Step one: do we even have a cubby-hole Grunt? Fingers crossed!

(5:50) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. The first few minutes of this movie show how you can quickly set up for convenient cubby-hole Grunt play, with or without the room's music. I used such a set-up for the work with the orange Grunt in the previous movie. In the rest, I use the set-up in addressing a few matters, including a hot new tip on getting him 'swimming'.

Released September 16th 2026, gameplay recorded September 13th-15th 2026.

00:02 (Setting up with music) This is all being done in standard play, and I've arrived with a pistol and needler. That combo is what I suggest. Notice that I initially don't bother killing the Grunts near the door, as it would be wasted time if there's no cubby-hole guy. I do whack one Grunt on the way to check, but that was just because he was directly in my path.

As hinted at in the captions, I actually leave some of the Grunts alive who I didn't expect to be a bother. That was just to have some background vocals for amusement and atmosphere. To get the delayed checkpoint it was necessary to be quite a way back from the Grunt. Too close, and enemy threat continues the delay.

02:03 (Or without the music) If you prefer not to have the music, just modify the work a little by including sending the lift up, as shown.

02:24 (Pistol headshots) In some previous work with pistol headshots (facing him square-on or thereabouts), I'd noticed that I was only getting the swimming if the round sent him backwards, rather than to either side. That's what this section concerns. It includes a half-speed slo-mo to highlight the bounce which sends him forwards into the death flight animation. Incidentally, for that clip I'd killed the music, as I didn't think it was going to sound very good at half-speed.

03:35 (New melee tip) Investigating ways of getting cubby-hole Grunts swimming, I found that this melee method gave impressive success rates, as tested on three set-ups. For this set-up I got a success rate of 84%, measured across 100 tries. Here I show three successes in a row (easy to get), plus a slo-mo of the bounce. I also got a high success rate when aiming the whack directly at his head, rather than somewhat past it, but it was a bit lower.

I also looked into pistol headshots but the results were mixed, though sometimes excellent. So for now at least, this melee method is my top recommendation.

Note: in regard to my plasma throw at 4:02, it catches on a paw by chance, which I hadn't been aiming for. If you inspect the frames, you'll see that the grenade is actually a short way past his paw-tip (so it's not visibly touching at all). That helps explain why the rotating plasma trace is so striking.

04:26 (Swimming time limited) In the course of making the movie, I realised that if you just leave a Grunt 'swimming', he'll eventually break free and settle. Or so it seems, based on my testing so far. I've been getting times of just over 4 minutes, if he's left undisturbed. Previously I'd assumed the swimming could continue indefinitely.

04:56 (Swimming via explosive needle attack) Moving to a few bits of fun on which to end the movie, here's a Grunt getting sent into swimming mode with an explosive needle attack. I'm not sure it's actually the bang that killed him though (which is what I wanted). From the nature of his death-cry, maybe it was a follow-up needle. But whatever, it took quite a lot of tries to get this.

05:24 (Floating death anomaly via plasma ball) Here's another first: floating death anomaly via plasma ball! And likewise, it tends to take a lot of tries. This is actually the only example I managed to get. But it was a good one, so yay.

Closing remarks This movie was originally what I was working on for BCM689. But partly because of needing to do more investigative work on good ways of getting the 'swimming', I realised I'd need more time before I could finish it. Also, I was keen to show the floating death anomaly without much delay, because that was a hot new find. So I put the tutorial movie aside and shifted my anomaly work to the head of the queue. But anyway, I've got the tutorial movie out at last.

© 2004-2026 by Rockslider