Objective Fail Oddity: On Agent it's possible to fail the lift objective by killing Cassandra or her secretary. On SA & PA, this only fails objective two, even though according to the function explorer it sets a flag to fail the lift objective. Is the flag linked to another objective on SA/PA?

Bad Isotope Picture: You can complete the isotope objective by taking a picture of the camera from the wall behind it. Carrington wouldn't be pleased...

The Real Angry Scientist: We always assume it's the angry scientist in the cheese room who pulls the alarm. In reality, it's the last scientist you see. So you can visit the scientists out of order and get a different one to angrily activate the alarm!

Bot Softlock: It's possible to softlock this level if you activate the "cleaning bot buttons" in the wrong order, which causes the bot endlessly loop at its initial location. Here's my writeup from the-elite forums:

"Something peculiar about Investigation SA/PA I hadn't realized before: it's possible to have the bot objective complete, but never actually activate its maintenance cycle (the path that takes it all the way to the lasers), thus normally soft-locking yourself in the level. There's three terminals in the bot area: the enemy cache screen (01), the activation screen (02), and the reprogramming screen (03). We only need to press 03 and 02 in that order to activate the maintenance cycle for the bot. If you press terminals 02, 01, 03, and 02 again, in that order, you don't reset a flag responsible for activating the bot in its default cycle (the path that only allows it to wander back and forth slowly in the bot area), but objective two still completes, so the game thinks the maintenance cycle is activated. The objective being complete prevents you from being able to reset the flag if you try to activate terminals 02 or 03 again, so the bot thinks it still has to execute its default cycle. I only noticed this behavior when I saw someone inadvertently activate the terminals in that order during a playthrough, and then looked into it via the Function Explorer (functions 1002, 1003, 1009, and 0412)."

A very interesting oversight.

Objective 4 Fail: On Perfect Agent, it's possible to fail the "obtain experimental technologies" objective if the K7 guard's weapon falls through the floor, which can happen by chance if his weapon flies out-of-bounds when he's killed.

Hawk-eyed Scientist: Normally, the scientists only react to you when you kill the guards in their room and face towards them. In this video, I was able to alert the scientist when I was way back in the hallway! Unsure what causes this.

Strange Door Geometry: You know the double doors towards the "final scientist" on Investigation (the one in the room with the cheese)? The first of these doors has very interesting behavior if you play on Agent. The right side is locked if you look down or at standard angle, but open if you look up. This isn't the case with the left side of the door. Apparently the door is made out of "4 separate objects" according to the Setup Editor.

Extra Open Door: Is it possible to alert the guard in the small corridor just after the lasers, from BEHIND the lasers? This could be useful to get an extra open door with the laser-skip strategy on Agent.

Early Exit: As long as the final door is open, you can be halfway along the drone zoom to trigger the exit.

Early 2nd Scientist Alert: It's possible to alert the second scientist without killing the guards if you look at him at a certain angle when entering the room.

Uplink Skip: One of the guards in the uplink room can sometimes open the locked door if you disarm them and have them run to it. Obviously faster right? Not necessarily, since we deploy the camspy and complete the isotope objective while the uplink is running anyway.

Barricade Warp: Known for decades, the barricades are the beginning of the level are destructible by explosions. Despite there being a seeming warpable gap, it seems impossible to get through without any cheats; I've tried with hi-res, 16:9, using Dr. Caroll as a clipping crutch, to no avail.

BG Door Softlock: It's possible to enter Cassandra's room from the exit door (the door to the helipad), if you clip out of the building through the staircase after the first lift, and then reenter the helipad from the top of the "X" to get to the top of the tower. When you enter the BG room door this way, you can shoot the bodyguards but they are invincible and cannot see you until get closer to Cassandra, at which point, the game gets confused and tries to mimic the forced movements as if you were entering from the intended door. This softlocks the game, leaving Jo walking endlessly without the ability to trigger any button actions. With cheats, you can still complete objective 2 with the right weapons and timing, but even if you've completed every other objective nothing happens since the endzone is the level fade trigger. As an interesting tidbit, your animation stops the moment the game takes control of Jo's movement, which can lead to some funny freeze frames if you start shooting, punching, or even just pulling a weapon out. There are no known uses of this yet.

OoB Guard Kills: On Special Agent and Perfect Agent, every bodyguard on the mid-floors can be killed from out-of-bounds, though it is tricky, requires precise movement, and resourceful shooting with limited CMP ammo. This strategy is faster than the current WR strategy on Special Agent, but ineffectual on Perfect Agent because a lift button needs to be activated on the lower floor.

OoB Lift Button: The lift button on Perfect Agent can be activated while out of bounds on Perfect Agent, but requires some skillful movement. Henrik's video below does a great job showing it, alongside many other interesting glitches on the level that are worth checking out in this 4 minute video!

Small Jo Oddity On Perfect Agent: On Perfect Agent, all but the first two snipers we kill on speedruns spawn only once we reach cross the ramp on the deck, because of a height condition check. As I suspected, the height check isn't met when the Small Jo cheat is activated, making the snipers objective impossible to complete. The catch? That's only the case for NTSC, not PAL or NTSC-J, because, according to the Function Explorer, the height threshold is higher on PAL and NTSC-J (-550) than NTSC (-500). But why was this change made?

Devastator Strategies: Could the devastator be used to kill guards to save time, generate lag to perform any of the faster out-of-bound clips, or help reach an otherwise impossible spot?

Fast Sniper Kills: As shown in this video, it should be possible to take out the last two "balcony" snipers earlier on in the level. This would allow us to take the Agent route entering the Villa, saving 2-3 seconds.

Courtyard Out-Of-Bounds: You can clip into the generator room from this particular spot in the courtyard by looking down and shooting while crouched. This could potentially be faster if you didn't need to be ON the ledge itself, which requires running onto the ledge from the left side of the entrance, and then going around until you reach the OoB spot shown in the left picture:


Villa Out-Of-Bounds: You can clip out-of-bounds to your death by looking down at and then shooting on this particular rock in the big area of the Villa:


Yet Another Fast Villa Out-Of-Bounds: If we could somehow clip out-of-bounds to this location, we could land in the generator room, saving several seconds on Agent.

Indoor Out-Of-Bounds: A clip that certainly saves time, but is incredibly difficult to pull off. A consistent setup could help save 5 seconds on Perfect Agent.


Locked In: You can enter the room Carrington is held hostage to exit the level, but you can also quickly close it behind you to explore the room and shoot Carrington to see some fun visuals in the outro cinema. Guards won't be able to enter this room, and will simply run into the door instead, drastically killing the framerate!

Pickup From Above: With the "Play as Elvis" and "Small Jo" cheats, you can pick up the remote mine from above the grate since your reduced height is considered close enough to it. Imagine the timesave if this were possible in normal mode! Unfortunately, crouching alone doesn't lower your height enough...

Walking Along The Sewer Walls: Speaking of the sewers, it's possible to clip into the side of the left wall, after climbing up the first ledge, to travel out-of-bounds. This can then be used for some interesting tricks. Video from Henrik:

Buttons From Above: With skilled movement, it's possible to toggle the laser switches while falling from the catwalk and popping back up. This could potentially be faster on Special Agent and Perfect Agent.

Cutscene Glitch: Widely known since the early 00s, the level can sometimes start with the interrogation cutscene cinema instead of the regular intro cutscene. Perhaps it can be used in RTA, but seems really annoying to setup and would save very little time. It does not seem to useful.

Non-Patrolling Buttons Room Guard: Strangely, it's possible for the patrolling guard in the laser buttons room to NOT be patrolling. He just idles in the spot surrounding the left most button. I have no idea why this happens. Here's a video of my attempt:



Out-Of-Bounds To Basement: Did you know you can enter the basement without actually... using the door to the basement? There's an out-of-bounds clip from the staircase room just after the second alarm.



Cutscene Glitch: It's possible to open and close the safe door from both sides! It can get pretty dark if you "lock" yourself inside the room and shoot out the lights.

Alternative Exit: In G5 Building, the exit point corresponds to whichever door you throw the mine at in Chicago. Since there are two possible doors to target, there are likewise two possible exits in G5 Building.

Despawning Keycard: The last keycard is dropped by the top-right guard in the room when killed. But this keycard can despawn if you kill another guard in the room after killing the top-right guard. I realized this costly mistake during an Perfect Agent RTA run. Here's a good analysis video from flickerform. Why was the keycard programmed this way? Poor programming or intentional?

Exploring Infiltration: It's possible to escape to the "Escape" area (hah, get it) and even Infiltration through a series of clever tricks, which can be watched in my ""

Shield From Above: There's a shield on the upper deck of the level, accessible from the door in the GPS room. But did you know you can pick it up from the lower deck?