Somebody's worked up a big grunty thirst, and he's not shy about telling you!

(7:38) Level 10 ('The Maw') on Easy. Doubtless you already know of the thirsty Grunt hidden away in The Maw, but this tutorial may contain a few aspects you were unaware of. A lot of it's been new to me, these last few days! See my newly expanded article for details.

Released April 25th 2020, gameplay recorded April 18th-24th 2020.

00:02 (Introduction) An introductory clip to start with, and you get to hear his line. But you'll get to hear it another nine and a half times before the end of the movie!

00:54 (Trigger line) As I head into the shortcut I tail-swipe one of the fleeing Grunts, and you can subsequently hear another Grunt getting killed by the exploding fuel rod gun. But moving to the point of the clip, here's an indication of where the trigger line is. I shoot him part way through his line, and he stops as you'd expect.

01:22 (Reanimation bug) Now here are five clips demonstrating what I call the reanimation bug, whereby he delivers his line even after death! It's something I was previously unaware of, but cottoned onto while making BCM421 (concerning special ops shortcut fun). In the first two clips his body is settled and he goes into a frozen jumping pose. But in the next two his body is moving and you actually get the jump animation.

03:06 (Absent Grunt bug) After I blast the Grunt out and cross the trigger line, he's no longer there. The game removed him as part of its normal clean-up work, when I looked away. But I still get the line - coming from nowhere in particular.

03:29 (Turning to face you) Here's a little demo of how he tries to face you, which is kind of cute. He doesn't alter his stance though.

03:53 (Twitching) Late in the development of the movie, I stood on his head one time (I was thinking to include some footage of him looking up), and he went into the twitching fit you see in the first clip here. I've had covies twitching before (initiated by being on top of them or, in the case of using clip style when playing Shark, below them), but this really struck me as being maybe the most spectacular example I've seen, continuing even after I've got down from on top. Later I got another case, shown in the second clip. I also made quite a few more attempts after that, but without success.

05:09 (Journey) As you can see, he can be shifted with a Banshee. Actually he can also be shifted with a Warthog, but a Banshee makes a better tool. It's hard to keep him on those narrow pathways though. On both of the sections traversed here, my technique is less than ideal (this was a relatively early try) and he goes off to the side, making things awkward. Once he's out in the main passage though, things are easier.

As I get the Grunt near a blocked guy, he overshoots and Cortana seems to notice, saying I need to go in the other direction. It was pure chance that she happened to deliver that line at just the right time.

I have trouble getting him up to join his pal, but with time running out, I try using the wing, and fortunately that does the job (I'd been worried it would splatter him). If there had been more time, I might've tried to get him on top of the other guy. But the ring is about to blow, so I just settle for watching them for a few seconds, then I rocket them.

I made quite a lot more tries at such journeys, but he's frustratingly fragile and kept getting splattered, and eventually I'd had enough. So this remains my only success in uniting him with blocked personnel.

07:06 (Finale) Originally I had a different ending, but later I had the more entertaining idea of ending with a comedy clip like this. I did quite a few takes, trying for a sufficiently pleasing clip. One requirement was that he did at least one jump (the jumps are cute). Another was that my tag got him on the nose and was well timed, not going off before the cutscene kicked in. This take was my favourite.

Incidentally, that ship explosion isn't a pre-rendered cutscene. It actually varies a bit from play to play, in various regards. For another example see the end of BCM161.

Closing remarks Initially I was using the same save as used in the last three movies, in which I'd snatched a Banshee. But when I wanted to have a hog, I needed to quickly fly back to it, which got laborious. So eventually I created a new save in which I already had a hog, and my secondary weapon was a needler rather than a rocket launcher (I fancied adding some needles into the proceedings). In both cases, my checkpoint was the post-rendezvous checkpoint obtained a good way into the ship, allowing me to reach the thirsty Grunt quite quickly. That's what you'd want, for repeatedly playing around with him.

In regard to my discovery of the reanimation bug during the making of BCM421, what happened was this. I was following a Grunt through the shortcut but broke off to briefly see the thirsty Grunt. I shot him before he started his line, then started to leave, then was surprised to hear him delivering his line! He was in a frozen pose, which I later identified as a jumping pose. Originally, this episode was going to be in that movie, as an incidental curiosity. But later, spurred on by that interesting discovery, I decided I needed to do a whole separate movie on the thirsty Grunt (and indeed, starting getting one shaped up). So I didn't use the clip after all. It made sense to leave that oddness for this movie.

About half of this footage was recorded on April 18th when I was still working on BCM421, my second movie on the special ops guys. Namely, the first clip, three of the reanimation clips, and the 'journey'. The rest was done from the 21st to 24th.

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