Some new engineering to maybe enhance the carnage.

(6:41) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Continuing with aggressive left side defence, I'm now using a set-up in which the Marines are nearer the battle zone, making for faster starts. It's actually a modification of the set-up seen in BCM89. Among the changes made, I added a spare rocket launcher and needler to the battle zone, along with a Ghost, and I also made sure that the big rock has the best design, easily climbable like it was in the previous movie. There are 50 covies and 12 Marines.

Released November 28th 2025, gameplay recorded November 27th 2025.

00:02 (Play 1 - Launcher & AR) In this first play I go in with my default combo of rocket launcher and AR. In the battle zone there's also a spare rocket launcher, so in total I have twenty rockets at my disposal, enabling me to really dish out the punishment! The spare is just in front of one of the stationary shields, and you can see it as I fly over. In this particular play I just use the spare for ammo, getting four rockets around 1:04 and another four around 1:42.

As for some of the battle incidents, I was pleased with my fourth rocket around 0:56, for which an aussie Marine shouts "Great shot, heh-hay!" But my favourite strike was towards the end, around 1:47 when I sent four panicking Grunts and a Jackal flying.

Of course, my final rocket was a little unfortunate. In going for the last Jackal, I didn't notice the Marine near the rock. My rocket didn't kill the Jackal, by the way. He was already dead when rocket arrived.

There was a friendly fire incident by Johnson too, around 1:32 when he was trying to get a Grunt. But at least he apologised.

02:04 (Play 2 - Needler & plasma rifle) The theme of this play is heavy needle use. Along the way, I top up my ammo using the spare needler I'd moved to the battle zone. That needler is half sunken into the snow incidentally. You can see it around 3:32 when I head for it.

In this play I especially enjoyed he bit around 3:46 when I jump up onto the pipe block and pile a stream of needles into a distracted blue Elite.

04:17 (Play 3 - Rock-top special) In the first play I did a brief bit of rocketing from up on the large rock, but this time I make that activity the core feature, doing my best to decimate the covies as they arrive, trying to target the Elites in particular, and especially the reds. I do a pretty good job with that (looks like I killed 9 Elites outright, and badly hurt a few others), but it's dangerous work up there and I'm reduced to my last health bar when needled by my final victim.

Thereafter, I jump into the Ghost which gives me good protection, and for a while I hover around targeting multiple covies. Amusingly, a red Elite gets splattered just as I'm about to dismount to finish things off on foot. I'd topped up my rocket supply after coming down off the rock, and I put a couple of those rockets to good use in blasting some distracted Jackals. I actually hadn't known whether I'd topped up. Didn't notice, as I was focused on reaching the Ghost. But when I switched to the launcher just in case, I saw that I indeed had fresh rockets. Yay!

In this play of course, I did without chain-gun support and didn't board the hog at all. That was partly for variation and partly with the idea of getting onto the rock quickly, but it also serves to highlight that you of course don't need to always be driving to the battle zone.

Closing remarks With this new set-up the combat gets properly under way around 6 seconds faster than with the one in the previous movie. But more importantly, the squad joins me at the battle zone more promptly. Previously this catch-up time was around 18 seconds (as judged by when they got close enough to open fire), but now it's more like 10 seconds. So I've got full support much sooner.

In creating the modification (of the save used in BCM89) I chose to eliminate the Hunters originally present. That was just to reduce the challenge level somewhat. Those fuel rod cannons count for a lot! I did actually try things with the Hunters at first, but the battling (i.e. with aggressive left side defence) was hard to survive, so I decided to cut the Hunters. That leaves me with 16 Elites (7 being red), 12 Jackals and 22 Grunts. That's almost the same as in the last movie; just a Jackal and Grunt short.

The spare rocket launcher was originally inside the Marine pen. How did I move it to the battle zone? That took some care because of the covie presence of course. Initially I landed in the pen, picked it up (swapping it for a plasma pistol), flew out with it, and dropped it in the safe area preceding the battlefield. After checkpointing, I then made attempts at getting it blasted into an acceptable position at the battle zone, using the Banshee. Took a few tries before I got lucky enough.

As for the spare needler, that had initially been just outside the pen (you can see it in BCM89 as I fly in). Moving that to the battle zone was relatively easy. I just used Banshee blasting, after first checkpointing to make attempts.

Banshee blasting is also how I got a Ghost to the battle zone, though it was a bit laborious. It had initially been near the underpass, so it had quite a way to go!

In the original save, the two Warthogs had been almost side-by-side. In my modification work though, I barged the unmanned one back out of the way, to give me a cleaner approach for my favoured 'drop-in' boarding method seen in all three plays.

For some reason, with this set-up Cortana never seems to speak at the end of battle. Quite unlike what we had in the previous movie. I'm not sure why that is, but I prefer it as it eliminates a repetitive element (so in particular, it's good for the movie).

In all three plays, I released the penned Marines using a blast just past the rightmost Ghost, and I also tried to do it when no Marine was in the vicinity (though a Marine does get hurt on my third blast; you can see a blood patch appear). That was my favoured way of releasing them with minimal harm. I'd tried other ways, but they were often causing deaths by splattering, which was no good.

As in the previous movie, Johnson and three of the Marines are actually invisible to the covies, which is obviously rather nice for them!

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