Exploring some new territory, courtesy of Warthog catapulting…

(7:55) Level 2 ('Halo') on Heroic. Using a copy of the Warthog catapulting save seen created in the last movie, I make it onto the nearby coastal plateau with Stacker and the hog, then save a consolidating checkpoint and go exploring! There's quite a bit of fun on offer.

Released September 10th 2019, gameplay recorded September 2nd-8th 2019.

00:02 (Reaching the plateau) Reaching the plateau took a load of tries. I show just five entertaining failures here. The fifth is a near miss and I got quite a few of those. Eventually though, the hog narrowly makes the distance and even Stacker survives, which is what I was hoping for. I get him back aboard and park on the peak to wait for the dropship 2 checkpoint, which I then save.

02:00 (Entrance guard) As exploration begins, I get a view of the entrance guard who's oblivious to me, and I send down a plasma, tagging him on the head. Couldn't resist.

02:18 (Early slopes) After checking out the initial friendly slopes along the edge (on which I'd previously seen Stacker land, e.g. in BCM372 around 4:00), there's a much steeper area, and part of that is so steep that you only just have grip. With movement joystick forward, I oscillate up and down for a while as I try to get back up.

02:53 (Later slopes) Further along, there's more steepness. The far side of that is ok to grip. The other side looks similar but is actually too steep. Whoops!

03:10 (Descent via rock cushion) At the end of this side I manage to do a descent via rock cushion. Didn't even lose a health bar! This is on PAL Xbox though. I doubt you'll survive it on NTSC/PC.

03:30 (Dodgy scenery) Along the coastal side I spend a while looking at some glitchy scenery. Evidently Bungie wasn't expecting you to be getting a view from here.

04:00 (Coastal ledge) Looking down, there's a tempting ledge! I try to land on it but get killed. After reverting, I wait for a checkpoint so I can do retries easily; and eventually I make it down (though it's only just possible). What you see here is actually the second time I got down like this. I'm using this instead of the first time because my subsequent exploration is more concise. After a while I get the dropship 4 checkpoint, which is handy for making retries at getting around a corner. Can't manage it however.

06:02 (Valley side) On the valley side there's a high mini ledge, then below is the 'lower bulge'. From there I greet Johnson, who was left behind at the bottom of the valley. He's just in range for some tagging fun, heh heh. I did quite a few takes of this. Initially I was only using a single plasma, but eventually I got into double tagging, which was more entertaining. This take was my favourite, sending him nice and high. I subsequently get down to the stream, cushioned by the big rock. There are various ways you can get down.

07:10 (Stunt descent) In particular, you can have fun with stunt descents. Here's a good one from up on the plateau, with a jump start. I get cushioned by some sloping rock and then the sloping bank of the stream.

07:23 (Easy descent) There's also this easy way down, taking you to the nearby entrance. I have a close encounter with the Jackal and deliver some tag treatment once again. Silly fellow. Too much pointing, not enough shooting.

Closing remarks As you may recall, I'd made it to the plateau before, and there was a clip at 5:24 in BCM375 where the hog landed neatly upright with Stacker still aboard. But that was using a save which had no post-landing checkpoints due. As you saw in this new movie, such checkpoints can be put to good use, even beyond getting an initial checkpoint to consolidate.

The footage used here wasn't actually of my original exploration. That was more long-winded and I also missed some aspects. Rather, I recorded later footage to make for more concise and systematic coverage, with good camerawork and suchlike (and the most entertaining tagging of Johnson and that Jackal). That's fine though; the main point of the movie was to give you a guide to the place.

Even so, it was still a struggle to keep the movie under eight minutes long, and I had to omit aspects involving hog use. So I plan to cover that in another whole movie, coming next.

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