Only a madman would try speeding around on that holed surface. Let's do it!

(6:27) Level 4 ('The Silent Cartographer') on Heroic. Want to have a bit of fun with a Warthog down the security shaft, on the holed surface? Here's one way of setting things up with a nice checkpoint, and then I show a few activities. Namely, daredevil driving and trying to get a close view of the bottom.

Released July 22nd 2019, gameplay recorded July 2nd and July 20th-22nd 2019.

00:02 (Setting up) In this set-up I'm doing things from scratch, initially approaching the security station in a manned hog. I pause to get an overshield, to help when killing the cloaked Elites later. That was optional though. Something amusing you may've noticed: one of the Grunts dived off to his death. Something else of interest: Stacker says "I got some bullets left in this clip!" and I actually don't recall hearing that line before. Maybe it's the first time I heard it!

00:54 After getting the hog out on the balcony I position it for blasting it down. The spot I use is good, but you could use the other side similarly. Be careful about the driving though; it's easy to slip off the edge.

01:06 I use the control panel then delay the mayday checkpoint for making attempts (that checkpoint is fully delayable, which is useful). But it's actually pretty easy and I often get it first try - as is the case here. Actually, blasting the hog down is so easy that it wouldn't matter much if you didn't delay the checkpoint.

01:49 I kill the Elites and one of the Hunters, letting my overshield get wiped, then head up to end the music and get a new overshield. Then I use an entrance checkpoint for a safety checkpoint. It's safest to save it (in case you mess up later and inadvertently get the Hunter checkpoint before you're ready for it), but I didn't bother here.

02:27 After killing the final Hunter, it's now just a matter of keeping the triggered checkpoint delayed until ready in the hog. During the descent you can use grenades and (when pausing to recharge) jumping. Or if you have a needler you could just fire needles one at a time for example. Try to retain full health, for any later fun you might be engaged in.

03:17 (Daredevil driving) One thing you can is try to drive around on the holed surface, but it's rather tricky and you'll probably need some practice to stay on for long, if going at reasonable speed. In the second clip here I'd had more practice.

04:11 (Trying to see the bottom) The other thing you can do is try to get relatively close views of the bottom, something I mentioned in my article. I get close in some of these first five clips. In the third one there's an anomaly: the hog's motor is still running after I've bailed out!

05:15 (More, with a rocket launcher) Now here's more of the same except using a similar set-up created a few weeks earlier, in which I'd got a rocket launcher. I score a couple of rocket hits on the rimmed centre, and at the end I rocket the hog. One of the clips involves some freaky death-cam spin.

Closing remarks Originally I was going to set things up by modifying the save seen created in the last movie, featuring a hog already on the balcony. After rocketing the Warthog down, I was going to get a delayed checkpoint by wiping out the Jackal group stationed at some rock slabs on the beach, and keep that delayed until down at the hog. But it wasn't a great strategy, because if you mess the descent up, you'll be reverted a long way back. After happened to me a few times, I changed tack and settled on doing things from scratch.

Note: if you're confident about being able to blast the hog down first time, you could do without one of the two delayed checkpoints I used, and also retain music if you want (personally I wanted to eliminate it). So, there are plenty of options for how to set things up.

Four of the final six clips were from July 2nd, using that earlier set-up with a rocket launcher. The rest is all from July 20th-22nd.

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