Vidmaster Tips & Tricks: Acme Station

Ac'mé, n. Highest point, point of perfection. [Gk, = point]

Acme Station the King of levels. Originally thought impossible to vid. The creator, Greg Kirkpatrick, had this to say about vidding this level:

"viding acme? Sorta - It's probably the hardest one to straight vid, because you have no room to move around."

But like other hard levels before it Acme Station eventually fell to the Few.

Vidding this level requires a combination of strategy, timing, quick thinking, and perseverance. In addition, an essential element is the ability to berserk aliens.

Aaron Bergman <abergman@pantheon.yale.edu> who has completed Acme Station twice provides some useful tips to vidding this level. Aaron writes:

(1) When you start out the level, you will begin in any number of positions relative to the terminal. Each time you die, you will return to that position. I found it much easier to do the level when starting from one of the positions farther from the terminal, ie closer to the direction you are going. This means the the grenade guy has less of a chance to travel up the corridor making (2) easier. Try and get a running punch on the guy as you go by.

(2) This step is the thing that makes this level possible to vid. You have to make the first grenade guy fight all the Pfhor in the hallway. In order to do this, you have to wait in the hallway with the Pfhor until the the grenade guy launches his grenade. When he does so, leave via the route to the Flechette letting the grenades hit the Pfhor and make them angry. I've found that when you get a good running punch on the grenade guy, the Pfhor are farther away giving you more time. I'm not sure why this is, but I pass it along. The running punch is a good idea anyways as the more grenade guys the Pfhor kill, the better.

(3) Getting the flechette is an exercise in timing. There are two overall techniques in terms of getting to it. Jim Mitchell, in his film, preferred to hit the switch and back out of the way, waiting for an opening. I prefer to hit the switch and run along the right wall to the flechette. Once in the back corner, wait a fraction of the second. This both ensures that you do get the flechette as it does sometime take a moment to appear, and it makes the grenade guy move to the right side of the corridor. Once you get the flechette, gather all the ammo and leave along the other side of the corridor. If you have everything timed correctly, all the grenades will be travelling on the other side so you will avoid getting hit. This technique can actually allow you to get the flechette without any loss of energy, but odds are you'll end up with around 50% afterwards.

(4) Now, you head back the way you came hoping that no Pfhor have followed you. Head towards your starting position. There, you will find one or two grenade guys. One is infinitely better than two. The ideal scenario is one grenade guy and two following you. Kill the one you find with two rounds of the flechette. Then, wake up the Pfhor in the 2X recharger area. With a few well placed pistol shots and some fancy footwork, you need to make the group of Pfhor following you and the ones in the 2X recharger room fight the grenade guys. With any luck, the Pfhor will be able to kill one of them and severely weaken the other.

(5) Once the Pfhor are fighting each other, you want to get out of there and let them go about their business. The best place to do this is through the first teleporter. Go in there, circle a few times, breaking the panel in the process and leaving. Hopefully, you should be able to get 2X recharge and kill the last grenade guy with a single flechette round. If one flechette round doesn't do it, try a few pistol shots before using the second round of the flechette. Ideally, you want to have 6 rounds of the flechette (including the one loaded) left before you enter the second half of the level. It can be done with less, but you want to make this as easy as possible.

(6) Kill the two grenade guys at the end of the corridor leading to the second half. This should take 3 or 4 rounds of the flechette.

(7) Get the grenade guy to fight the blue fighters. This can be done by pausing in the intersection of the three corridors waiting for a grenade to come at you. When it does, run back the way you came and let it hit the blue fighters. Once they're done with it, kill the grenade guy with your remaining flechette rounds. With any luck, you'll have some left. From here on, you're home free.

In the map below the main Berserker points are labelled A, B, and C. A and B are essential. The aliens at point C can be taken out by the player but this wastes time. And time is limited. ;-)

The list of the Few. Click the names to download their films.

Jim Mitchell the first person to Vid this level.
Jimmy Mitchell the second person to Vid this level, now has five films of this level.
Aaron Bergman the third person to Vid this level, now has two films of this level.
Michio Hashimoto the fourth person to Vid this level, has two films of this level.
Randall Shaw the fifth person to Vid this level, has two films of this level. You can get the second film here.
Justin Kitt the sixth person to Vid this level, his pack contains two films of this level.
Daniel Gentry the seventh person to Vid this level, his pack contains two Acme films. Note the different approach taken in these films. Daniel's third film of this level is a no hits fists only wonder.
Matthew Grieco the eighth person to Vid this level. You can grab a fist only film of this level from Matt here.
John Sumner the ninth person to Vid this level.
Ben Irwin the tenth person to Vid this level.
Jeffrey (Sidoh) Lindquist is the eleventh person to Vid this level.

Who will be #12?