BCM329 - Playing 'Shark' at the first bridge

(7:22) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Here's a movie on playing 'Shark' at the first bridge, an activity in which you skim along under the lower deck to make covies dive off. There are various ways you can set it up, but here I show the most direct way with a Banshee grab, and then show a whole lot of fun.

Released January 26th 2019, gameplay recorded January 18th-25th 2019.

Commentary

00:02 (Setting up) This demo is pretty self-explanatory but I can mention a few things. To prepare for this phase of the work, I first got a checkpoint near the door, ready to attempt the grab. Moreover, it was a checkpoint for which all four nearby Grunts were behind the wall. That's the ideal scenario because it's then easy to ditch the first two Shades without killing any Grunts. Notice also that before throwing my first plasma, I fire a shot to panic the Grunts. If I hadn't done that, they would've soon attacked.

One other thing I'll mention is that when I trigger the final batch of covies, I do a bit of plasma fire as I pass, to make sure they're alerted and to encourage them to emerge.

Incidentally, once I got the Banshee I could've done the remaining work a bit faster than seen here. But actually I took it easy because I wanted the Pelican to be gone by the time I got the final checkpoint. That's just because I didn't want to be hearing it flying off every time I revert. It didn't matter than I got the checkpoint before the music stopped. When you revert, the music is gone regardless.

01:38 (Part of a play) As an intro to Shark play, here's the initial 65 seconds of a play. I score two fuel rod hits, which is pretty good (I was surprised I got the second one, after getting held up by bumping into something under the bridge). Missed the gold Elite at the end though, drat! The full play went on a few minutes longer but was slow in places (just as any full play is likely to be, as targets get sparse), so I've preferred to take up most of the movie's time with an action montage instead.

02:45 (Angled up for low camera) This shorter clip illustrates an alternative style of Shark play: 'low camera' style. You get a dramatic low view but go slower. At the end I unexpectedly splatter the gold Elite as I get back up to deck height.

03:06 (Action montage) Now here's an action-packed 30-clip montage, including a lot of nice fuel rod strikes and quite a bit of splattering. Eight of the clips used the set-up just seen created, while the rest used a few other set-ups I created earlier. I'll pick out some of the clips to comment on.

03:22 I've included a few splatter clips like this along the way, partly for comedy.

03:26 Ramp slide! The Grunt appears to do a weird and comical slide on his feet. See my article for the detail of what's going on there. I miss the fuel rod shot, but there are three more ramp slides later so keep watching!

03:42 This Jackal doesn't quite fall off but I nail him with a fuel rod shot afterwards while he's pointing. Very satisfying too.

04:04 Second ramp slide of the movie. It's actually the same ramp, but this time we've got an orange Grunt, a closer view, and I nail the fuel rod shot.

04:13 Jackals don't dive off as readily as Grunts and Elites, but if you at least get them close to the edge, you can double back to try and complete the job, as seen here.

04:34 My plasma fire on the gold isn't doing much so I switch to the Grunt and pull off a quick fuel rod hit.

04:44 Using low camera style here. It's just a nice clip of breaking glass, bringing some Grunts down (although, there are no glass fragments visible, which sometimes happens). The Banshee takes damage from the blast, but is still ok. One other thing I'll mention. At the start of the clip you can see a diving Grunt getting an assist from the shallow sloping side of the central depression, giving him a higher and longer trajectory. This happens quite a lot.

04:56 A Grunt dives at the ramp and gets deflected up amusingly. I miss the fuel rod shot though.

05:08 With this clip, I liked how the fuel rod blast makes the Elite about-face.

05:14 I've got two glass breaking clips in a row here, for effect.

05:33 Another ramp slide (same ramp as before). This time the view is even closer (you might like to step through it frame by frame), and I score a supremely satisfying fuel rod hit in 'interception' style.

05:48 Very nice mid-air splattering of the gold Elite, panicking the minors.

06:06 Sometimes when using low camera style, a covie gets spattered - such as here.

06:19 Nice long-range fuel rod hit.

06:27 My fuel rod hit doesn't kill the gold, but maybe his death a moment later is from my plasma fire? I can't tell if it was, or if he died from falling.

06:35 Final ramp slide of the movie - this time with a long-range fuel rod hit. Notice also that the Grunt was panicking. I actually can't recall another time when I scored a mid-air hit on a panicking Grunt.

06:44 This was the last clip added to the movie, late on. As well as being dramatic, it adds a bit of variety with the swirling.

07:01 (Fun up top) Once you've had enough below (e.g. if you don't think you're going to be getting any more victims), you can always go up top to wipe out any leftovers. Nice bit of sample action here!

Closing remarks Did a whole lot of playing and editing for that action montage, so I hope you enjoyed it. More Shark play next movie - but of a different type!

If this movie was reminding you of some other fuel rod fun I showed but you can't remember where that was, let me direct you to BCM184, featuring an oddly stuck enemy Banshee.