BCM440 - Tower zone megabattle, four plays of the set-up

(6:20) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Normal. Here are four varied plays of the tower zone megabattle set-up seen created in the last movie. More coming next!

Released August 4th 2023, gameplay recorded July 28th - August 2nd 2023.

Commentary

00:02 (Play 1 - By the Shade slope) As I recall, this was the first place I settled in for some serious battling with my set-up. In my early playing there (recording for the movie) I was using a plasma rifle and AR, and I had one such play in an early draft of the movie. But later on I retained my rocket launcher to couple that with an AR, and it made for more fun and spectacle. This was my favourite such play.

Among the highlights, there's a very satisfying rocketing of a blue Elite up on the slope around 0:58, then shortly afterwards, two rocket blasts send covies flying off the slope. Plus there's a tricky rocket shot at the end, where I manage to hit an airborne Grunt. I just thought I'd go for it, as I still had a rocket left.

The play also serves to highlight some fun you can have with a shifted front Shade. Namely, doing a blast and ram as you head for a defence position. One other thing I'll mention: my very first Banshee blast takes out a Grunt who's initially a bit isolated from the mob. His position there was handy in that regard. You may see him come in for special treatment also in some later plays!

Incidentally, survival was hard in this situation. The covies potentially target you from two sides on the ground, and also from up on the slope! It was pretty essential to kill Elites fast.

In this play I didn't bother with the rear Shade Grunt. He tends not to move much, often remaining at the tower corner; so in my battles I usually only bother killing him if he's nearby.

01:36 (Play 2 - Ghost fun) In the set-up, I made a point of moving a Ghost to a new place for potential later use. This second play serves to give an example. It's a pretty straightforward slaughtering of the mob, but also includes a spot of stunt fun using the overturned Wraith around 2:35. Plus there's an amusing bit around 3:03 when a fumbled plasma takes out the final Elite. I could see that the Elite was about to get killed by the blast, so I deliberately held off on targeting him.

03:18 (Play 3 - Shade plateau bottleneck) I soon realised that this gap made for a very nice bottleneck, and here I use my initial weapon combo of plasma rifle and rocket launcher to do the job. Unlike the other three battle types featured in the movie, I actually only did a few plays here, because I quickly got this one (it may even have been my first) and thought it would be fine for the movie. Aside from some very satisfying rocketing, it includes two tags on blue Elites and a Grunt launch at the end.

04:29 (Play 4 - Ice patch) As well as giving the flipped Wraith a showing, this last play is partly to give an example of something you can do to shape a battle, namely to initially stretch out the mob so the battling is easier to handle in the early intense phase. That said, surviving on the ice here was still crazily hard, even with the cover of the Wraith. I did lots of plays and was most often killed.

Here's one of the times I prevailed though, and it includes something amusing you can do with an overturned Wraith: flip it to give you a momentary view of the enemy (5:37). You might also notice that my moving around was causing the mob to flock to various places. You can actually use that to control things to some extent.

Shortly after the struggle, having just needled a blue Elite who turned up unusually late, I remember about the rear Shade Grunt and decide to add him to the death count. Actually I wouldn't normally bother because he's quite a way off, but it did give me the opportunity to pull off a long-range tag for a finale.

Closing remarks Nothing extra to say, except, another four plays coming up next!