Another pair of plasma-happy varmints get busy with the grenades, this time in the second octagonal room…

(5:17) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Legendary. This shows two grenade crazy Grunts in the second octagonal room, including setting things up fast with a handy checkpoint.

Released August 22nd 2011, gameplay recorded August 16th-21st 2011.

00:02 (Setting up) In this first section I set things up fast with a handy checkpoint for playing about with two of the four platform Grunts.

Approaching the bridge's exit door, I throw a few plasmas which take care of the minor enemies nicely. The gold Elite gets a plasma ball and a couple of whacks. I don't say that was the safest way of dispatching him, but it was satisfying and makes for nice footage. Actually, a nice thing to do with him is just tag him and run on past without stopping. That also has the benefit of keeping the checkpoint delay going until the grenade goes off, saving you from having to do any jumping yet. A checkpoint got triggered in the second short section of the passage and I want to keep that delayed, so I start jumping. I'm jumping more frequently than I need to here. It's usually ok to take a step between jumps, which makes course adjustments easier, but I'd sort of forgotten about that.

00:23 Set with pistol and frag grenades, I start eliminating all unwanted enemies in the room. In this case I only want the two platform Grunts to the right (even though the two on the left can likewise be used for grenade crazy fun). I throw two careful frags down the left side. The first is deep, designed to hurt or kill the Elite, while the second is shallow and is for taking care of some Grunts. If the nearest platform Grunt had stayed up I would've got him with the pistol as I closed in, but in fact he dives off - straight into the frag blast. The deeper blast audibly hurts the Elite and clues me in to his whereabouts. He's still just visible as I turn the corner, making it easy to finish him off with a shot. I tag the second high Grunt and headshoot an arrival.

00:40 Hunters next. I fire a shot as I approach, intended to encourage them my way (with speed in mind), but it loses me a possible element of surprise. When I backstep to drop the Hunter, the high Grunt gets quickly aggressive with his plasma pistol and sets my shield bleeping, something I could've avoided by instead side-stepping the Hunter to get him in the back, safe under the Grunt's platform. I'm ok though. I make sure to stay underneath for a moment while killing the other Hunter, then I head back to get the delayed checkpoint at my pre-planned starting position, with flashlight on. Set-up done.

01:03 (Left Grunt) First I'm going to play with the Grunt on the left. It was this one who I first experienced going grenade crazy by accident, months earlier. I start by eliminating the other one with a spot of tagging. He's good at diving clear of an incoming plasma, but this time I get him and the blast brings the roof down, so to speak. I've soon got the left Grunt throwing grenades and backing off, and I draw his aim to a particular spot to get a grenade pattern similar to the first one seen in BCM38. Again this is at 20 grenades per minute.

01:59 I briefly draw his aim to the right, to make it safer to then draw it to a spot at the edge of the entrance I came through, to show you another nice grenade pattern at maximum throwing rate. In this pattern a grenade gets blown back high, settles, and then diverts an incoming grenade up to the ceiling.

02:57 After catching that dynamic a few times I move in for the finale. My plan here was to tag the Grunt low to send him high, but my aim was a bit off so I throw again. That one's a hit - "Not again!" - and up he goes. Amusingly he ends up going through the shattered window, to settle with his spiky friends.

03:21 (Right Grunt) Heading in to play with the right Grunt, a few shots help bring him up top quickly, and with another I smash a window. Ok so I like the sound. The left Grunt gets a quick headshot, then I go to work on the other. As you'll see, he starts backing off without even throwing, which was thanks to my distance and close fire. It was just such a happening that led me to my refined initiation method, which came a bit late for explicit inclusion in my two movies (I didn't want to re-do all my grenade play footage after spending so long getting what I had). He only actually starts throwing when I move into range. At that point, he's already backed off into the standard stumbling position at the base of the slope.

03:37 I move to the right to draw his aim there. Grenades start heading in and I almost get caught out by one that gets deflected high, which I briefly lose track of. After a short while however, he starts including a bit of shooting, and soon he's only shooting. I was expecting all this and wanted to show it in the movie. It's typical behaviour when you get him throwing to his side of the platform (the left Grunt did a bit of this too, around 2:05). I move in for a closer look, and you can see his paw intermittently clipping through the platform, which is how some shots can avoid getting blocked.

04:16 With a bit of shooting to let him know where I am, I get him throwing to a new spot for another grenade pattern at maximum rate, and move around to vary the view.

04:57 Ok, time to finish off the clip - and my grunty assailant. With mischief in mind, I send in a plasma behind him. Sometime he'll dive off the platform when you do this, but this time he's not quick-witted enough and the blast sends him sailing out to my waiting fist. SMACK! Cyborg justice is done.

Closing remarks As mentioned in my article, you can instead set things up with a delayed lift checkpoint. Normally I would've done that to get rid of the music, which can get a bit much if you're playing around for a long time, but here I was just trying to set things up as fast as possible. Besides which, I expect most people would be happy with the music anyway, and it also make a contrast to the companion movie BCM38 dealing with the first octagonal room. Actually my set-up work could've been faster by at least ten seconds. In particular you can save time by tagging the gold Elite without stopping.

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