You know what they are, right? Perpetual motion Marines!

(7:32) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. I got some good results in the previous movie but fell short of the real goal I had, namely of getting the Marines fully penned in by Ghosts and diving for an extended period. So I fired up the Xbox to try again!

Released July 22nd 2026, gameplay recorded July 19th 2026.

00:02 (Play 1 - Hole trouble) To clarify, I'm following on with the same save I was using for the final play in the last movie, and the new plays shown here are in chronological order. In this first try there was trouble with a hole, and basically I couldn't fix it (and incidentally, my first whack actually hit the wrong Ghost, making the hole bigger). The other guy found an escape shortly afterwards too, and I gave up.

01:04 (Play 2 - Got ONE guy at least) One Marine gets killed here when I try to get him diving again. Oops! But at least I get one guy penned in and diving for an extended time. After about two minutes I break it up.

02:09 (Play 3 - Deadly dismount) Cautionary tale. A number of times, I got killed in a dismount like this.

02:27 (Play 4 - Sliding Ghosts) Bit of a problem with sliding Ghosts here, a major trouble with this business. The two Ghosts on the left of the hog slide away. I'm not sure whether they were set in motion by my Ghost, or a moment earlier by my Banshee. But whatever, it's no good. My Ghost certainly set one of the other Ghosts in motion. Pity we weren't on level ground; could've been a lot less frustrating!

02:49 (Play 5 - Another unfortunate killing) The guys dive together for about 30 seconds, before one of them gets into a hole. In trying to get him back inside, I end up killing him. I continued with the other guy (action not shown), but he broke out about 25 seconds later, after I moved the rear right Ghost to try and fill the gap.

03:44 (Play 6 - Mass Ghost-slide) When I shift a Ghost, it sets another in motion, and in due course that one gets three others sliding. The Marine that was still diving gets slowly carried off in the midst of this Ghost-slide, which made an amusing sight I thought. In total, the 4-Ghost slide lasted almost 80 seconds! It continued for about 46 seconds after my final clip, taking the Banshee with it and settling on the ice.

04:51 (Play 7 - Success) Those previous six plays were from a 25-minute session. When I returned to the Xbox a few hours later to continue the toil, I was finally rewarded, with the very first play giving me what I wanted.

After filling a gap using melee on a Ghost, things seem to be looking good. After around 2 minutes of diving, the guy who'd been diving around mainly to the left of the hog worked his way to the other side, and the guys seemed to be locked into that side from then on. I watched them for a long time, getting different views for potential inclusion in the movie (I was already looking forward to the later editing). There's quite a picturesque view at 6:19, in which I'm static and get a pistol animation.

Eventually I disrupt their groove with plasma fire, sending them over towards the other side to see what would happen. Perhaps surprisingly, they soon both escape. Well, that certainly shows that my pen wasn't foolproof. But in total they'd been diving together for about 9 minutes, so this play certainly counted as a success. If I hadn't disrupted them, maybe they'd still be going!

Closing remarks A further sequel coming next, or possibly later? Could be!

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