If you thought that pilot got a good going-over last time, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

(7:38) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. Continuing with the oddly stuck Banshee of BCM178, I fetch a Banshee of my own to see about having some more fun - with spectacular results! I've crammed a load of action into this movie. Six and a half minutes of pilot punishment in a veritable fuel rod fiesta, after a quick account of the set-up work.

Released June 3rd 2016, gameplay recorded May 24th - June 1st 2016.

00:02 (Setting up) I don't usually show set-up work in my 'fun' movies, but in this case I thought I'd give a quick account of it, because it only takes a minute and makes quite a nice little sequence. To descend from the bridge I do a standard Shade ride. I don't want to use the other Shade, because my presence on that side of the bridge might cause the pilot to shift his Banshee or even fall out. No point risking it. When I return with the twin bridges Banshee, I'm keeping a tunnel checkpoint delayed and I end my firing before getting into the original area. In some other plays when I was trying to delay longer to get the checkpoint a bit closer to the Banshee, it didn't work, because apparently the game considered me under enemy threat. So here I settled for a checkpoint quite far off. It turned out fine though.

01:06 (Clip 1) I chose this clip to open with because when I blast the Banshee and the pilot pops out, he gives a greeting which is seen close up. It kind of introduces him. I give him a fairly light tap and it kills him. Actually I think the Banshee rotation may've been responsible for that.

01:14 (Clip 2) Now you see a second way of getting him out: ramming the Banshee. It quie often fails, but the chance seems to go up if he's tried to shift the Banshee a bit. Anyway, on this occasion it works, and after falling with him for a while, I finish with a close-range blast which damages my Banshee.

01:21 (Clip 3) This shows a third way he can emerge. Spontaneously - without blasting or ramming. Possibly it happens because he's trying to get a better view of you, briefly causing his Banshee to reach an untenable angle. I found ways of approaching which encouraged spontaneous ejection. This example uses an approach along the cliff which almost guarantees it. Here he hits the cliff and I finish him with a blast. I was aiming for him but the shot appears to hit the wall.

01:28 (Clip 4) Here I'm using another approach for trying to cause spontaneous ejection - approaching from the left. In this example you don't see the ejection very well because it gets obscured by the reticle, but it happens just after I send in a shot. My goal was to have a shot arrive just after ejection, to try and get him blasted away from the Banshee. Spontaneous ejection is more fun that way. Works very nicely here, and I ram him.

01:35 (Clip 5) This is one of only two clips in which I attack from up high. I blast him out and he passes under me, but I rotate and kill him with a long-range blast, just in time before he dies from falling. You'll see several long-range blasts in the movie, and let me say, they're not easy to pull off! Actually, even scoring a relatively close hit is a challenge.

01:43 (Clip 6) After blasting him out from a long way down, a spot of plasma fire weakens him and I finish with a fuel rod shot when he's close. He amusingly zooms past, screaming.

01:53 (Clip 7) Approaching from the left again, I blast him out and he heads down the cliff face. Just after he dies from falling, my second shot hits the ledge and boosts the body away, and also detonates a dropped plasma. It's something I was deliberately trying for, and later you'll see examples in which two grenades detonate. This clip is is the only one with a spiralling descent however, and that's part of why I included it.

02:03 (Clip 8) Here I ram the Banshee from below. The pilot pops out and is immediately killed by his own Banshee, getting knocked his way.

02:11 (Clip 9) Once again I approach from the left in such a way as to encourage spontaneous ejection. This time it's well seen (unlike in clip 4), not obscured by the reticle. I give him a peppering as we both fall, then I finish with a very satisfying blast when he gets close.

02:20 (Clip 10) Late in the evolution of the movie, I found that if I left-circled quite tightly like this before ramming, ejection became very likely, unlike the case when ramming directly from the left. Very interesting. It's as if the Banshee becomes briefly very vulnerable, and even a very gentle ram could get him out. In this example the ram is gentle indeed. You'll see three other left-circling approaches later, in which I either ram or blast the Banshee.

02:31 (Clip 11) Ramming the Banshee from the side, the pilot gets ejected onto the bridge. When I curve around, I can see that he's an easy target for a fuel rod blast, but I get creative instead and blast the Shade onto him.

02:48 (Clip 12) Blasting the pilot out, I pepper him with plasma as he falls down the cliff face, then I blast the cliff wall to finish him off.

02:57 (Clip 13) From down near the ledge, I send up a shot which blasts the pilot out. Plasma fire weakens him as he falls, and then BLAM! - he's finished with a carefully aimed fuel rod shot.

03:07 (Clip 14) My ram doesn't work so I try a quick blast too, just in case. Still no luck, and the Banshee gets free - but I bring it down with a nice fuel rod shot. That's a good thing about this fun; if the Banshee ever works free, you can enjoy blasting it.

03:22 (Clip 15) Blasted out, the pilot slides along the top of my Banshee (without taking damage I think), then I rotate and score a hit with a long-range fuel rod shot. It's not actually the blast which kills him though, otherwise you would've heard another type of death cry. Fractionally after the blast, he dies from falling. But it's so close, it looks the blast gets him. It was a satisfying shot anyway.

03:31 (Clip 16) Swooping around in a right curve, I ram the Banshee and he pops out, after which I pepper and blast - and clatter the ledge hard!

03:42 (Clip 17) Approaching from below, I blast the pilot out and pepper him as he falls. But I let the Banshee fall too, and our speeds get close enough that he's able to survive a bounce off the nose, even though he's already hurting. Seeing where he's heading, I pick my time and blast the ledge to finish him off.

03:51 (Clip 18) The pilot spontaneously pops out and is momentarily supported by the left wing, but then my fuel shot blasts him towards the cliff face. My next blast hits the ledge just after he dies from falling, and detonates both plasmas, sending him flying across the battlefield. My best plasma detonation clip, I think.

04:01 (Clip 19) This clip picks up after I've just rammed the underside of the Banshee's tail to make it more vulnerable to my next ram. The pilot ends up on the V, and after I blast his falling Banshee for fun (quite a nice shot), I head back up and blast the pilot too. Incidentally, ending up on the V wasn't freaky; he quite easily ends up there.

04:21 (Clip 20) The events here follow the same pattern as in clip 13, again involving waiting for the pilot to come down before finishing him with a fairly level fuel rod shot. In this clip though, I also like how his Banshee falls past me after I look down.

04:31 (Clip 21) A curving ram fails but I follow with a quick blast and that does the job. He heads out on an unusual trajectory, and as my Banshee falls I try to weaken him with plasma fire. He's a very tricky target though, and only one plasma pip connects. When I finally unleash a fuel rod shot to try and finish him off, I'm pleasingly on target (I thought it was likely I'd miss), but because he hasn't been weakened enough, it doesn't actually kill him. Death comes from falling, fractionally later. Still a nice bit of action though.

04:42 (Clip 22) After spontaneous ejection, my fuel rod shot arrives and sends him down the cliff face. Seeing where he's heading, I zero in on the area and fire a second blast, scoring a direct hit.

04:52 (Clip 23) Something new now: firing up from directly under the bridge (I didn't do much of that). The pilot is blasted out and I ram him.

05:02 (Clip 24) After getting the pilot out with a curving ram, I let my Banshee fall in sync while peppering him with plasma, then I finish him with a fuel-rod blast.

05:13 (Clip 25) The pilot emerges spontaneously and my blast completely misses, but there's still entertainment to be had. Letting my Banshee fall, he bounces off the nose and gets hurt, then I get him with a long-range fuel rod shot.

05:24 (Clip 26) Here's the second of my two high-approach clips. He dies just before reaching the ledge but my ledge blast detonates two plasmas, to pleasing effect.

05:34 (Clip 27) After spontaneous ejection my fuel rod blast sends him my way, and I ram him. He ends up on the lower deck of the bridge. Poor fella didn't get far at all!

05:40 (Clip 28) A nice long-range fuel rod shot, though I think he only dies fractionally after, from falling.

05:51 (Clip 29) When he pops out from my ram, he skims through the bridge support (I've seen him end up on there a few times) and ends up bouncing back away from the wall. I fly an intercept course to blast him at very close range, but fire fractionally too late. He's actually killed by being rammed; then my fuel rod shot hits him and detonates at least one plasma grenade, killing me. Whoops!

06:04 (Clip 30) This clip features a third way of encouraging spontaneous ejection, namely involving flying to the left of the Banshee, above the bridge or thereabouts. It was a method I only discovered quite late, and although it wasn't as reliable as the other two, I spent a while trying it. In this example I score a nice long-range fuel rod hit.

06:13 (Clip 31) Approaching quite steeply from the left, I fire a fuel rod shot and he fires one back! This wasn't the first time I'd got shot at like that, but it was a big surprise the first time, because I didn't think he could fire while stuck. He subsequently escapes, but it's not long before he meets an explosive demise.

06:35 (Clip 32) A straightforward ram, though rather a nice one.

06:42 (Clip 33) Curving around to make the pilot more susceptible to ejection, he's blasted out and we fall. I'm not sure if my fuel rod shot is a direct hit or if it hits the wall, but whatever it was, he's toast.

06:53 (Clip 34) Yet another ejection via blasting. I weaken him with plasma, then finish him off with a blast. Unlike in the similar clip 6, I keep him continually in sight down to the ground.

07:02 (Clip 35) This clip has the same pattern as clip 4. Spontaneous ejection, then he's blasted up and rammed. This time though, his shield flickers and he goes higher, so I think it's a bit more spectacular.

07:09 (Clip 36) To end, another plasma detonation event. But the real reason I chose this clip to end on was the comedy with the Marines afterwards, in which I accidentally kill one of them when flying low. Seems like I got a bit too showy there!

Closing remarks That oddly stuck Banshee is really providing me with a lot of fun huh? I knew I could get a movie out of attacking with a Banshee of my own. I'd done a short test earlier, and I've had this movie planned since then. But things turned out even better than I anticipated. My original thought had been to get the pilot out by ramming, but when it came to making the movie, I soon also got into blasting him out, or blasting him after spontaneous ejection.

Hitting the falling pilot with fuel rod blasts wasn't easy and it took me a while to get used to the aiming, to stand a better chance of being on target. It remained quite challenging but it became the most satisfying aspect of the whole business; and as you probably noticed, several clips show long-range shots.

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