BCM295 - Wandering Banshees, fun with low circling

(6:24) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Third instalment on the wandering Banshees topic. Here I let circling Banshees sink all the way to the bottom, then I have fun lobbing plasma grenades down to disrupt them, getting various outcomes. These are extracts from more than an hour's play, done shortly after creating the basic save as seen in BCM293.

Released June 29th 2018, gameplay recorded June 16th 2018.

Commentary

00:02 (Circling to the bottom) Both of the Banshees chase the Pelican and I subsequently find them circling and sinking. In fact they're already quite a way down when I get my first view, because I waited over ten seconds on the entry hump in case they returned (a practice I later dispensed with, by and large). After about three minutes they're at the bottom and I have to change my position leftwards along the cliff to get sight of them. After that, I get a new entry checkpoint so I can do replaying.

01:10 (Play 1 - Tag and orbit reversal) Just a single throw for openers. And a tag! The Banshees end up circling the other way, with a similarly tight orbit.

01:54 (Play 2 - Orbit reversal) Two grenades this time. No tag, but there's another orbit reversal, and the orbit is bigger.

02:21 (Play 3 - Tag and bigger orbit) Single throw, and a tag. Circling continues. There's no reversal but the orbit gets bigger.

02:46 (Play 4 - Wanderers) Three plasmas now, which is taking us well into bombardment territory. The Banshees do a bit of close mutual swirling about and end up wandering off separately.

03:22 (Play 5 - Tag and wanderers again) Two throws and I score a tag, to which the Banshee reacts with instant swirling, unlike in the earlier tag examples where it seemed oblivious until the bang. After bumping into the cliff the Banshees end up going their own separate ways. But more than a minute later, there's a touching reunion in which their contrails make a heart. Aw, that's sweet.

04:10 (Play 6 - Ascent) We end with a 4-plasma bombardment which gives an unusual reaction. They're coming back up! When they level out part way, I try a bit of pistol fire but they're out of range, which I thought they would be but I fired anyway (and likewise I wasn't expecting any reaction from my sniper fire). Just as I'm lobbing a few frags over, which were going to fall short I think, the Banshees resume their ascent and eventually I'm spotted. At this point I regret having used up all my plasmas as I can't do any tagging, but never mind. Back to basics, with simple pistol fire.

Closing remarks This gameplay started about twenty minutes after I created the save (as seen in BCM293). It wasn't planned, otherwise I would've been using a copy of my save, so I could then save the new checkpoint. That way I could've done more plays later if I wanted. But I had no back-up, so I couldn't save (not wanting to lose the original). Instead I just plugged away doing replays for an hour or so, hoping to get enough material for a possible movie. I could've done with some addition plays for further variety, and certainly I would've liked to end with some close tagging of returned Banshees to make for a more exciting ending, but I didn't feel like starting from scratch and wasting the old footage. It was good enough. And besides, I could always set up some more grenading another time.

On one play I actually tagged both of the Banshees. They quickly swirled out of sight though, so it really didn't make for very good footage - so I didn't include it here.