I've driven all the way down in a Ghost, but now how about using a hog?

(7:27) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. After finding that I could drive a Ghost all the way down the entry chamber (see the last two movies), the obvious question was: can I drive a Warthog down too? See how things went, when I finally got one up to the bridge!

Released June 13th 2017, gameplay recorded June 8th-12th 2017.

00:02 (Opening) This footage was left over from doing speed runs for BCM244. It features a particularly nice platform drop, so I thought I'd use it for the opening, which orients the movie by raising the idea of whether a hog could descend the entry chamber.

00:16 (Blasting the hog up) To get a hog up to the bridge, I initially tried using the 14-frag pile seen in BCM242, but the hog never seemed to be going high enough. I tried condensing the pile somewhat (using Banshee blasts), hoping for better control and possibly additional boost, but it still wasn't looking promising. After a lot of tries, I decided to get additional frags from the three Marines in the crashed Pelican area, who hadn't yet been triggered. They gave me an extra four which made a pile of 18. However, the results were initially disappointing and I can't say I noticed much difference in terms of launch height, though it was very random. After umpteen failures I put the save aside until the next day, when I finally got the hog up as seen. Quite a relief!

Incidentally, the spare Banshee seen on the bridge is the platform Banshee, which I'd moved there in advance (an unimportant detail). In subsequent play, it's what I used for getting delayed tunnel checkpoints.

00:41 (Completing the set-up) Getting the hog through to the entry chamber was easy. I avoided going through the middle of the first room because I thought it might be risky going over the small glass bridge, but actually I checked later and it's pretty safe.

Before trying to take my Banshee through, I played safe by getting a delayed tunnel checkpoint, because of how difficult it had been to get the hog up. And it's just as well that I did, because a wing of the Banshee got caught in the first door (I was a bit rusty and didn't get through fast enough), and when I dismounted I got splattered! Thanks to the checkpoint, I was able to simply try again.

After getting the Banshee through, I assembled a weapon stash just in case I wanted other weaponry sometime, though I wasn't expecting to make any use of it as far as this movie went. Then I brought back a delayed tunnel checkpoint to complete my save. All this work is greatly condensed in the movie; just the key elements are indicated.

01:24 (Trying the first drop) The drop from the LZ turned out to be a no-go, which was disappointing. I tried lots of times but the wall just wasn't slowing the hog enough. This sequence shows a few of my tries, including the first and second.

02:09 (New set-up) Having given up on that, I modified the save (or more specifically a copy of it) to prepare for trying to drive the hog down from the annular plain - which would still be a fine thing. Before getting my new delayed checkpoint, I rocketed my Banshee over the edge so I could potentially launch back up. That's not shown (because it turned out to be irrelevant), but for several seconds at 2:46 you can see a yellow dot on the tracker, which is the Banshee in motion.

02:50 (The second drop and beyond) There's a bunch of clips now which indicate how I progressed over the next 40 minutes or so. The clips are in chronological order and include quite a few comical failures.

It took a while before I got the knack of how to drop to the first platform. I eventually did it with a bit of a spin, though in one later clip (5:34) you can see it done with a roll/corkscrew, which was basically accidental I think - a spin gone wrong.

Dropping to an alcove likewise took a while to get the hang of, but I was able to do it with a spin (4:15 shows my first success) or roll (4:47) - though it was certainly more difficult than using a Ghost.

As for the subsequent platform drop though, that turned out to be a no-go. Getting the distance was one issue, but more critically I was getting killed in mid-air before reaching the level of the platform.

06:20 (Rim running) Sadly then, the idea of descending via hog was a washout. However, there's still some fun to be had - namely what I call 'rim running'. It's harder than it looks, and to begin with I slipped off quite a bit. But in this clip you see me doing it well, though at 6:59 I scuff the wall which is a potentially dangerous imperfection (it can make you start to slip down, and recovery could be tricky).

07:09 (Suicide) This is just a spot of comedy to end with, but it also gave me a chance to show a little bit of driving on the annular plain.

Closing remarks It was disappointing that the hog couldn't descend after all, but it really brought home a significant difference between a hog and a Ghost. When falling in a Ghost, acceleration under gravity is reduced (or at least, that's my interpretation of what's going on), hence it takes longer for you to reach the speed at which the game would kill you - and the net effect is that you can fall further before you're killed in mid-air, compared to if you were in a hog.

Except for the opening clip from June 8th (left over from doing speed runs for BCM244), the footage is from Sunday June 11th and just past midnight. The clips are in chronological order.

Incidentally, this wasn't the first time someone got a hog to the entry chamber. I'm not sure how many folk have made the effort, or who did it first, but for example Dark Helmet did it in his video 'More fun in AOTCR', which you can find in his HIH video archive. It looks to me like he used maybe 14 frags to blast the hog up to the bridge. As I mentioned, I was having trouble getting enough height with 14. It's possible that his arrangement was better somehow, or maybe he got lucky, or maybe there's some relevant difference with NTSC/PC compared to PAL.

© 2004-2020 by Rockslider