FAQ/Walkthrough by Francesco Poli
francesco
dot
poli2
at
tin
dot
it
v1.0
28/05/2006
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| Index |
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I. Introduction and Copyright
II. Version History
III. Walkthrough
IV. FAQs
V. Conclusion
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| I. Introduction and copyright |
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Possibly one of the rarest interactive movies out there, Flash Traffic is
(surprise!) not particularly good. But I got hooked on the demo waaay back
when demo CDs were rarities, and looked for the game ever since. I finally
found it, and wanting to scratch this itch, so to speak, I decided to build a
walkthrough while I was solving the game.
It didn't take much (an afternoon or so) to come up with an efficient way to
complete the game and solve all of the plot's loose threads.
The problem with Flash Traffic (and other Tsunami media FMV games) is that it's
very illogical with its events. You might do something at one point, and it'll
have a different result than if you did the same after doing something else
completely unrelated.
For example: right at the start, you can choose to interrogate a suspect that's
going to die in 24 hours. That would seem like a perfectly logical place to
start. Unfortunately, if you go down that road, and no matter what you do,
you're stuck in a dead end! Still at the beginning, you can choose to browse
the personal effects before talking to the suspects; too bad that sticks you
in a dead end as well - while doing the opposite furthers the plot!
In other situations, three nearly identical options may yield three completely
different results. There is no rhyme nor reason behind any of this; it's how
the game is designed, and the only way to get through is trial and error.
Tsunami Media went away with a reason.
~~~ Copyright notice ~~~
This document is copyright by the author. All rights reserved.
All violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The following websites are the only sites that may post this FAQ:
GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com)
DLH (www.dlh.com) with permission to publish the FAQ in the DLH utility
The Spoiler Center (www.the-spoiler.com)
Requests for publishing this FAQ will be ignored, and the failure to receive a
reply to such requests *must* be considered as 'request denied'.
Sites like CheatCC or GameWinners are *explicitly* prohibited from posting this
FAQ, and always will be due to causes that are either widely known, or best
left unspoken.
Furthermore, the following websites are expressly prohibited from posting this
FAQ, or any FAQs by myself, forever:
SuperCheats
CheatChannel/CheatBook
That's because the site keepers apparently aren't smart enough to understand
the meaning of the first paragraph of this copyright notice, and/or don't read
the FAQs they want to post - not even in passing.
I've added their e-mail addresses to my spamfilter:
dennis@supercheats.com
robfank@gmx.de
If asked, I would advise other FAQ authors to do the same.
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| II. Version history |
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v1.0 (28/05/2006)
Walkthrough completed and thoroughly tested. This should be the final
version as far as the solution itself is concerned, but revisions for
spelling, more FAQs and any other additional informations are still
possible - although unlikely. It IS an old, rare, awful game after all.
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| III. Walkthrough |
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This walkthrough is based on the DOS 3 CD edition of Flash Traffic. It should
work both on the Windows version, and on the rare enhanced DVD edition of the
game. As I don't have either of those versions, I can't 101% guarantee that.
The order of answers presented in the game is random, so I can't tell you to
pick "choice 1" or "choice 3". I'll instead write down the entire phrase you
should choose. Note that some choices (like the first six) have little to no
effect on the game.
Following this walkthrough precisely, from the Tsunami logo to the end of the
credits, will get you through the game in around 50 minutes. It's a short
movie, and most of the alternate takes and dead ends aren't very long either.
I would estimate the total length of the videos in the game to be below 80
minutes.
As a final note, you can save at any choice segment. If you want to explore,
the game provides you an easy fallback.
START OF GAME
01) Remind me to leave it in my desk next time. Give me coffee and tell me why
I'm here.
02) You dragged me out of bed because DEA blew a drug bust?
03) Nuclear Bomb!! Did you notify Washington?
04) What about Civil Defense? What's the status of evacuation plans?
05) What's HAZMAT say about the contaminants? Can they give us an idea of what
flavor this nuke is?
06) Heinbockel's obviously the brains of the outfit. Let's squeeze him.
07) Fine, I want to talk to Heinbockel.
08) Pick up the phone. Don't make me come in there, bozo.
09) You're in some deep kim chi, Heinbockel.
10) There's a couple ways we can play this, Doc. The hard way's gonna hurt you
a lot more than it hurts me.
11) Krupinsky was contaminated with Tritium, he's probably going to die.
12) I'm surprised that you're not more interested, Doctor. See, YOU'RE
contaminated too.
13) I know that, and you know that, but, Heinbockel doesn't know that.
14) That's why you're in a containment cell, Heinbockel. You're radioactive
too.
15) Have it your way, Doc. I'll drop by when your hair starts falling out.
16) Who? Who put the bomb together?
17) I want to take a look at their personal effects.
18) Let's go over to property and look at their stuff.
19) Two suitcases, how come there's only one airline ticket? What else is in
there?
20) What do you mean the numbers checked?
21) What would the Russians have to do with planting a nuke in Los Angeles?
22) Let's pickup Miss Flight Attendant and see what her story is.
END OF DISC 1
DISC 2 START
23) This is Unit One. I have the target under surveillance.
24) Affermative. Send in the hounds.
25) Check it out, I don't want any surprises.
26) Examine the suitcase.
27) Search the room.
28) Read Gabriella her rights.
29) Tell me a story. Where did a nice stewardess like you get a remote firing
device?
30) Cut the crap. What about this communique, where did you get it?
31) Give me the phone.
32) Who wants to talk to him?
33) This is Krupinsky.
34) Look skippy, I just built the radio, nobody told me squat. Where do you
want to meet?
35) Let me take a look at that.
36) It's just you and me, Kim.
37) Come on, Kim, let's chat.
38) Why don't you be a good little nuclear terrorist and tell us where the
bomb is?
39) Look, we know the time the bomb will be detonated, just tell us where the
bomb will be planted and we'll be out of here.
40) Time is a factor here, pal. Your rights aren't. Now do yourself a big favor
and talk to us.
41) What do you think, Dave? Do we give bozo here a smoke?
42) What do you want?
43) Why are you doing this Belinko? Why murder 5 million innocent people?
44) This guy's gone. Let's talk to the stew before Belinko gets to her.
45) Excuse me?
46) Deter Hammann is an alias, Gabriella, Your friend's real name is Belinko.
47) His real name is Ivan Belinko. He is a Russian commando, Gabriella. He
killed fifty people in an anti-Gorbachev coup attempt.
48) He's about to commit a terrorist act in this city. People are going to get
hurt Gabriella. We need your help.
49) You're supposed to meet him at the airport. Are you willing to help us grab
him?
50) Miss Deveraux, we could use you, if you're game?
51) We've taken every possible precaution, Gabriella. Just meet Belinko and
give him the case - we'll take it from there.
52) Okay Gabriella, this will be a breeze. Just go down the stairs, make a left
and give Belinko the case.
53) Tell the undercover guys to locate Belinko, we'll take him down with the
SWAT team!
54) We have one other item. We have the communique Gabriella was supposed to
mail from Dallas.
55) We know when and we know why. The communique said the exact center of the
city, where's that?
56) Belinko's got two problems, here. He has to keep it hidden and in a
location that will optimize the blast.
57) Let's get the detection equipment and start trolling downtown.
58) We have to move fast. Coordinate the detection teams and get SWAT.
END OF DISC 2
DISC 3 START
59) Moving to the right eliminates Belinko's best routes of escape.
60) Continue to move right, guys.
61) Bob, keep moving down this corridor.
62) Guys, take this slime out and go to two man teams. We're really running
short on time.
63) Don't let up on me Bob. Go get the bomb!
64) Time's a factor, Bob, but take enough to make sure you cut the right wire!
65) Standard wiring would be red. But that's just too easy, go with blue.
66) Easy, Bob. We'll handle it. What kind of problem?
67) It's a fifty-fifty chance, Bob. Take your pick.
END OF DISC 3
RETURN TO DISC 1
68) (Pick anything you like! Save first to try everything.)
69) (Pick anything you like! Save first to try everything.)
THE END
Miscellaneous walkthrough notes:
- Everyone seems to mispronounce 'nuclear' as 'nucular' in this game.
- There's no need to interrogate Krupinsky. In fact, doing so has always proved
fatal in all my attempts.
- If you let Gabriella answer the phone, it's Belinko - if you answer, it's
Kim. Causality is for wussies!
- Despite the fact that you don't need to interrogate Krupinsky, you can (and
do, in my walkthrough) tell Kim that Krupinsky "just built the radios" -
even if there's no way your character could know that!
- If you choose the harshest response at Choice 44, you'll get stuck in a dead
end with a bomb. Where did the bomb come from? Who "activated" it? Why does
nothing happen if you choose any other response? Mysteries of the script
writers.
- I have absolutely no idea what's up with that sequence at Choice 45. If
anyone's got a sequence of responses that has that scene make some sense,
mail me.
- There's no way to get Belinko at the airport, and/or to prevent Gabriella
from being stabbed. In fact, if you don't get Kim and use the same options
I put in the walkthrough for the airport segment, Gabriella moves according
to plan instead of going in the wrong direction. But she still gets stabbed.
- I think you need to get Colonel Kim in order to get Belinko. Without getting
Kim, I always got my squad killed when trying to finish Belinko.
- It's actually possible to get the good ending without getting Kim OR Belinko!
- If you don't get Belinko, cutting the blue wire deactivates the bomb on its
own. Once more: take that, causality!
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| III. FAQs |
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Q: How do I play the DOS version of this game on Windows XP/modern hardware?
A: DOSBox is the way. URL is dosbox.sourceforge.net/
I compiled this walkthrough on v0.65, and it works fine. I use about 5500
cycles, as anything below makes video stutter.
Q: How do I play the Windows version of this game on XP/moder hardware?
A: I have absolutely no idea, as I don't have the Windows version. It might
work with a little tweaking of the compatibility settings... or it might
not.
Q: Can I play this game without CDs, i.e. making a full installation?
A: Not as far as I know. The game isn't copy protected, because back then CD
burners were expensive enough to be impractical; you can make ISO images
of the game CDs, and use a virtual CD utility like Daemon Tools to play the
game.
However, you still need to swap discs when asked. The game only recognizes
a single CD drive, requiring a swap even if a CD is inserted in a second CD
drive (virtual or real).
Disc swapping is, however, minimal - the only issue is that the game
requires CD 1 to start.
Q: The videos look hideous! Are my settings wrong?
A: No. That's how FMV games tended to look back then. Remember: it was an era
long before efficient, high quality compressors like Divx or MPEG4 - and an
era where computing power just wasn't enough to handle those superior
compressors anyway.
Note that a DVD edition of this game was released, which features
significantly better video quality. Unfortunately, I have no idea where
to find that edition - and even if I did, I doubt it would work without
the MPEG decoder card it usually came bundled with. Which is likely an
ISA or early PCI, i.e. unlikely to work on new PC, with no Windows XP
drivers. (On a more hopeful note, there's rumor that DOSBox may emulate
those cards in the future.)
Q: I can't understand what the hell the main character is mumbling about while
reading suspect profiles, and can't read the text because the video quality
is so bad. Are there subtitles for these sequences?
A: No. The subtitles, in fact, are handled very very poorly. To avoid spoilers,
I'd recommend playing WITHOUT subtitles. Provided you can understand the
Hollywood-reject, badly-recorded mumbling of most actors, that is!
That said, reading the profiles didn't seem useful at all, especially with
Kim. If you can understand them, it's decent background information; if
not, well, they make the movie look more complete, now, don't they? :-)
Q: Are there any other similar games from the same developers?
A: Yes, Tsunami Media produced another two FMV games like Flash Traffic before
closing. Silent Steel has a Tom Clancy-style submarine cold war setting,
while Man Enough is a vaguely erotic 'dating' simulation. Silent Steel comes
on 4 CDs, and Man Enough on 2 plus a floppy.
There is an enhanced DVD edition of Silent Steel, which almost certainly
has the same issues as the Flash Traffic DVD version (i.e., requires a
specific MPEG decoder card), but I'm not sure about Man Enough.
That game is almost entirely still images.
I'm also an owner of the Windows edition of Silent Steel, so a Windows
version of that game exists. Again, I'm not entirely sure about Man Enough
having a Windows release in existance.
Q: What the hell is up with this game's constant lack of causality?
A: That is an excellent question. My answer: Tsunami Media only produced
three of these games before blowing up.
For me, it's enough said.
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| V. Conclusion |
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It was just an itch I wanted to scratch for over a decade, but Flash Traffic
isn't a good game. At all. As a movie, it's a stereotyped and pretty generic
deal that won't exactly win any Academy Awards for acting or writing.
Let me suggest a much better alternative to anyone interested in finding this
old game: the 24 Season Two DVD Box Set. Same basic plot, but a hell of a lot
better.
Credits
- ASCII Generator (www.network-science.de/ascii/) for the ASCII art.
- The '90s gaming community for ignoring Tsunami's games and having them fold.
Other FAQs by the author:
- Project Eden FAQ and Walkthrough (Winner, GameFAQs FAQ of the Month Award)
- ZPC FAQ
- Shadow Warrior: Wanton Destruction FAQ/Walkthrough
All FAQs are available on GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com)
