Sometimes, a Banshee pilot just doesn't want to leave!

(8:35) Level 2 ('Halo') on Normal. Back in BCM204 I covered the weird business of Banshee pilots falling dead in mid flight: the departure death anomaly. But that wasn't the only weirdness I saw with those Banshees. There's also this departure circling anomaly - and you can have a whole lot of fun with it, as you'll see!

Released December 11th 2016, gameplay recorded November 1st - December 9th 2016.

00:02 (Death anomaly reminder) To get things started, I thought I'd give a reminder of the departure death anomaly with this new example, where a Banshee is cruising down. There was a similar example in BCM204 starting around 3:22.

00:19 (Circling anomaly) Now to the main business. The Banshees are departing (I've just triggered it), but when they near the corner where they turn right, the rear one seems to be put off by the leader, causing it to veer left. Circling follows. After I close in and kill some Grunts coming over the bridge, I put two pistol rounds into the Banshee to demonstrate its lack of reaction as the circling continues.

01:24 (Another case of left-circling) Circling is initiated by interference between the Banshees, and here's another example, giving me a chance to explain in captions. The front Banshee appears to slightly cut across the path of the other, causing the latter to veer left and start left-circling.

01:36 (Right-circling) In this last example the rear Banshee is again caused to veer left because of the one in front. But this time it hits the leader and gets deflected upwards, ending up right-circling which is rare. The subsequent clip shows the circling closer up.

01:52 (Getting a handy checkpoint) Remember the first circling Banshee I showed you? We're back to that play now, and I illustrate how to get a handy delayed checkpoint for having repeated fun. When killing the covies in the high ground I'm a bit careless and lose a health bar, but it's ok; I'm still able to do the later grenade jump without needing to first use a medkit. When I eventually get back to the Banshee, there are a few covies to kill (the final troops of the early dropship), and then I get the checkpoint by hiding behind a tree - and I save it.

03:42 (Pistol fire) The rest of the movie is almost five minutes of fun using the save just created. In this first of thirteen clips I do the most obvious and simple thing; destroy the Banshee with pistol fire. It's already taken two rounds, hence (this being Normal difficulty) it takes just fifteen more to destroy it. For good measure I tag the wreck as it heads over the edge, causing it to spin as it falls.

04:06 (Tag 1 - third time lucky) In this relatively early bit of play on top of the rock, I successively modify my throw aim and timing, and finally nail a tag on the third try. Incidentally, you can also get up onto the rock from the other side (quicker but harder).

04:33 (Tag 2) Again I'm on the rock but this time I'm doing a throw for which I've already learnt an appropriate aim and timing. As such, I have the confidence to shift my view downwards after the throw, to get a good view of the tag happening (which wasn't a sure thing, but I stood a good chance). I subsequently zoom in on the flaming wreck and the pilot, with the ring in the background. Picturesque!

04:49 (Tag 3) Different location this time, but again I'm using a learnt aim and timing. Notice the engine sound as the wrecked Banshee plummets. That really adds something. In many other cases when I tagged like this, there was no such engine sound. Seems random. Another nice thing about this play is that you see a nice thick black smoke trail develop.

05:09 (Plasma balls) I'm on the rock again, but now I'm using plasma balls, after having learnt the appropriate timing for my aim. Here you see the final three strikes of five in a row.

05:31 (Plasma ball double) Here's my first clip involving the bridge. I stand somewhere near the middle, and weaken the Banshee with a dozen pistol rounds (beyond the two delivered prior to my save checkpoint), which is just enough to let me finish with a plasma ball. But that's not all. I hit the flying pilot with a plasma ball too, which was a difficult shot. It's a trick I did multiple times, but I chose this particular play because it gave the best view of hitting the pilot and of his body continuing on down, to be lost in the waterfall.

05:55 (Plasma ball with ring aim) Another case of weakening with pistol fire then delivering the final blow with a plasma ball. I planned this so I'd be aiming at the ring. I like how it looked.

06:14 (Plasma ball from low beam) After getting down to the low beam - which you have to be fairly careful about - I use my pistol fire and plasma ball combo once more, then I tag the Banshee as it heads down; and for fun I follow it.

06:46 (Plasma ball moon shot) Same combo again, but with a novel approach in regard to the viewpoint. I deliberately stand in a place where the Banshee will be crossing the moon, so I can focus on it for the plasma ball impact.

07:03 (Plasma pip) It's also fun to use a plasma pip for the final blow - as seen here after weakening the Banshee with fourteen pistol rounds.

07:25 (Plasma pip from waterfall) Having weakened the Banshee as before, this clip picks up the action where I jump down into the waterfall to deliver a plasma pip. Nice water sounds huh?

07:48 (Rifle catch) This is a clip I added to the movie quite late, after coming up with the idea of catching the pilot's plasma rifle. Looked pretty amusing I thought. Also I liked the novel view when doing the zoomed pistol fire, having a lot of glare to cope with.

08:12 (Squashed cyborg) To end, a comedy clip involving a nasty accident. Well, not really an accident; it was staged after experiencing an actual accident and realizing the comedy potential. I destroy the Banshee at just the right moment so it comes down on me. I did this a load of times and thought this was the best. It has a relatively good post-death view, and also a clear death sound which helps the comedy.

Closing remarks In regard to getting the handy checkpoint, I ended up with a plasma pistol on 82% charge but it would've been nice to have one with more (and indeed, I might've been able to get one with 100% charge from a dropship Grunt). Another slight shortcoming was my careless loss of a health bar. Also, my flashlight was quite depleted when I got the checkpoint (I wanted the flashlight to help brighten things up). At the time I did that set-up work, I was really thinking of it as being probably just a trial run, to let me start getting the feel for how the movie would be structured. That's why it was pretty casual. But after creating that save I started having some fun with it and got some nice footage, so I eventually decided to use it for the movie after all.

The footage of the right-circling Banshee was from November 1st, back before I released BCM204. That was my third circling sighting, out of sixteen I've counted. The rest of the footage is from December 3rd-9th.

I'll probably show more fun in a later movie, which is likely to include a Banshee right-circling. With right-circling I'll be able to get the destroyed Banshee flying off in different ways to what you saw here.

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