. The video above is the result of about twenty attempts at the exploit, where during that time I successfully pulled off the exploit only two times. Obviously marathon runners will need to practice. My main advice for pulling off this trick is to use your muscle memory from and your technique in old NES wrestling games that required the player to mash a button faster than their opponent; for me, I grip the controller with my left hand and vibrate my right hand on the jump button. You might have some other trick that you use. Regardless, if done correctly, you will be atop inaccessible ledge B and ready to attempt the next exploit, EDGE STICKING.

EDGE STICKING
Now that you've arrived on inaccessible ledge B, you'll note that you are still not able to access the raised walkway due to a vertical ledge that bisects the horizontal ledge. However, not all hope is lost. Here we are going to exploit a quirk in McClane's auto-jump to leap past the vertical ledge while still sticking to the general area of the horizontal ledge. This is done by pointing the reticle so that McClane is never facing away from the ledge, but we use the movement stick to sort of lean out enough for the auto-jump to trigger. Do this correctly and McClane will seemingly cling to the vertical ledge as he jumps around it. Pretty cool, right?

Whew. Now that you've made it to the raised walkway -- and saved about a minute and a half from the intended path -- it's time to finish the level. Though we are supposed to make our way through the offices to walk up beside the sniper, we instead use a crouch-jump to land in the first window we come to, then shoot the sniper from there. You'll note that I holster my weapon and walk backwards as I fall from the window -- this is to ensure that McClane doesn't auto-jump into the air and kill himself. Instead, we fall from the window to one of those irregular objects below, which safely lets us continue on. Notice that I un-holster mid-air, too; by doing this we can be ready to move as soon as we touch down.

From here, the strategy is simply to find the best way to kill enemies. The route I take seems to work pretty well -- but you may find your own path. Regardless, once we have saved the officers, we make our way toward the section's exit.

CHAPTER 6.2

Pay attention during the loading screen here. Notice the image of the section we are entering? Well, take a good look, because we aren't going to be seeing ANY of that. Like 6.1, the developers intended us to take a particular path: we are supposed to attempt to cross a movie set, be forced to down a fake tree, cross that tree, shoot some enemies, deal with a hostage situation, and then exit the set to arrive at a back lot.

Only this time all we're going to do is turn around and walk back out the door into a section you'll recall from 6.1.

You see, back before you ended 6.1, you entered a door beside a fence that showed the hint of a trailer. In fact, had we crossed that fence in 6.1 we would have found that the back area is blocked with a building; however, that is NOT so in section 6.2. You see, if we cross the fence now, we actually arrive in the location the game deposits us once we've exited the above-mentioned movie set. The only difference is: we save about twenty-five seconds doing it! Cool!

The rest of the stage is simply enemy routing. Here you'll note that I pick up an assault rifle prior to killing all of the enemies. I wish I wouldn't have. I think it would be best to shoot all of the enemies using the handgun, then pick up assault rifles while the boss, Nitro, is appearing. That way during the animation of readying the weapon you can be making your way to him. Regardless of route: shooty-shooty, pardner.

7. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Seven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydB6xOV2AKc

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 7.1 

Way back in my guide for Chapter 3, I described the SEAT JUMP as my second favorite exploit in the game. Now, at one time, the major trick from the last chapter (Chapter 6), MASH JUMP, was my favorite; however, in practice that exploit just becomes infuriating. So, that means I still haven't explained my FAVORITE trick yet. Well, hold on to your butts, because it's time for INTRO CANCEL....

INTRO CANCEL
O, how I loathe the opening to Chapter 7. Since I began routing this game a year ago, this small 58 second section has been single-handedly the scene on which I spent the most effort. I have tried clipping through the walls; I have tried crouch jumping through the jail cell; I have tried grabbing guards as they pass; I have tried everything. Or at least I thought I had, until I one day, quite on accident, stumbled upon the incredibly complicated "glitch" I call INTRO CANCEL. 

How is it done? Simple: pause --> Restart Checkpoint --> Yes

There ya go! Since the checkpoints in the game are based on loading screens, I suppose the developers found that during this very trial and error section that players HATED sitting through that 58 second intro. So they ensured that players wouldn't have to, and we runners will reap the benefits of that decision forevermore.

Once you've done that, I suggest holding forward as you transition into the restart. Unlike a lot of games, DH:V doesn't reload the stage when you restart, but simply "resets" all of the components. This means that the game can more or less instantly move McClane back into his starting position. So if you want to get a head start, hold forward.

Here we're trying to acquire a few items and dodge the guards. Now, generally, guards won't see you if you have holstered your fists; though as you notice upon the first guard I approach, if you are standing directly in front of them, they can certainly see you. Nevertheless, the goal is to grab a pack of smokes, offer them to a prisoner, and take the burning cigarettes to a cell covered in some kind of flammable liquid. Once you've done that, a guard will come to put out the fire, allowing you to get into position to escape. And as you can see, I play the section just that way, with the only major difference being that once the guard outside the flame cell has seen me I "holster" my first so that he moves on. Then, once he's near the stairs down, I take him out. (Note that I use a "grab cancel" here to quickly move on. You achieve this by hitting "grab" again immediately after you, um, grab someone.)

You're probably wondering why I didn't high-tail it for the door. Well, the reason is that it wouldn't matter. You cannot leave this section until the guard who was guarding the exit (currently extinguishing that fire you made) returns. The good news, however, is that though the game expects you to wait in the cabinet and sneak out, all you really have to do is hop inside and back out again. You've played this game, you KNOW the AI isn't any more advanced than "if before me, shoot" -- all the guard needs is for you to have been flagged as "hidden" and you're golden. The rest of this section, as you see in the video, is easy. 

CHAPTER 7.2

This section has no major tricks, only optimizations in terms of movement and ladder leaping (landing on a ladder at the apex of your leap to cut down climb time). I don't use it in the video, but if you want to save about a second and a half you can use mash-jumping to clear the room filled with shelves at 2:30. As well, I switch to the assault rifle prior to entering the room near to the final ladder (3:00), that way I can use the assault rifle to take out the enemies. Note that I use crouch jump to both enter and exit this room. Otherwise, just keep running.

CHAPTER 7.3

Mostly movement tech in this section, too. Since I tend to run past enemies instead of fighting, I tend to need health by the end of the level, so upon entering the door switch room in the section's opening moments I grab the medkit for later use. By the way, to open the door you'll turn upwards the first, third, and fourth switches. The reason I switch to dual pistols at 4:10 is because I was a little low on ammo and you don't want to run out in the next scene. Once you've killed all of the men in the room after the fan shaft, you'll have to talk to the officer until he gives you a SWAT vest. (Side note: though I forgot to do it here, this is a great place to use your medkit.) Once he does, instead of climbing up, over, and into the automatically closing door, you can use the JAIL DOOR SKIP.

JAIL DOOR SKIP
As you see in the video, there's not much too it, though the trick can be a little difficult until you practice it. You see, the intended way to perform this section is to use the switch outside the door (which opens on end but closes the end closest to you) and then ascend the stairs to climb into a vent shaft and drop inside the gates. As you can see, we don't do that.

From there, runny runny, shooty shooty. Once you arrive on the second floor of the viewing deck (the floor with the vent shaft), you'll want to jump in and turn backwards before you fall. This puts you in line with the door so as to rescue the warden. Though I screw it up a little here, the basic idea is to shoot the prisoners, "use" the warden, then collect ammo while he gets up. Now you just wait.

CHAPTER 7.4

As you can see from the video, boss fights don't get much easier than this. Unfortunately, he seems to have exactly enough health to equal two full clips of your assault rifle + a single extra round. If I were to do it all over again I would switch to the pistol and deliver the final round that way -- I think it would be just a bit faster.

8. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Eight

https://youtu.be/WScJK-xDG4M

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 8.1 

So here's a pretty fun chapter with lots of room for improvement. This is mostly due to the fact that there are A. lots of enemies to deal with and B. a good amount of moderate to hard tricks. But 8.1 isn't so bad: you'll start the chapter NOT doing something we normally do - switching from "holstered" to "unholstered." Instead, you switch weapons first and then you unholster. The reason for this is because we will need the Uzi to get our hands on another weapon quickly, but if we begin running and THEN switch to the Uzi we will find ourselves pausing for the Uzi's animation.

Even then you'll notice I take a wide berth around the corner to meet the first set of enemies. An additional reason for this is to give us time to mow down as many enemies as possible, so as to both collect their ammo for later use and to keep our health a little higher (for the first time, health will become a major issue in this chapter).

Inside the room past the initial guards, I back up a little to give myself enough space to CROUCH-JUMP onto the windowsill. Maybe you'll have the dexterity to avoid doing this. Make your way to the door high above the bodies of your enemies. Before you exit the hallway, be sure to grab the grenades - we'll be using them in 3.2.

Regarding finishing this section out, the video should speak for itself - there is no reason to enter the room with the dock workers, either to fight the enemies inside or to speak to them. After that, be sure to kill the two sadistic enemies below you quickly - they are crack shots at the captured worker below, and it's mission over if they hit him. This also allows you to reload your weapon prior to opening the door to end the section.

CHAPTER 3.2

But it isn't the first section that caused such delays in the posting of my guides: it's this one. Oh boy, here we go.

This section begins with McClane's weapon already unholstered. Though you want to hold forward into the section, you don't want to aim up or down yet. No, wait until the level has loaded for that. Then get atop the control panel, being careful not to position yourself exactly on the dial (if you do, McClane will turn as it does, resulting in hilarity). It's obvious that I go prone here; less obvious is that I use the jump button to instantly stand, then push forward to auto-jump onto the shipment.

In the room with the caustic pool, instead of forming a bridge out of barrels we can just jump inside the container holding them. Well, CROUCH-JUMP actually, and though I don't do it in the video you can actually leap through the barrels to save a little time. Leaving the container is a little tricky - you can't simply jump out. You have to use a trick from a previous chapter, the movie studio. What you do is you position McClane so that his shoulder will rub against the vertical bar of the container's exit. This coupled with the auto-jump will sort of "phase" you through the bar enough to auto-jump to safety.

The stairwell has my first major goof of this run: when I back off of the walkway, McClane gets "stuck" on the light over the door behind me. I decided to let it slide.

Be sure to grab the medkit to your left as you kill the enemy behind the barrels.

In the next stairwell, make sure to grab the body armor next to the enemy on the bottom floor. On the stairs, you'll notice that I use the medkit in front of the door. This (as we saw in Chapter 2) opens the door for us; it's also probably needed by this point.

The conveyor belt section is pretty simple - haul butt right through the saws, then exit via the platform. Note that I turn around when leaving the conveyor belt room. This is so that I can easily kill the two enemies under the stairs without taking too much damage. As I said, we have to watch our health in this one... mostly because we're going to explore a grenade in our own faces soon....

But before that: the large, multi-level conveyor belt room has two items you're going to want, a medkit and gloves. Make sure to grab them - and that you kill every enemy you can.

Through the sliding door, then the next. Note that I reload during the first sliding door and switch weapons during the next. This is so we can be one step closer to our grenades. Cuz... it's time for them.

MIND THE GAP
Alright, so you want to know what took this guide so long to be written? This room. You'll recall the movie studio, section one, where we use something I call "edge jumping" to access the breezeway earlier than intended. Well, that is one way to handle the room with the box in the middle of an empty pool. But you'll also recall that I said it was frame perfect - and even that I believe might be RNG based. So, though the movie studio's edge jump was twenty seconds in, this edge jump is almost two MINUTES in. That's a whole lot of time spent on a trick that, in my experience, works about 1 out of every ten tries. So though it is the maximum efficiency strait, instead I use...

GRENADE JUMP
Hey, who's ever heard of using grenades in FPS's to get more air? Well, me too - and that was precisely the reason I was disappointed when playing this game to find that McClane doesn't seem to get any air at all from grenades. That is... unless you are fully prone and facing the grenade. Then it works just fine.

Well... sort of "just fine." You might have to fiddle with it. In general, you want your butt facing your desired end point. Also, the distance between you and the grenade changes your arc - at the edge of the grenade's force, you'll fly horizontally, but climb on top of it more and more, and your arc will move upwards.

You get it. Do try to remember the proper direction to select the assault rifle, however, as you see in the video above is my second major goof. Regardless, put a full clip into the tank holding the hostage worker, being sure to move your aim to avoid shooting the same spot. A full round will allow you to enter the next room and not worry about getting a mission fail from the hostage's death.

The rest, well, it's health management. Don't set yourself on fire; don't get shot; don't get frozen by the ruptured tanks.

CHAPTER 8.3

Like the first section, here's another super short one - though a little bit longer than the first. It's pretty basic, though I distinctly recall getting past the rocket launcher man without him firing a shot in the past (or did I just dream it?) Anyway, I don't pull that off here, and instead go with a safe strat. I try to make up for it regarding the hostages coming up - whereas usually I stop and shoot the crowbar holding the chute closed, this time I gunned it, shooting as I went. It worked. It doesn't kill the enemies, but that's okay - you just need the hostages to not die.

Make your way to the crane and large shipping crate. While you are supposed to use the freed hostages to lift the crate when you're on top it, we're going to instead using nearly the same trick from 8.1 - jump atop the control panel, go prone, USE the panel, then use the jump button to stand while you push forward to auto-jump atop the crane. After that, just quickly turn and auto-jump atop the container. We're almost there.

Now, here's another problem section for me. If the edge jump section from earlier ¤might¤ be RNG based, I know the trick I DIDN'T use here is. Instead of the strat I use here, you can instead hop down to the bottom floor and use the weapon fire of the enemies inside the building to kill the enemies outside of it - or rather, you shoot one at the same time they shoot the other (like the Modern Warfare mission). This bypasses the outside enemy's "you fired a bullet" detection. It's also really effin hard to do.

So instead - safety strats. We make our way into the top of one of the containers, then down through the others to arrive outside via another exit. From there, do what I do: run and jump, and once you're in earshot (atop the container just prior to your leap into the truck), holster your weapon and walk.

Yay!

9. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Nine

https://youtu.be/_MJmuN7B_tg

[text forthcoming]

Chapter 11: New potential time skip?

I was just playing the game normally to see how fast I can get but ended up being blown away to the roof. If anyone is still active around, I would like someone to help me replicate this.

https://www.twitch.tv/foxy___64/clip/HeadstrongCrowdedHawkBuddhaBar-jNK8sNXZaytmmtzF

![](/static/blob/3ek99k9n.png)
I was standing in this exact spot, I don't rember if I hit jump or not. but after a few seconds of the explosion I was sent flying. I landed on the roof and tried to get down, but ended up auto jumping to my death. Another crazy thing to note is, I took no damage from the explosion.


Name	Author
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 1. Townsend Museum	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 2. Hollywood Boulevard	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 3. Chinese Cinema	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 4. LA Subway	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 5. Century City Police Department	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 6. Hollywood Film Studio	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 7. Sierra Correctional Facility	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 8. Cesar Tuna Factory	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : 9. Fernandez Warehouse	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : x10. Nakatomi Plaza	SighAhNide 7 years ago
(New Strat/Route Guide) : x11. Holmes Observatory	SighAhNide 7 years ago
1. Strats and Exploits: Chapter One	hinducow 9 years ago
2. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Two	hinducow 9 years ago
3. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Three	hinducow 9 years ago
4. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Four	hinducow 9 years ago
5. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Five	hinducow 9 years ago
6. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Six	hinducow 9 years ago
7. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Seven	hinducow 9 years ago
8. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Eight	hinducow 9 years ago
9. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Nine	hinducow 9 years ago
Chapter 11: New potential time skip?	Foxy_64 1 year ago
x10. Strats and Exploits: Chapter Ten	hinducow 9 years ago