It's very clear that the primary challenge that the developers of Agent Under Fire wanted the player to partake in was obtaining high scores. You need high scores to unlock single and multiplayer rewards and your highest scores are saved and displayed under each mission. Naturally, the beginnings of AUF's competitive scene revolved around getting the highest scores, not the fastest completion times. For this reason, the High Score category has been added to the Individual Level page. Along with being a lot of fun this category will also perhaps be the most accessible one for players of all skill levels since speed and advanced tech comes far secondary to simply scoring high.
Enjoy!
Thanks to Action Replay Wizard, Josh_7774, we have a code that completely removes the white damage flash from on-foot missions. This graphical effect was controversial even during development but somehow made it into the final game despite its strobe-like effect when being shot by multiple enemies.
You will find the code for Dolphin and consoles on the Resources page in the Quality of Life AR Codes download. Use of the this code in speedruns is not only allowed but encouraged so that all viewers can enjoy the game without eye fatigue and headaches.
Thanks to user Josh_7774, we now have some Action Replay codes that are very helpful for speedrunners. The first is a reduction in the brightness of the screen flash that happens when Bond is damaged and the second is an infinite lives code which is great for those practicing on console without access to savestates. The reduced flash code is allowed in all submitted speedruns, the infinite lives code is allowed for the On Foot Rush category only.
You can find these codes, for both Dolphin and console players, on the Resources page: https://www.speedrun.com/auf/resources
Because there are so many ways to run this game (four different consoles and several unofficial ways, all with varying load times) and because accessibility and fairness should be top priority, it's been decided that full-game runs in the top 3 range will have their real-time adjusted so that the run will be on-par with one performed on a Wii with an official game disc (the fastest official method of beating the game), removing any load time advantage/disadvantage from the run. This allows players on all consoles and emulators and in any region to submit runs and compete on even ground and gives full top competition accessibility to all.
The timing adjustment works like this: The difference between the real time and IGT of the run will be determined, for example it might be 5 minutes. That time will then be compared to 5 minutes and 39 seconds (the difference in the real and IGT of a run on black Wii with official disc with no pauses/deaths/wasted real time in menuing, using latest strats). The difference between those times (39 seconds in this example) will then be added onto the real time of the submitted run. If the run has slower loads than a run on black Wii with disc, then the difference will be subtracted from the real time instead. Deaths/pauses/menuing errors of a second or more will be removed from the calculation so that they remain a negative effect on the final time. A mod will make this adjustment to your time before verifying your run.
The immediate effect this has on the leaderboard is that JCement's run is now effectively 22 seconds faster than it was, now showing the actual gameplay difference between 1st and 2nd place.
It's very clear that the primary challenge that the developers of Agent Under Fire wanted the player to partake in was obtaining high scores. You need high scores to unlock single and multiplayer rewards and your highest scores are saved and displayed under each mission. Naturally, the beginnings of
