Take a more scenic route to the dam area and enjoy some novel fun.

Posted July 31st 2011

• The workings
• Sniping and more
• On top of the tower
• Moving the chieftain
• Fun with Johnson
• Moving captive Marines
• Messing with the plasma shield
• Doorway dispersal effect
• The hovering Phantom
• Blocking

At the end of the rally point bravo area where you encounter Johnson's crashed Pelican, there's an exit tunnel leading through to the dam area where he gets held prisoner. But instead of going through that tunnel as usual, you can take a ride on the rally point bravo Phantom to a hillside across the river, from where you can circle around and drop in on the dam area from behind! You can have fun with the personnel who've spawned there (unless you chose to have the area deserted) and subsequently trigger the usual cutscene to get things back on track. I already outlined this in my article on using the rally point bravo Phantom, but I'll recap the workings here before elaborating on the various bits of fun you can have.

Setting up, two ways (deserted or populated)

After making the rally point bravo Phantom accessible as detailed in the aforementioned article, get equipped however you like. That depends on the sort of fun you've got in mind, but among the options are a full sniper rifle, a Brute shot, and the chieftain's gravity hammer. There's also the chieftain's invincibility gizmo to steal.

At the tunnel exit there's a loading point. Crossing that will get the dam area loaded but it'll be deserted. If you want personnel added you need to cross a spawn point a few metres beyond. There's rationale for using each of these options - deserted or populated - and in both cases you'll still be able to trigger the cutscene later, so take your pick. I'll give a little more detail on the two options now.

If you want the dam area deserted, cross the loading point without crossing the spawn point. For convenience it'll be good to've got a checkpoint just before this (e.g. in case you fail your first attempted crossing of the river). In particular there's one triggered at the end of the bridge, though you should preferably eliminate enemies first else their presence could cause the checkpoint to be delayed and soon cancelled.

If you want to the dam area populated however, do cross the spawn point, which is just past a big plant in the ground. This also triggers a checkpoint which you might like to delay with three or four jumps as you head for the Phantom, just to be a bit closer when you get it. The spawned personnel will comprise Johnson and other Marines at the jail, a passive chieftain with a few other Brutes there, and enemies at the start of the dam area. There will also be a Phantom hovering over the dam, waiting to drop troops in the opening cutscene.

Triggering the opening cutscene

After reaching the dam area, in due course you may want to trigger the cutscene. Doing that will get normal play back on track, except that maybe you've interfered with things, causing some differences from normal. Triggering the cutscene is pretty easy as follows.

After crossing the dam to reach the start area, go into the opening in the cliff and get yourself up onto a bit of raised ground. It can be done with a good crouch jump, but boosting yourself up with a Brute shot blast or grenade would probably be easier. If the dam area was populated, all you need to do now is go along the strip of ground you've reached and the cutscene will start as you near the end. If the dam area was deserted though, get up higher with an easy crouch jump then head along towards the tunnel you were meant to come through. When you near it you'll spawn enemies and trigger a checkpoint, and will now be able to trigger the cutscene as usual. Either way, once you exit the cutscene, you'll be in the standard position with Arby.

Fast routes to the dam

If you're aiming to have some repeated fun at the dam, you'll be interested in establishing a route for getting there fast with decent reliability. Have fun exploring the possibilities to see what you can come up with. When you think you've got a speedy route nailed, you might like to compare against the following.

Timing things from when the ship surges away to when I finally step onto some dam superstructure high up, I can do it in about 52 seconds without the aid of boosting. With a boost from a Brute shot however, I can take a shortcut up and over a rock to get things down to about 45 seconds, though the boost isn't all that easy. That trip is over rocks all the way, whereas the longer one features a few seconds of running on grass soon after I'm down, then a sharp left past a tree to ascend a steep boundary between rock and grass. Both of these routes involve landing on or near a large rock whose upper slopes are well lit by sunlight, a rock which I mentioned in my article on using the rally point bravo Phantom, in the section on Taking a longer ride. I can land around there pretty reliably nowadays.

Needless to say, if the dam area is populated you can enjoy sniping from various fine spots. There are many possibilities here, so just go looking. All enemies are killable as normal except for the chieftain outside the jail, but at least you can knock his silly hat off. Actually you can knock Johnson's hat off too - a hat which is silly in a different way, insofar as it gives his head no protection whatsoever. But hey, who needs head protection when you're unkillable, right?

In regard to the group on the broken bridge near the start of the dam area, try sniping the Brute to panic the Grunts. You may well see one of the Grunts fall through a crack in the bridge, straight down into the water. Or maybe he'll just get stuck in the hole. Further back in that area (near the openings in the cliff) there's a gas cylinder. Wait for one or more enemies to get near it, then shoot it to cause an amusing explosion.

You don't have to reach the dam area before you start sniping. Some enemies can be sniped from the distant hillside far upstream. That includes the Brutes at the jail. At the right angle you can see a gas cylinder by the near side of the jail, which is good for a bit of mischief. There's a Brute just near the cylinder. A sniper round to his body puts him in a bad way without making him run off (strangely he just stands - poor AI), and then a round to the cylinder finishes him off with an amusing bang. He was about 180 metres distant from me, and if you register a similar distance you'll probably be pretty close to where I was standing.

Grenading

From way up behind the dam area you can have fun trying to tag enemies, or at least making grenades land close. That includes the group on the broken bridge at the start of the area. If you stand at a particular remembered spot, you can learn the correct elevation to throw at, in order to tag a particular enemy consistently, or more generally to get a grenade to explode in a good place.

Leaping down

Something else you can do from up high is leap down. It seems foolproof because you get cushioned by the barrier that normally stops you getting too high. You get slowed then you continue on down.

I have to give special mention to the tower-like hydro facility building with a mast on top. From a nearby corner of the dam superstructure, you can get up on top by combining a frag with a Brute shot blast. I made it with a backwards jump as follows. Stand at the corner very close to the edge, with your back to the tower corner. As such, you'll be facing across the diagonal of the flat surface you're on. Look down at your left leg and throw a frag. A moment later, jump backwards and fire. The combined blast can get you up to the tower's corner. I don't say it's easy though; took me a few goes. It might help to practice the timing somewhere else just after a checkpoint, to try and maximize the boost.

People got up here at least as early as November 2007 in co-op, though I'm not sure about single-player. Before doing it myself, I saw Sliding Ghost do it with a forwards jump - likewise with frag and Brute shot.

Things to do

As for what to do once you're on top, for starters I'd suggest admiring the view and feeling imperious. But after you've had enough of that, it's nice for a bit of shooting or long-range grenading on enemies in the start of the dam area (though a Brute shot doesn't have the range). You can also jump down onto the Phantom. The barrier cushions you just as you reach it, so it feels kind of funny.

If the dam area is populated, you'll find a Brute chieftain outside the jail waiting patiently for his cutscene with Johnson. Until then, he's passive and unkillable. You can move him around with pushing, blasting and melee, and he'll have to just put up with it, hee hee. If you push, there's an odd sound effect associated with it. To push him a long way fast, melee him as you're applying pressure. It frees him up and you can then push him fast as long as you keep the pressure on.

Having moved him somewhere, what happens when the cutscene activates? He takes part in it as normal (except possibly minus his hat if you knocked it off), but just after he starts walking away from Johnson, he's potentially transported to somewhere near where you left him. The transportation isn't instant. If you watch in Theater mode later and slow it down, you can see him on his way there (not necessarily in a straight path), possibly flying through the air if you moved him across the river. I get the impression that the game tries to avoid having him end up somewhere awkward; so he may not end up quite where you left him, or maybe he's not transported at all. I tried a few things to get him transported to awkward places so he'd look foolish after the cutscene (e.g. up on a raised surface somewhere, such as the jail roof), but the game didn't oblige me.

Note: In Theater mode you'll notice an invisible one-way vertical barrier running parallel to the river, about halfway across. However, you can get the camera around it at the ends, or over a small gap along the top (a gap below the 'ceiling' barrier).

Into the river with you!

One place you can easily move him is into the river. This in itself can be rather satisfying due to his often extended scream. If you take a look at that later in Theater mode, you'll see that he's still alive on the bottom, and usually he seems to repeat a sort of punching or barging animation which makes him wander off. Quite weird. After the cutscene he gets transported back into the deep and quickly dies. Serves him right too, silly monkey. Handy way of eliminating him from the battle though!

Incidentally, if you ever want to see what's under the water on this side of the dam, get the free-cam near the surface. If you get it just right you can seen everything crystal clear!

Chieftain in his own jail

Another place you can quickly move him is into the jail. Try moving him behind where the shield will be, then activate the shield with RB (the prompt talks about deactivation, but ignore that). After the cutscene, he'll hopefully get transported behind the shield. When you reach the jail, you can potentially headshoot him when his head sticks through the shield as he tries to run against it. Melee can also be used. Watch out though; his hammer can damage you through the shield.

Note: When I tried this without activating the shield, he didn't subsequently get transported behind it. He just got moved a couple of metres, remaining outside the jail.

Here's some fun you can have with the unkillable Sergeant Johnson at the jail, if the area is populated.

Getting a salute

If you bump up against him, he should give you a salute and say something (e.g. "What's the word?") even if you've been standing right in front of him a while, and even if he's already complimented you on some killing. It's like the contact finally makes him recognize you.

Moving him

If you move him somewhere it doesn't seem to alter what happens once the cutscene starts. He'll participate and end up behind the shield in jail as normal. The only bit of fun I had with moving him was to blast him into the river. He gives a nice scream ("Same team! Waaaaggghh!") and sinks to the bottom where he then continues standing around scratching himself as usual.

Making him fight the chieftain

If you push him up against the chieftain or vice versa, he'll swing a few punches at the chieftain while yelling (also he'll shout an alert line the first time). Can't say I think much of his punching technique though - and some of his yelling wouldn't be out of place at a hoedown!

Making him fight you!

Kill a couple of the captive Marines and you should become a traitor. Now nudge up against Johnson and he'll react accordingly, first recoiling and giving an alert (e.g. "Stop him, he's gone crazy!"), then going into action against you with his comical fisticuffs when you pressure him again. It's just like against the chieftain. But the funniest bit is when he suddenly forgives you, which only takes a few seconds on Easy but around a minute on Heroic. One moment he's trying to whack you, the next it's a case of letting bygones be bygones ("I guess it coulda been a mistake - okay but be more careful!"). He says some funny stuff. You might need the IWHBYD skull for best effect, but I figure most folk have that on routinely.

Inside the jail are three Marines sitting on the floor, assuming the area is populated. If you nudge them they stand up, and if you then blast the wall behind them with a Brute shot, you can easily get them away from the wall to start pushing them out of the cell area. Unlike Johnson these guys are all very killable, so take care.

In contrast to when you move Johnson or the chieftain, the game won't shift them for the cutscene or afterwards. You can move them where you like and that's where they'll remain until you deactivate the plasma shield. At that point they finally become visible to the enemy, which may not be good news for them as they're still unarmed! They need to get inside the jail before they can arm themselves (which they do even if you've moved all the weapon containers out of it), so they start running for the jail.

Long way back

One simple thing to do is just move them outside so they're all standing around in shot during the cutscene. Looks amusing. When I put them across the doorway, one of them got shunted clear by the game, just before the Brute sent Johnson into the jail.

But how about getting more ambitious? You could move them far away from the jail. In the case of one Marine who I moved to the other side of the river, reaching the jail was a pretty tall order for him because of a mass of covies on the dam. Poor fella had no chance. Intriguingly he stood still for a while near the end, getting somewhat full of needles and spikes before dying. Probably would've been a better idea to move all three across the river. Maybe at least one of them would get through on Easy.

On the jail roof

By using the plasma shield you can quite easily get them shot up onto the jail roof via the skylight (see next section). After you free Johnson however, they initially just stand there, apparently helpless. If you knock them down (e.g. push them back through the skylight) they may finally spring into action, but they may be hesitant, like something's gone glitchy. If you leave them on the roof until the battle is over, they might jump down of their own accord, or they might just continue standing there. If they do get down, pushed or otherwise, they may or may not get armed, and they may or may not run to the Pelican. It's all a bit fickle.

One time I waited until there was only a nearby Brute and Grunt left (just after a checkpoint, with Hocus now at the dam), then I pushed the final two Marines off the roof. They tended to run for the Pelican unarmed, maybe engaging in a spot of fisticuffs on the way, shouting as they got sight of the enemies. I saw a good effort from one guy who was attacking the Brute for maybe thirty seconds or so (on Easy).

On one occasion something freaky happened. With two Marines on the roof, Hocus arrived and rocketed enemies on the dam. The blast sent a purple weapon container hurtling across low and fast, spinning at high speed, and it knocked one of the Marines for six. Like, one moment he was there, the next he was gone. Watching in Theater mode later, I saw that his body became completely distorted after the impact. His limbs were grossly elongated like he was a stretchy toy, and even his neck was literally a couple of metres long (with a normal-sized head on the end of it). He looked pretty monstrous there, before quickly returning to normal. I've occasionally seen covies distorted somewhat, but not to this extent.

Inside the jail you'll find the plasma shield device inactive on the floor. You can repeatedly activate and deactivate it with RB, though the prompt only ever says "Hold RB to deactivate plasma shield". There are various things you can do with this.

Oscillation effects

If you alternate rapidly with activation and deactivation, it's quite easy to make the device float up and down, or expand and contract like you're giving it some exercise.

Behind the shield

You can easily get yourself behind an activated shield. If you're facing the inactive device from the front, just activate it and step forth into the cell area before it goes up. Alternatively, you can activate it from within the cell area. But don't panic, you're not actually trapped. You can deactivate it if you position and angle yourself right. The plasma surface isn't visible from behind, incidentally.

Activation shunt

If you stand close to the plane of the shield as it activates, you get displaced by it. For some reason it tends to send you upwards. Specifically, you start heading upwards as the bottom of the expanding shield gets down to about knee height. The closer you stand to the shield plane, the more vertical you go. Get it right and you can get projected up trough the skylight to land on the roof. If you're even closer to the shield plane, you can end up getting hurled out of the door and into the river, bouncing off the ground as you go! You might even be able to end up on the other side of the river that way - I've been sent far enough for that to seem viable. Your horizontal motion seems to stem from getting violently pushed away from the shield as you reach the ceiling.

After seeing what the shield did to me, I tried the chieftain and Johnson and the captive Marines, and it works just the same. Didn't take me long to get the whole lot onto the roof via the skylight. Nice picture! One amusing thing I noticed. Having already got the chieftain and Johnson up, Marines tended to look up at them (through the ceiling) when close to being underneath. Also, when a Marine heads up but ends up coming back down into the jail, he may give a long scream. Shield activation can also send crates and other stuff flying about the place.

One time I put a Marine fractionally behind the shield plane, and when I activated it he shot vertically up then back against the cell wall where the impact killed him. His head then smacked against the shield as he bounced forth, causing an electric blue graphical effect. You can get yourself killed likewise; I did it a few times without needing a lot of attempts. So watch out - that shield is dangerous!

Body animation

Shield activation can make a body jerk around on the floor when you've left it straddling the shield plan. Try using a Brute; that seems to work better than a Marine. Sometimes the body can be jerking about for several seconds.

Something interesting can happen if you move crates or other stuff to block the jail entrance. The game can shunt things clear with considerable force, perhaps to try and ensure that Johnson and the chieftain have a clear area in which to enact the cutscene. However, the dispersal is done right at the start of the cutscene, which means that you'd normally have very little chance to see it. The cutscene is still fading in at that point. My advice would be to very quickly cancel the cutscene, and subsequently view things in Theater mode. Once you see the cancellation, freeze time and get a free-cam, and look for stuff flying through the air.

Forklift incoming!

In one of my experiments I'd moved two crates to block the door, plus a yellow forklift for good luck. The forklift got projected my way across the river, something I caught a glimpse of in the cutscene. Meanwhile the two crates had flown off downstream, way up high. Another time I tried a similar arrangement and this time it looked like everything flew off in that direction. Things were already rather distant by the time I could get a free-cam. That's a bit of a problem with this stuff to be honest. Getting a decent view of the dispersal is not easy, and a bit fickle. Incidentally, I've also tried putting the captive Marines just outside the doorway, but disappointingly, they didn't get dispersed.

And by the way…

While I'm here, can I please just say that the cutscene doesn't make sense? Johnson gets knocked back into the jail but not far enough to reach the cell area, and nor is there an enemy in there to raise the plasma shield anyway. So how the heck is he supposed to end up behind the shield? That's completely dumb. And so is Hocus' idiotically indiscriminate firing when she turns up. Never mind if you're doing a worthy job fending off a covie mob at close quarters - Hocus is going to rocket them off the face of the map and tough luck if you happen to be in the vicinity! And don't even get me started on the magical way in which rockets can shoot out of the Pelican in any direction. This is not stuff Bungie should be too proud of, methinks.

If the dam area is populated, there's a gunnerless Phantom hovering over the dam, ready to make a drop once the cutscene starts. You can have a bit of fun with this.

Stealing lots of cannons

From up on the metal framework extending from the pump station, it's not too hard to jump across to man the left cannon. Wait for the ship to drift relatively close, and preferably make your leap in such a manner that if you miss, you won't end up in the water. Turn as you near the cannon with RB down, else you're unlikely to get the manning prompt.

Once you're on the cannon, you can detach it then grab the magical instant replacement to stop from falling. It's a simple case of pressing B then RB. Repeat, and you can quickly end up with a pile of cannons on the dam. As for what you do with them, the obvious idea is to move them around to various places so that when you later activate the dam area (i.e. get the cutscene running), you'll be able to fight the entire battle with cannons. The game may remove some of them however.

Shunting the Phantom

By using a Brute shot and gravity hammer (and maybe grenades) you can shunt the Phantom away from its intended hovering place, though it'll soon start drifting back. If you trigger the cutscene fast enough, troops can end up getting dropped into the river, which is nice to see!

Here's one plan for shunting it appropriately. Standing underneath the back, fire a few Brute shot rounds to the front underside to get it moving downstream, then start using the hammer by jumping up to give the tail fins a whack. Don't do that when you're right on the back edge of the dam else the recoil can send you into the water - which is why I suggested starting with the Brute shot. When it's clear of the dam and you can no longer use the hammer, use the Brute shot again. Done right, the ship can end up level with the jail or thereabouts. When you subsequently trigger the cutscene, the drop-hole can be far away from the dam.

Tip: Don't repeat Brute shot rounds too rapidly. You can usually get better distance overall by letting the ship drift a bit after each shot. However, also try to retain ship momentum. In places where the ship seems to be stalling, it may pay to fire two shots relatively close together.

If you shunt the Phantom towards the pump station, it can merge quite a way into the building, making it slower to return to its normal place. One time I did this in such a way that the drop-hole was over the water. The dropped troops got wet, but not all died! A Grunt survived on a steep rocky face about three metres underwater. Presumably he hadn't reached the depth required for being killed.

While searching for material involving Phantoms on Sierra 117, I came across a 2009 forum thread from Bud entitled Caged Room. From his description, it sounds like he'd reached the dam area in the manner described here, except in co-op, judging from the fact that his second screenshot features Arbiter on a plasma cannon. His post was about moving the hovering Phantom to the 'caged room'. From the screenshots (still available as I write) I figured out where that room was - right below where you stand for the cutscene. However, I suspect it took the efforts of two or more players to move the Phantom that far. Playing solo on Easy with Cowbell on, I just can't get it over there. My fully stocked Brute shot runs out much too soon for that.

Here are some ideas for blocking enemies or allies to affect the battle. For maximum ease in moving things, you should preferably be armed with a Brute shot and gravity hammer, and you'd also want Cowbell on.

Blocking Arby from the battle

If you've ever wanted to tackle the dam area without Arby cluttering up the place, you can do so as follows. Set things up with the area deserted. Move some crates to block of both of the openings from which Arby could emerge after he jumps down from the cutscene area. To do things economically, just use one crate for each of the two exit routes from where Arby would normally reach the ground. The gaps are narrow to begin with, so only one crate is needed for each. Activate the cutscene to resume normal play, and Arby should get blocked. Sometimes he doesn't even bother jumping down as far as the bottom.

Tip: To get a crate over the rim of the surfaced area, one way is to use a grenade and follow up with a few Brute shot rounds if necessary (to stop it falling back down on the wrong side).

As an alternative idea, Arby could be kept back from a good chunk of the fighting by instead blocking the pump station's higher entrance with a crate. However, that would also block a lot of covies from reaching the dam area or beyond (including reinforcements dropped later), so you wouldn't get such an intense battle beyond that point. It's easier but less satisfactory.

Blocking enemies

With so many crates and other items around, there's plenty of potential for blocking enemies to affect the battling in the dam area, quite apart from the idea of blocking Arby. Here's an easy example. Block the broken bridge by the jail so that when reinforcements get dropped, they've nowhere to go. In due course, along comes Hocus and… BLAM! Covies flying everywhere. Nice. Another easy thing I tried was to block a small group of enemies which spawns in the long dark machine room area, not far from the jail. First time that happened, a Grunt went suicidal but couldn't make any progress against the oversized crate I used, so he ended up blowing the squad to bits. Thanks grunty, that'll do nicely!

© 2004-2020 by Rockslider