BCM375 - Warthog catapulting, self launching
(6:53) Level 2 ('Heroic') on Legendary. In recent movies I've been getting Stacker launched via Warthog catapulting (sometimes he rode the hog, sometimes he was ejected and got a kick), but now it's my turn! This is something I've been waiting to explore. Control is minimal and success often takes quite a few tries, but you can get some excellent results. Stacker is still present, but this time he's in the seat.
- Download: BCM375.mov (164.9 MB)
- Watch at HBO in full quality
Released September 1st 2019, gameplay recorded August 28th-31st 2019.
Commentary
00:02 (Setting up) Here's the end of the set-up used in the rest of the movie, using Legendary for maximum resilience to the boost, and with a fully healthy armoured Stacker in the seat. You'll be hearing quite a bit of hollering from him shortly! Incidentally, when I get the checkpoint my aim is towards the ground, but really it would make sense to have a standard tag aim instead. At the time I created this save, I wasn't all that familiar with self launching, so I just aimed at the ground like I've been doing before.
00:38 (Rides) Now here are seven rides and a good bit of aerial chain-gunning for fun. Stacker survives for one of the rides (1:17), but the rest of the time he's killed by the boost. Talking of which, you can see me using multiple grenading patterns for the boost. I was trying various things, hoping to find something which worked relatively well.
02:25 (Failures) Things are frustratingly random and failure occurs a lot, so I felt obliged to represent that in the movie, lest you get the impression it's all fun. Didn't want to use up much time on it though, so I've just got a comedy sequence of four foul-ups featuring acerbic comments from Stacker, and my occasional death. In reality there are various other ways things can fail.
02:46 (Kick-launches) As well as hog rides you can get some excellent kick-launches too, either by accident or intent. Here are five, ending in two rather high ones. I haven't yet managed the sort of monster launch that took Stacker to the interior waterfall area at the end of BCM373, but I'm hoping that'll come later.
04:00 (Boosts only) Another possibility is that your attempted launch gives you only the boost itself. That amounts to failure really (the Pelican isn't involved), although you can still go a fair way. Here are two examples. On the second, Stacker remains in the hog.
04:25 (9-ride finale) Back to the hog riding for a 9-ride finale. I'll comment on these separately. This first launch - with Stacker along for the ride - features fast rotation which produces an odd audio effect. There was already something similar in the 1:46 clip and the one after that.
04:43 An unusual and entertaining hog angle, as it heads to the bottom of the valley. By the way, Johnson is down there, deposited from the hog earlier (in a position similar to that seen in BCM372 around 5:22). Going back to an earlier clip, he's in shot around 1:58.
04:57 This was the first time I got launched to this area. I never did get there much, but that may just be because I wasn't using the most ideal grenading.
05:11 Pretty close to vertical, this one. Not terribly high though.
05:24 I made it onto this plateau a few times, and here's an example where Stacker was along for the ride. We even landed upright! I may do some exploration of this place in a later movie, shortly.
05:39 This launch and flight dynamic is similar to the 1:46 clip ("Whoa!"), except that the hog launches at a steeper angle and takes me close to landing on the opposite hilltop. Getting onto that hilltop and exploring it may be the topic of a forthcoming movie if I can manage it. Quite apart from the evidence of this clip, I know it's a viable target because I've got Stacker there a few times, as shown in the subsequent clip from about a week ago (on Heroic). I've included that because I haven't previously shown him reaching there. He did lots of riding in BCM372, but I only got him to that hilltop the day after releasing that movie.
06:09 In two previous movies I've shown the hog getting a second bounce from the Pelican. It would be nice to be aboard for such an occurrence, but I haven't done it yet. Got fairly close here though!
06:24 A nice fast-spinning ride to the upper stream area. As mentioned before, I didn't reach this area much; so this late example was very welcome. Unusually I tagged the hog rather high up. That was just something different I tried (late on), and surprisingly it worked.
06:37 One last ride with Stacker. "What is wrong with you?" A nice comedy clip on which to end.
Closing remarks I originally managed a bit of self launching back on August 9th, the day after releasing my first Warthog catapulting movie, so this movie is long overdue really. But I wanted to cover other stuff first.
More self launching coming soon I hope. In particular, I want to show some exploration of the small adjacent plateau, and I hope also to reach the hilltop across the valley. And in regard to kick-launching, it would be great if I could get some monster launches!