He did what now? Ok then, let's go Banshee hunting!

(5:49) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Out of the blue, Sligfantry told me that while on the level's first bridge, he'd got hold of the Banshee by ejecting the pilot. Wow! He didn't say how but I reckoned I knew, so I went Banshee hunting for myself. Check out my adventure, to see if I bagged my prey!

UPDATE: Sligfantry's tutorial on his discovery is here (I've held back my movie until he published), and there's also an HBO forum thread. Turns out we've got different methods!

FURTHER UPDATE: I've written an article on this stuff: see Bridge Banshee grab.

Released April 3rd 2016, gameplay recorded March 24th 2016.

00:02 The movie picks up my adventure part way through as I cross the bridge to try my luck at the far end. My captions tell the story. I'd already been trying at the near end for a while. Can't remember how long that was, but at least 20 minutes I think, and maybe more than 30. I thought I'd have a change - and it's nice and bright at the far end too. As you'll gather from the music, I've reverted, to tackle the bridge afresh. You'll notice that I fire at the Banshee a few times. That was just to try and make sure it focused on me and didn't go pursuing the Pelican; but I certainly didn't need to hit it so much. Hard to keep myself in check!

00:43 Nearing the far end, I get ambushed by a Jackal trio. I throw a quick frag, only to realize that it's heading for a place where the glass panel is missing. Whoops! So I have to throw another. Lands a bit short and leaves one guy alive, but I take his shield down with a plasma ball then finish him off with a bit of zapping.

00:59 After that I come across the gold Elite, who's looking a right chump standing on the bridge rim. It was odd to find him there. I was hoping that my plasma ball would shunt him off, but he starts a jump just before it reaches him, so we end up face to face. After some additional zapping I finish him with a whack, taking the gamble that it would be enough to kill him. I was pretty sure it would.

01:16 At the far end I grenade one of the Shades off just to get it out of the way, though there wasn't any need really. Also, having triggered a checkpoint part way across the bridge, I back off into the cover of the passage to finally get it (previously it was delayed by enemy threat). I want the checkpoint because of the danger of losing health from Banshee fire. I'll be able to revert any time, if I want.

01:34 Ok, finally I start showing the sort of thing I was doing. Knowing that a pilot will fall out if his Banshee gets sufficiently out of whack, I want to try and tempt the Banshee into difficulty, scraping a wall or something. I show various attack runs here. But after eight minutes I've had rather few promising incidents, so I decide to go back to the near end where I'd been getting better action.

02:22 After reverting for health restoration, I cross back over the bridge. A Grunt with a needler seems to be tracking the Banshee with interest, but then he amusingly goes to sleep. Poor fella never sees the cyborg coming. I get rid of the Shade gunners too.

02:36 In the subsequent two and a half minutes the Banshee makes eight attack runs, and my clips show four of them. Nothing very promising though.

03:08 Things heat up now. The Banshee swoops down, causing me to take evasive action. Then it comes back and gets into difficulty, bumping into the bridge structure. Promising! I switched off my flashlight part way through because it was making the close wall rather bright, but I wish I'd turned it back on a few seconds later because the Banshee would've looked better.

03:41 One attack run later, the Banshee is back, sizing me up. Finally, just when I'm looking down to see where I'm standing, I hear it curving around. Quickly nipping through the door, I see that it's lodged in the arch. Moments later as the pilot tries to wriggle free, he falls out. Bingo! It's taken under four minutes since I got back here. I give him a suitably warm welcome of course.

04:24 Time to board and take this thing for a spin! I wish I hadn't fired at it so much now: I see that it's down to four health bars. As I fly over the bridge I come under fire from an Elite, perched on the edge like that gold fellow was. I shake him with a plasma ball but it's my plasma fire which forces him off. I give pursuit and he eventually does a dive in mid-air, hah. For another air dive see BCM138 at about 5:36.

04:55 Next I have fun blasting a couple of Grunts on the lower deck. I was pleased with the fuel rod blast which gets the idiot with the needler. Of course, these post-grab action clips aren't important at all, but I wanted to include some of what followed, for the memories. This Banshee grab business is quite a development!

05:18 Just for fun I blast a Shade off the bridge and try to score a hit as it falls. Narrow miss! Then it's time to go show off my new toy to the Marines.

05:44 So, I got the Banshee. In the end it wasn't even very hard; I was basically just standing around in a certain area which seems to tempt the pilot into coming around the back, and then he got caught up in the arch. That said, I may've got lucky an ejection occurred so soon. Did I get it basically the same way as Sligfantry though? As I write this I still don't know (I've prepared the movie in advance), but I strongly suspect I did. Guess I'll find out when he goes public!

Closing remarks I did this gameplay a few hours after hearing of the ejection possibility. Had to try out my idea for how it could be done. Of course, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it before - especially bearing in mind all the times I've seen pilots ejected during my Banshee battling in level 2. Not to mention the recent pilot ejection business in level 10! On top of which, luring the Banshee into navigational trouble at the bridge has been on my backlog of things to pursue for over four years now. Doh!

When it came to putting the movie together, which I got busy with a day later, I didn't have the footage from my initial trying at the near end. During my play I was getting low on disc space so I deleted it before resuming and trying the far end. So, my movie had to pick things up quite a way through the adventure. However, that actually turned out ok because the movie still shows action from both ends, and it probably would've been too much to feature the near end twice. Besides which, using my bridge crossing to put you in the picture seemed ideal.

Hey I can't seem to get away from this bridge lately. I've been lurking there in each of my last four movies! Wonder if it's gonna be five in a row.

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