This is actually my second run, but since the first run couldn't be submitted right away, I decided to redo it, since the first run had some small mistakes in the routes, and also because I was still regaining my skill in Red Faction throughout the first run. In this run I generally make better use of the weapons I have, and the routes have been much more optimised. At least, whenever the otherwise very linear game allows such a thing.

Notes on the video:
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- Loading screens take up a frame of movement, so when I cut out the loading screens, the video looks like it skips a frame.

- Sometimes you may hear a short blip of a message popping up, and you might even see a message box popping up for one frame. This is because someone starts talking to you (mostly Hendrix) right after a loading screen. However, most of my segments start after a loading screen, and the message pops up for the one frame it takes RF to jump to the menu after a loading screen.

- Quite regularly, a message from Hendrix or anyone else is cut off. This is because a new map is loaded at that point.

- Some segments start with a few frames of red, or a weapon which is partially through the loading animation. This is caused by being hit or reloading in the previous attempt of that segment. I've tried to avoid this as much as possible, but it's hard to keep on caring about these things, if I'm feeling frustrated by the many failed attempts. I hope you can live with it.

Some general notes on Red Faction:
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- Cutscenes can't be skipped, much to my annoyance. The script of most cutscenes is pretty cheesy and gets annoying after watching it over and over.

- Red Faction has some funky issues with faster machines. For instance, if I played the game normally, the submarine after the geothermal plant would always explode if I tried to drop it into the water. Also, any first contact with water literally made me stop moving until I had sunk down enough into the water. Luckily, the sub stopped exploding once I started recording with Fraps. The water stopping any movement was less of a blessing, since I could not fall down from large heights into a small puddle of water without taking any damage anymore, while recording with Fraps.

I've also read about people with fast PC's (think P4 3200 or faster) who've had problems with Red Faction causing some sort of lag in multi-player games, confirming suspicions about Red Faction not handling faster PC's well.

- The results of using the Geo-mod during the run were generally fairly random. Usually, I'd have about 9 out of 10 attempts fail, if I tried to make a tunnel. I considered an attempt failed when I could not climb the tunnel, or if it took a long time to climb a tunnel.

- If you're going up any kind of slope, jumping is faster than normal running. The steeper the inclination, the more noticable the effect is.

Actual notes on the run:
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I don't pick up a gun at first, because it's not really necessary.

Putting the silencer on the gun has no real point (neither here, nor anywhere during my run), I'm just putting it on and taking it off for fun.

At the docking bay (5:30 - 5:45), I use the maintenance tunnels to bypass the elevator, this saves about 4 seconds.

During the fight with the combot (7:33), I first strafe to the right so the first rocket it fires blows a hole in the wall behind me. This later on saves me the time to wait for the door to open. In dealing with the guard in the room where the switch is to open the door to the next area, I use the alternate fire of the shotgun, whereas the primary fire would have been faster.

Using the small tunnel at 8:33 in stead of waiting for the elevator saves a lot of time. You can actually hear the elevator falling (which is when you I was entering the next room on my first run) at 8:49.

The ventilation system leading to the geothermal plant has some nice jumps in it (9:43 - 10:41). I fail to kill the sniper on the rock crusher, but it is of no consequence for the time, nor my health.

In the geothermal plant in the water control room (11:41), I could have jumped on the console to avoid fall damage. Doing that sometimes caused me to miss the button, however, so I just jump next to it, as health is pretty much in surplus here.

At 12:21, I shoot the outgoing pump. Despite Hendrix' saying so, you only need to destroy this pump, and not both. Just destroying the ingoing pump is not sufficient.

And in the control room (12:31), I avoid taking fall damage when falling down by landing on the sloped part of the upstanding edge on the ramp down. You'll also see me acting a bit frantic at the button I need to push. This is because normally (as in: in every other attempt) the tech cuts short his first sentence, to continue with his story. This time, however, he does not do that, and I feared that he'd be ruining my attempt by taking longer than usual. Hence my frantic behaviour. Luckily, he just skips a sentence to go straight to the button pushing, and doesn't ruin my attempt.

At the administration, I first go about stealthily and take the higher, longer route to avoid being shot at by three guards with assault rifles. So I use stealth to avoid losing too much health. This is less of a concern from 15:41, so I discard stealth from there on.

In the area after the administration (17:44 - 19:02, I used grenades to create a tunnel to bypass a door in my first run. But as it turns out, going the long way around is actually a few seconds faster, and a lot less random.

I also luck out here at 18:31, because the elevator to the control room is already coming down, whereas I normally have to call down the elevator myself and wait for it to get down to ground level.

At 19:59, I enter another checkpoint. In retrospect, I make one of the few mistakes in this run. I take out the ceiling guns first, then the guards and only then do I use a grenade to create an entrance to the guard room. What I probably should have done, is to use the grenade first, enter the guard room, take care of the guards, and then use the switches to disable the ceiling turrets.

In the area where I have to dispose of some guards while in a fighter (21:54 - 22:19), I luck out again. In every other attempt, I had to fly around, waiting for the final guard to spawn, since I can't get out of the fighter before I kill him. In this attempt, he has miraculously already spawned, saving me nearly 10 seconds.

During the fight with the Suppression Combot at 22:42, I go out of my way quite a bit to restock my ammo. Most notable in this respect is the rocket ammo, since I'll need that to do some serious shortcut creation later on. The assault rifle ammo is much needed as well.

Avoiding fall damage by grabbing hold of a ladder works not only in Halflife, but in Red Faction as well, as you may notice at 25:11. Since the change in outfit (and consequential loss of ammo) is not mandatory in the medical facility (as it was at the administration), I skip it, and safe my ammo and armor. This is also the only segment I actually redid (from 25:08 to 28:06), as I was watching the video and suddenly noticed that I actually had taken quite a detour (force of habit kind of thing). Not taking the detour in this new segment saves 10 seconds. I end up with more health and ammo at the end of this segment, so there is a discrepancy, but I'm sure it will check out, as the both counts are higher than before.

Some wonderful opportunities for short cuts in the area after the medical facility. Starting with jumping the first chasm at 28:15 with the aid of a Geo-mod created footstep in the middle. In the next area I can skip some boring swimming and about 20 seconds by creating my own tunnel. I backtrack a little and kill a guard at 28:39 to avoid taking too much damage while climbing the tunnel and for the health pick up. In the area after that I skip some tunnels by simply dropping down into the pit, reducing the fall damage by falling on the sloping surface. At 29:26 I get lucky once more, as I don't take any fall damage when falling into the water, whereas in most other attempts I did take fall damage. Good thing too, though, as I don't have much health at this point, and this fall would have taken my health below 10, had I taken fall damage.

In the following bit to secret lab, from 30:10 and onwards, I skip taking the jeep, as it royally sucks in such a bumpy and confined area. This saves about 20 seconds.

At 31:35, I save a lot of time, simply by tunneling up to the other side of the bridge, in stead of going swimming. I do take rather long to finish the last guard, though, which maybe costs me a second, since I don't jump up that slope.

After defeating the big worm at 32:50, I take the lower route to the secret lab to restock my rocket launcher ammo.

At 35:06, I enter Capek's personal lab. I fail to kill one guard who would have dropped me a medkit, and take a bit too long killing the one with the assault rifle. However, I take care of Capek in record time (usually, it took me about a clip extra to get rid of him), so the overall time was very good.

At 38:20 you'll notice I'm not very fast in dispatching those guards. This is because the Jeep is practically invulnerable to their damage, and shooting from the Jeep isn't very interesting for me. So I try to make a tune with the machinegun. I doubt it's actually recognisable, so bonus points for you if you manage to tell which song it is.

Time for some massive tunneling after the fight with Capek. At 39:28, I tunnel up to a cable cart in stead of going the long way around. When I first tested this route, it was about 30 seconds faster, but a lot of time can be saved by climbing up the tunnel faster. The difference between a good run and a very good run could usually easily amount to 10 seconds. In the final run, I even managed some consecutive jumps, which brought the time down considerably.

At 42:09 I enter the top part of the communications center. This is the first of the problem areas. It's got a lot of enemies, and getting out relatively unscathed took many tries. Some planning is also involved, as the medkits are becoming more and more scarce from this point on, so I need to have a certain amount of health if I want to make it through the next area. This goes on all the way to the end of the space station. After sending the distress call, I fall to the lower floor and pick up some health. Another advantage of doing this is that the door to the air lock is opened for me, rather than that I have to open it myself. Also the door of the air lock closes sooner, saving me a wait of 2 to 3 seconds before the door behind me closes.

At 43:55 I wait in the same room for the tram to arrive. Also, this cues two mercs to enter the room I'm in, who then nicely line themselves up for me to dispatch them quickly and without taking damage. I proceed to the station just in time for the tram doors to open. The following is a boring tram ride to the missile launch facility.

The missile launch facility is another problem area, and especially the mercs I encounter at 46:41 are a nuisance. Three heavy machine guns can kill you pretty fast. Naturally, I barely get grazed in this attempt. I pick up extra health and armor at 46:51 in preparation for the shuttle bay conveyor belt and subsequently, the space station.

In the fights from 47:19 to 47:37 I try to get hit as little as possible, to maintain my health. I succeed admirably and get to show of some precision rifle action. Rapid clicking is a great stress relieve.

At 50:32 I step on the conveyor belt. I haven't been hit much once I get off the conveyor belt. At 50:48 I try to kill the merc with the precision rifle, because I don't want to be hit by him, as one shot from a precision rifle is minus 12/13 health/armor. He hides behind the other merc (who is still shooting a miner), but I'm not willing to kill them both, as that would spawn three mercs in the room I'm currently in, so I just hope I don't get hit and ignore him.

I only get hit twice in the space station, allowing me to leave it with an unprecedented 35/29 health/armor. The mercenary I shoot at 52:23 is inexplicably staring in the other direction, whereas he would normally be camping out in the reactor room.

After crashing back down to Mars, I pick up a special medkit which restores my health to full. I drop down into a pond at 53:37 to avoid fall damage. Apparently this confuses Hendrix a great deal (I pass the trigger for his next story on my way down), as he starts messing up his stories. The mercs I encounter at 53:48 are scripted to start shooting the miner which is supposed to guide me down here. One of them is not scripted that way though, so I shoot him. In the following, I merely shoot mercs to lower chances of being hit. Shooting them doesn't cost me any time anyway. The mercs I encounter at 54:50 are not only scripted to shoot something else, they are also invincible until a shuttle comes crashing down. I miss a rail shot at 55:17, which doesn't look very good, but it does not affect my time, so it wasn't worth doing the segment again.

I divided the last part of the game into relatively short segments (about a minute each) because there are a lot of mercenaries with rail guns in this part, which can kill you in one shot. At 57:20 I'm incredibly lucky, as one of the miners actually hits a merc for once (and a headshot too), and just as I'm reloading too. At 57:58 you'll notice I'm taking a lot of time to shoot a merc with the rail gun. The reason for this is that, if the shot is aimed just right, I not only hit the merc in my scope, but one behind him as well. The same goes for the shot I make at 58:05. This way, when I enter that room at 58:18, I only need to destroy the ceiling turrets, and Hendrix will follow me almost immediately.

At 59:30-ish, you'll notice that I'm taking my time killing off a few mercs. I do this because I have to wait for the fighter to come down anyway. Although I have to wait 30 seconds for the fighter to come down, it is still faster than going by foot, and certainly a lot less aggravating. By flying up above the midsection beams immediately, I avoid the spawninng of two fighters (although their spawning may be related to killing any of the mercs as well). In these tight hallways, the most important thing is to keep up my speed, as it takes a while to build it up again if I'm slowed down.

I take care of Masako as fast as possible, and then drop down to the bomb. Gotta love how that works out so precisely with my health.