Sad to say, some of these cute little Grunts are never gonna wake up at all!

(7:35) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. One of AOTCR's most memorable rooms is the one full of sleeping Grunts plus a few Elites, and with sleepy music to match. I showcase it here, having fun tackling the room four times in different ways (killing all occupants), including by stealth. And if I do say so myself, there's an excellent Grunt bomb to watch out for in the final play!

Released May 21st 2024, gameplay recorded May 19th-20th 2024.

00:02 (Plasma combo) In this opening play I do a pretty straightforward circuit of the periphery, using plasma weapons and grenades to clear the covies. Except, there's one grunty critter I have to go back for.

Around 0:35 I'm rather slow to let loose a plasma ball to stun the red Elite. He gets time to eat into my shield with plasma fire, and since I continue on regardless in gung-ho fashion, that sets me up for losing a lot of health in the following seconds, before taking out the pursuing blue Elite. I retain two health bars though, so that's okay.

A little highlight of this play for me is the bit around 1:24 when I target a Grunt though a small window. It looked comical, and that was really the bit which made me think "I want to have this play in the movie!" But you might also find the start of the play amusing, where I give the first Grunt a rude awakening. Don't you just hate it when you wake up with plasma grenade stuck to your head? For Grunts it's pretty much a working hazard!

01:51 (Stealthy melee) The room is evidently designed as an invitation to use stealth, so I felt obliged to include such a play in the movie. There's a close call when I creep up on the blue Elite, because he starts turning just as I reach him. But down he goes - so I get away with it. Once the red is down too, it's plain sailing from there.

I have a bit of fun with the final Grunt, to make for an amusing ending (things just seemed too flat when I merely delivered a whack, in a few earlier plays I did). Namely, I give him a nasty start by firing my plasma pistol, then tag him - which launches him rather nicely. I was deliberately leaving this perched guy for last. He looks amusing up there.

04:00 (Pistol & needler) I wanted to get some needling into the movie, so here we are with a pistol and needler combo. And to make for additional variation from the plasma combo play earlier, and from the next play also, I go up to overlook the central area, to launch my attack from there. The red Elite evades most of my initial stream of needles, but that sets up an amusing bit where I surprise him in his position of cover. From there I continue to rampage in the inner area for a while, killing anything I can see, before switching to the outside to get the rest.

It's a pity that I had to ration my needles in doing all that. Unfortunately the covies here only have plasma weapons, so I couldn't do any topping up. I was still able to make several explosive needle kills though, including one on which to finish the play.

05:41 (AR & launcher) The other things I thought the movie could do with were lots of noisy AR fire, plus rockets. Hence this finale. Around 7:01 there's a highlight which sealed this play's inclusion in the movie. I tag a Grunt but then realise I'm under attack from behind, so on the spur of the moment I rocket the wall to send him flying, hoping it'll work. And it does, spectacularly. All three grunty assailants killed, and nicely seen too. I think that's probably my best rocket-propelled Grunt bomb ever.

Closing remarks This isn't a movie I'd had long-held plans for, or anything like that. The idea just came to me a while after making the previous one. Unlike many of of my movies, there's nothing novel about the situation here. I'm just tackling a standard bit of the game. But I thought it could make a nice movie, and it would be straightforward to do. And fun, being nothing but slaughtering covies!

For making it I used a handy save I created (from a copy of a twin bridges megabattle save), in which I had a pile of weapons in the snow outside, ready for selecting my combo. In retrospect it would've been handier to have them gathered in the passage, closer to the room's entry door, but initially I wasn't sure how much footage I was going to use in the movie for showing my approach to the room - so I just had them all outside. From there it only took a few seconds to reach the room anyway, so it didn't slow things up too much.

Using Heroic did make the combat rather easy, but on the other hand I think it facilitated the entertainment, as it enabled me to tackle covies in playful ways, which Legendary would've been less amenable to. That said, I already have in mind to do a later movie in which I up the difficulty to Legendary, to make for a more serious and testing combat experience.

In case you're wondering, I had my flashlight on because things looked much brighter, with the covie colours standing out better. The footage would've looked quite dark otherwise, around much of the room's periphery. Fortunately these covies weren't prone to being alerted by the flashlight, unlike in some other places.

I almost made a mistake with the movie. Originally I had a caption in the stealth play which said "25 Grunts here on Heroic". But then I realised that in that very play, I'd only whacked 24. Had I overlooked a Grunt somewhere? No, that surely wasn't it. After all my plays, I was in the habit of going around the room to check that nobody had been missed. Wouldn't want to short-change you! After a quick bit of investigative playing, I got confirmation that indeed Heroic doesn't always give you 25 Grunts. Sometimes you only get 24. So anyway, I cut that caption.

© 2004-2024 by Rockslider