Speed tricks

Grapple through floors

You can grapple through floors you normally shouldn't be able to by swinging "into" the floor so that you can extend your bionic arm upwards through the floor while in the air, thus attaching it to the top rather than the bottom. This lets you climb through floors that are two or more tiles high. Useful in a few areas, most notably 5 and 6.

Xbox 360 guide invincibility

A somewhat controversial trick, it is possible to gain temporary inincibility on the Xbox 360 version of the game by hitting the Xbox 360 guide button and then the back button immediately after while jumping from a swing. When then exiting the guide menu, the swing will be completed with the item screen open, during which Spencer is invincible. As this is doable only on the Xbox 360 version and the guide menu is arguably an element brought in from outside the game to perform the trick, whether or not it should be considered legitimate can be discussed. However, the four things it can be used to skip are also skippable using only ingame elements, as described below.

Imperial Headquarters electricity barrier skip

In Area 12, you normally need to disable two electrical barriers to be able to proceed to the end of the stage. However, using periods of invincibility, you can skip disabling them entirely! After you've entered with the big elevator, take the first elevator to the right down to the level with two shield soldiers. Make sure they notice you, then proceed down to the next level with the robot. Stand under one of the soldiers until they both climb down to the level you're on. Then take the elevator all the way down and move to the right, towards the barrier, stopping under one of the soldiers until both jump down to you. Then simply move to the right and wait for them to shoot you. In an any% run, the first bullet will take away your bulletproof vest, and the other will damage you. Right after you've taken damage, you can swing through the barrier, landing on the other side. The second barrier is even easier to skip, as there's already a shield soldier on the same level - however, you might want to try to grapple off the elevator so you land between him and the barrier. You can grapple through it even if the soldier is between the barrier and you, but it's a bit more annoying.

Albatross gas and electricity room skip

At the beginning of the Albatross, you can skip 2 out of the 3 rooms. You have to do the crusher room, but both the gas and electricity can be skipped. Doing it requires Joe's machine gun, and is the only real reason the machine gun it's collected in an any% run. To do it, simply crouch to the left of the gas, as close as possible, and fire to the left with the machine gun, letting the recoil push you into the gas. As you're crouched, the damage won't make you bounce to the left, and thus you can easily walk through both the gas and electricity to proceed to the next part of the stage! Can also be done with the shotgun's recoil, and if you have any pieces of armor left, you won't even take damage doing it.

Albatross electricity barrier skip #1

For a 100% run, there's an item to collect in the Albatross - the BC Prototype Weapon. Reaching this normally involves disabling a series of electricity barriers so you can reach it. However, you can skip these barriers by crouching and recoiling yourself into them with the shotgun or machine gun, like in the skip above. As you have to pass through four electricity barriers doing this, you must monitor your HP well - there are two robots that can drop health, but remember you need enough HP left to perform the next skip as well. As such, if you're low on health after collecting the weapon, it's better to blow yourself up with the bazooka to return to the beginning of the room with full health rather than risk dying and being returned to the beginning anyway.

Albatross electricity barrier skip #2

Skipping the electrical barrier at the top of the orange room in the Albatross works like the skip in Area 12. Simply stand under the mechanical lever and let the shield soldier shoot you, and swing to the left while still under invincibility.

Skipping the helicopter cutscene

Before the final boss, there's supposed to be a cutscene where Haley's helicopter gets shot down, after which you can collect the Bazooka upgrade. However, if you kill yourself by firing your bazooka into the wall just as you enter the room in which it happens, the game will assume the cutscene to already have played when you respawn, saving some time.

Grapple through item barriers

The hardest trick to perform in the game, and has not been confirmed to work on any version but the PC version. Even there, it seems to be somewhat framerate dependant, as it is reported to be far easier to do with the framerate limited to 30 FPS rather than the full 60 FPS, but even then, highly inconsistent. The theory is that you can position your bionic arm in such a way that you can make a grapple and climb on top of the item barrier, allowing you to proceed into the stage. If doable, it allows for skipping Area 6 entirely. Runs of this game currently do not use this trick.