I was planning to submit a run of this game in the future and I just took a look at MeridianPrime's recent run. I noticed that he starts the game with the Apache and all of the unlockable weapons from the beginning. You are not supposed to have these until the end of the game. Using endgame weapons and armor makes the earlier levels incredibly broken and easy. I think this run should be re-categorized as New Game+.

Ok, so I managed to get a better time than my last run. The new time is..... 48:32. Only 20 seconds faster than the last run, and once again, there are stupid mistakes :|

However, it's still a good showcase of the new route. Here is the new video:

Spots that went bad:

• Follow That Traitor: I didn't have four stars by the time the snitch got to the garage, so I had to waste time getting four stars and waiting for a swat van to spawn.
• Dementia To Go: My car got blown up thanks to GTA2 physics and so I had to waste a lot of time getting a new one.
• Big Bank Job: Nothing specific, just sloppy play on this one.
• Armored Car Clash: I blew up the cars fast enough, but the second car didn't stay in the Zaibatsu area so I spawned at the wrong hospital.
• Final Job: The stupidest moment of the run. I get hit by the Loony boss's flamethrower and die right in front of the exit after completing the mission. I have to waste about 30 seconds getting back to the exit.

And now for the requisite outtake. I had a run that was going really well until ... this happened:

:|

I had some runs go poorly today, so instead I decided to do some testing. I decided to test out vehicle speeds for the cars in the Downtown Area. I did this by driving in a straight line on a long stretch of road and timing from dead stop to reaching the end. I didn't test all the vehicles, just the most common ones and all the sports cars. Here are the times I came up with in order from fastest to slowest:

11.10 - Cop Car 11.22 - B-Type 11.31 - Z-Car 12.07 - Michelli Roadster 12.17 - A-Type 12.19 - Wellard 12.30 - Beamer 12.79 - Shark 12.91 - Yakuza Car 13.47 - Medicar 16.81 - Aniston BD4 18.00 - Romero 18.40 - Minx 19.71 - Taxi 20.25 - U-Jerk Truck 20.87 - Van 22.32 - Schmidt 23.16 - Bank Van 24.04 - Truck Cab

Note that the cars from Michelli Roadster to the Beamer are all about the same speed with only a few milliseconds between them. The cop car, B-Type and Z-Car are by far the top tier, finishing a full second in front of the others.

The next thing I tested was to see if getting out of your car to switch to a faster car is faster than just continuing with the car you have. I tested this by placing a B-Type about a car length away from the starting point and started timing from the moment I press the button to exit the first car. My final time was 14.65. If you compare this to the normal time of the B-Type, it took 3.43 seconds to switch cars. Compared to the other sports cars, such as the Shark, it still finished two seconds faster without switching cars.

My conclusion from this is that if you already have a decently fast car, it's probably not worth it to switch to a slightly faster one. However, it may be worth it if you have an average speed or a slow car.

I had a run that was a minute ahead of my PB and it ended at Armored Car Clash. I just don't know the secret to getting the cars to stay put. When I do that one, I just try to ram the car into other cars and try to get it stuck. What's your guys secret?

In the meantime, I have a few interesting outtakes from my attempts. Some of the stranger ways my runs have ended haha. :D

In my route, I was thinking about teleporting with the Wang Car on the first Redneck red phone mission since it puts you in the Scientist area immediately. By the way, that prison trick is super tough. When I was trying it I got it in one 1 out of 20 attempts lol. You make it look so easy.

Also, I watched your run of this district. When I was doing attempts, I had the time pegged at around 1h20m, and somehow you managed to shave off 20 minutes o_o. And that car grab at round 10:30 was slick. I like to imagine you jumped in through the sunroof while drop kicking the driver out of the door hahaha.

Yeah, the run looks really sloppy to me compared to my other attempts. I honestly have no clue how this ended up being my fastest time. Good car spawns I guess.

Anyway, I came up with a new route which I think would be faster. Here's the list.

1. Radio Za-Za: Get the Molotovs, shoot some Zaibatsu during and immediately after the mission until you have yellow Yakuza respect.

2. Pizza Cake: Use molotovs on the van. The end of this mission puts you near the green Yakuza phones.

3. Bank Robbery: After the mission, grab any car and run over peds near the yellow phones.

4. Get Ramma Rei: Try and grab a police car at the end of the mission, you'll need the wanted star anyway. (I usually have police on me by the end of this one.)

5. Follow that Traitor: Shoot police to get a four star wanted level while waiting for the traitor. Wait for the traitor on the stairs near the garage. After the traitor goes in, grab a police car from one of the cops you killed. Wait for a swat van to appear before completing the mission.

6. SWAT Van Swipe: Grab the swat van that hopefully appeared at the end of the last mission and drive it to the phone.

7. Stop The Tank

8. Get Zitzaki: Lure a police car to the garage if you can so you can grab it when the mission ends.

9. Happy Gas Smash: The end of this mission will put you in the Loonies area.

10. Destroy J-Lab: Death warp at the end of the mission with molotovs.

11. Dementia To Go

12. Taxi Drivers Must Die: Lure a police car at the end of the mission so you can grab it when the mission ends. Alternatively, you can death warp with molotovs and spawn in an area near a parked Wellard.

13. Who's Mad: Grab a Z car at the end.

14. Gang War a Go-Go: Shoot Loonies at the beginning of this one until you have at least yellow Zaibatsu respect.

15. Lick Those Loonies

16. Big Bank Job

17. Armored Car Clash: Death warp on the second car, hopefully you spawn at the Zaibatsu hospital near the green phone and parked car.

18. Cop Car Crush

19. Yutes Must Die

20. Bank Van Theft: Grab the invulnerability

21. Wheeler Dealing: The end of this mission will put you right near the exit

22. Final Job: If they don't spawn right away, drive around to the side with the exit and go into the street.

I like this route for three reasons:

1. It takes care of all the luck stuff at the beginning (Swat van, ambulance, ice cream truck)
2. There's only one moment where you have to waste a lot of time shooting gang members (during Gang War a Go-Go)
3. There's no wasting time getting a wanted level for the swat van since you do it while waiting for the snitch.

I did a run with this route yesterday... but it came out to around 49:02 thanks to some dumb errors. FML.. haha

Ok, the reason I never uploaded is because for the past week I've been having computer trouble and also I've been trying to improve my run on my laptop. Honestly, this run kind of sucks. So many small mistakes here and there. The only reason it's my best time is because I got absurd luck with the ice cream truck and the swat van. I've had runs with flawless execution but turned out slower for some reason. Anyway, here's the run.

By the way, the route I use here is outdated. I have a newer route that I think is a little faster. I may post it later.

After many failed attempts, I got a 48:52 with a mediocre run. Think I'm going to take a break with Downtown for a while lol. I'm going to upload the run as soon as I get it encoded. It may not be the fastest but at least it's one for the leaderboard.

I had a solid 48-minute run going and then got busted in an extremely stupid way on the last mission. FFFUUUU!!!

Good job on the 43 minute run. Can't wait to see your final run when you're finally satisfied.

Did some attempts last night with my new route. I got close but died on the second to last job. The final time would have been around 49-50 minutes. I also made some really stupid mistakes where I took a wrong turn and got semi-lost. Getting better. :)

I just watched your video. It looks like you did a lot of things I didn't think of haha. I also want to rework my Zaibatsu route after watching yours.

By the way, I was curious, so I crunched the numbers. It turns out you spent a total of 34m36s on missions while not shooting gang members, which leaves 11m29s in between missions or shooting gang members. As for my run, I spent a total of 41m35s doing missions with 12m25s between missions or shooting gang members. You definitely crushed me on mission time lol. However, it looks like the routes are relatively the same with less than a minute difference barring mistakes/traffic.

Do you have a video of your 45:59 run? Reason I ask is because I was doing attempts with my route, and after a decent run I got around 54 minutes.. I mean, I figured my route may be slower, but I didn't think it would be 10 minutes slower..... I don't know if it's the route or just me sucking haha. I wanna see your record vid so I can see what kind of black magic you're using.

Also, I can complete both Yakuza and Loonies missions in about 27 minutes. 26 if I get a really good run. I guess the Zaibatsu jobs take about half an hour lol.

I may start streaming attempts if I can get my PC power supply replaced. Otherwise, it keeps crapping out on me when I try to stream.

I decided to try and go for this one as well, I came up with my own route, which I'll post here. I go by phone positions rather than mission names :P

1. Loonies - Green Top

• Shoot Zaibatsu at the end of this mission. You'll want at least yellow respect for Yakuza at this point. Pick up the molotovs for the next mission.

2. Loonies - Green Bottom

• The end of this mission will put you right next to the green Yakuza phones.

3. Yakuza - Green Left
4. Yakuza - Green Right
5. Yakuza - Yellow Right

• Run over guys just before starting this mission to draw out an ambulance.

6. Yakuza - Yellow Extra

• Make sure you have yellow respect for the Loones at the end of this one (you should have it, but just in case.)

7. Loonies - Yellow Right
8. Yakuza - Yellow Left
9. Loonies - Yellow Left

• Death warp at the end of this mission with molotovs. Run down the street eastward a bit so you spawn at the hospital near the Loonies area.

10. Loonies - Yellow Extra
11. Loonies - Red One

• The first taxi is in the Zaibatsu area. Kill some Zaibatsu until your Yakuza respect is flashing. (You should have high respect already so you don't have to shoot much.)
• After the mission ends, get a 4 star wanted level while headed to the red Yakuza phones by running over peds and police. Take the back way into the red phone area using the catwalk over the water. DO NOT run over any Yakuza PERIOD or else you'll lose red respect.

12. Yakuza - Red One

• Since you have red respect, the Yakuza will help you deal with the police.

13. Yakuza - Red Two
14. Loonies - Red Two

• Shoot Loonies at the beginning of this mission. Get at least yellow respect for Zaibatsu.
• The end of this mission will end in the Zaibatsu area. The rest of the run is just completing all the Zaibatsu missions in a convenient order.

15. Zaibatsu - Green Top
16. Zaibatsu - Yellow Left
17. Zaibatsu - Yellow Extra
18. Zaibatsu - Yellow Right
19. Zaibatsu - Red One
20. Zaibatsu - Red Two
21. Zaibatsu - Green Bottom

• This mission ends right at the exit.

With this route, you basically do the Loonies and Yakuza missions at the same time, then do the Zaibatsu missions last. I don't know if it's faster or slower. I did some attempts but couldn't get a good run done. The Z missions are a pain in the ass haha.

Yeah, I just tried that skip for the prison. Took me about 20 tries lol. You're right, it's a really hard trick. Also, if you swap cars too many times before the mission, the car disappears. I think I'm going to forgo it during my attempts for now. At least until I get better at it haha.

As for the gang respect, when I came up with my route I took two things into consideration.

1. Where the mission ended and what phone it was near.
2. What your respect level would be.

With the route I'm using, there are only one or two times you will have to waste time killing gang members, and when you do, they are either on the route or close by when the mission ends.

Taking the Z car at the beginning is perfect. I can't believe I didn't think of it... lol

Hey, I got your message haha.

I recently started putting in attempts for Residential All Missions. Here is the route I was using.

1. Redneck - Green Top
2. Redneck - Yellow bottom
   • Death warp at end of mission
3. Scientist - Green Right
4. Scientist - Green Left
5. Scientist - Yellow Bottom
6. Scientist - Yellow Extra
7. Scientist - Yellow Top
8. Redneck - Yellow Extra
9. Redneck - Green Bottom
10. Redneck - Yellow Top
    • Kill Rednecks during trailer segment
11. Zaibatsu - Green Top
12. Zaibatsu - Yellow Left
13. Zaibatsu - Yellow Extra
14. Zaibatsu - Green Bottom
15. Scientist - Red One
16. Scientist - Red Two
    • May have to kill rednecks
17. Zaibatsu - Yellow Right
18. Zaibatsu - Red One
19. Zaibatsu - Red Two
20. Redneck - Red One
21. Redneck - Red Two

Leaving a car at the prison is a novel idea. Thank God for that skip because that mission is a pain.