Hey guys!
First, let me express how happy I am to see that anyone actually cares about this game. It was my favorite PS3 games, and I still have it along with my old PS3 in a box somewhere.
But recently I got my Steam Deck, and one of the very first thing I did was to setup RPCS3 with only a single game - Hard Corps Uprising.
It works REALLY well. There are very few moments where it lags a bit (the last time I played, on my PS3, was like 6 years ago, so many those laggy moments were also present then, IDK), but absolutely nothing remarkable even for someone as extremely picky as myself regarding FPS, stability, and latency.
I have never attempted ANY speedrun in my 25+ years of gaming, as it never was a concept that interested me. Well, until now, but only for this specific game for some reason... The fact that it is SO obscure (in large part simply because they didn't add the name "Contra" to its title ; which is insane when you think about it!!!), but also SO good! But then I realized that there were many moves/abilities that I basically never used, and are designed for speedrunning! I suck at those moves ATM, but I am willing to try them and get better, and attempt full runs using them. Who knows, maybe I could be good at it and able to submit runs here?
So anyway, the question remains, is it acceptable to emulate the game? If so, are there guidelines? I understand that the speedrunning community around this game is extremely small, but if anyone have any sort of general advice about speedrunning, regarding acceptable setups, or any other useful comment, please do not hesitate to let me and anyone else who will stumble to this thread know!
From a few YouTubers that I occasionally follow, it seems to me that each speedrunning communities around a particular game actually set their own specific rules on what is acceptable and what isn't, but I cannot seem to find you guys' rules/guidelines anywhere here (if they exist).
Finally, if emulation isn't allowed, do you guys know whether this game is available through either Sony or Xbox Cloud gaming services? I did check, but came out empty :( It is sold online there : https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/games/store/hard-corps-uprising/c30z07t9q9ct But it seems that I really need an Xbox to play it (I thought that we could now play basically everything they ever had on Live Arcade through their current cloud gaming service, but it does not seem to be the case). If anyone know of an official way to play the game without a physical console plugged to a TV, please let me know!
Of course, I really believe that a community around such a niche title would benefit A LOT by allowing members to play it using the most accessible method by far right now (emulation), as long as it is fair and, IDK, verified to be a legitimate way to play it and to submit runs (as a total newb, I must confess that wouldn't know how one would judge such criteria, but if all RPCS3's settings are "standardized", I don't see how playing it that way would give any unacceptable advantage or disadvantage...).
If it can be useful to anyone, I could write a little guide for people not used to RPCS3 in general, about the best settings to be able to run HC:U on basically any PC, and also one specific to the Steam Deck if anyone is interested. From there, I imagine that it would be easy to decide what exact setting people should have for submitting a run. Let me know!
Anyway; please let me know what are your thoughts if you have a moment. Thank you so much for your time!
Unholy.
