It's a long way down, but the hog can stick it!

(7:30) Level 5 ('Assault on the Control Room') on Heroic. As mentioned for the previous movie, I recently saw Spasmodic's 2015 video 'The Bottom of the AotCR Pit - No Banshee' (a remake of his 2014 original), in which he reached the bottom of the cavern with a Warthog by using a beautiful friction dynamic between two pipes. I now tackle that trick, using both Spasmodic's set-up and an alternative slide initiation method which I found easier. The movie is essentially a tutorial plus some bonus fun.

Released September 15th 2025, gameplay recorded September 11th-14th 2025.

00:02 (Classic method and early tries) To start with, I set things up with the hog backed up against the wall as in Spasmodic's video. I likewise use a delayed tunnel checkpoint (note: had to wait a while before triggering it, as I'd just triggered one and there's a certain delay before you can trigger the next), with a grenade throw providing the final bit of delaying while I got settled in the hog. The movie then shows three of my many early failures. I was finding it rather hard, and often got ejected as the hog came off the upper pipe.

01:09 (First success) As well as the ejection issue, the other key trouble was in cruising the hog just the right distance so it would enter the gap between the pipes. I found it very hard to judge that well, and would all too often overshoot (nasty death) or undershoot (also nasty death, actually). But after about 15 minutes I finally got the hog gripped as desired, and a slide of around 88 seconds followed, giving me my first hog descent. Following my practice with the Ghost in the previous movie, I move the camera around quite a bit on the way down to get different views. Incidentally, on NTSC/PC it looks like slides are slower, going by a caption in Spasmodic's video.

01:59 (Shorter run-up and teeter option) As a minor tweak to Spasmodic's set-up, a shorter run-up is also fine (just as long as you're going to be able to get up enough speed) and will let you make attempts a bit faster. In this clip I also demonstrate an option I tried sometimes, where the hog somewhat teeters at the end of the pipe, a different dynamic than having it cruise off. Whether you'll find it any easier is another matter!

02:25 (Left spin method) Exploring for a different way of initiating a slide, I fared much better by coming in diagonally over the lower pipe with a bit of left spin, which incidentally leads to the hog facing the other way. Eventually I measured a success rate of around 22% with this method, and getting a slide would often take less than a minute. Of course, starting off over in this area was something I'd become used to in my Ghost descent exploration (previous movie); so it was natural that I'd try it with the hog as well.

03:06 (Right spin variant) A variant using a bit of right spin is also shown here, but it I found it difficult to nail, with ejection being quite a problem. I never did get a knack for it, and largely stuck with the left spin method.

03:19 (Unstable nose-up configuration) Here's an unusual case where the hog gets gripped with its nose up rather than down. That configuration turned out to be unstable, as you can see.

03:40 (360 stunt) Okay, here's where the bonus fun starts. Towards the end of shaping up the movie, I spent a fair bit of time going for a full hog rotation such as seen here, as I thought it would make a nice extra. Rather hard though! In the course of umpteen tries I managed to pull it off a few times, but only really nailed it with good clean form once, which is what you see here. In a little bonus footage, I've also included a rear tyre close-up from the journey down, a novel view which I hadn't already included in the movie.

04:10 (Watching in a Banshee) At some point it crossed my mind that if I could get the hog sliding down without me, I could board a Banshee to watch it and maybe fool around with it, which could be fun. I came up with this set-up as a good way of doing things. It uses a classic run-up (short version) because that method had so often ejected me onto the lower pipe (such as seen in the 1:00 clip). This time I wanted to be ejected onto the lower pipe, so I could then board a Banshee.

As you can see, I positioned the Banshee for quick access so I could get to the sliding hog pronto. Actually I could've had the Banshee a few steps closer though, so I wouldn't have to run so far along the pipe.

04:48 (Watching with a sniper rifle) These further two watching snippets used the same method to enable me to get a few nice sniper rifle views. One from the other platform, and one from down below.

05:12 (Plasma throw) This time I fly to one of the opposite pillars and target the sliding hog with a plasma throw. I also had a rocket launcher by the way, and could've had some fun with that instead. On this occasion the hog is actually sliding while upside down. I'd already seen such a thing a couple of times, but it's certainly rare.

05:42 (Taking Marines down) Taking Marines down in the hog was an obvious idea, and to make it more fun I decided to have a welcoming party greet us, which I also thought would give movie viewers a surprise. Experienced Halo freaks will doubtless realise that the Grunt is Herbie, and the Ghosts are the two that normally attack you in the crashed Pelican area (the Pelican attack Ghosts as I call them). All these guys get teleported into their hardware wherever it is; so I just had to move the items in advance. The Ghost pilots don't drive around (lack of AI for this environment), but at least they can rotate and fire.

The tricky aspect of doing the descent was that I wasn't doing it with a handy checkpoint for quick retries. This section being purely for entertainment, I wanted to be driving through the tunnel and going straight into the descent. What I did was to get a checkpoint well back though the tunnel, from which to try and do this. But it did take quite a few tries. Actually I did it twice, but this take had the best skirmish with the covies, with a very nice Ghost explosion at the end (plus my hog rams the wreckage), so that's the one I've used.

The initial clip where I pick up the Marines is actually something I recorded and inserted later, as the final addition to the movie. It was only a few seconds extra, and makes for an introduction to the Marines, also making it clear that Stacker is on the gun. I thought it was a nicer way of starting this finale, rather than being already driving through the tunnel with Marines aboard.

Incidentally, if you're wondering how I came to have Stacker, who you normally wouldn't encounter in the level, he came in on the Pelican and I used my seven extra Marines trick to stop the game removing him, which in standard play would occur before you reach his location.

Closing remarks Although I took about 15 minutes to get down with the initial set-up seen here, I'd actually spent a bit of time trying to get down earlier, in some abortive recording where I had Marines present. It had been my idea to have Marines present from the outset, to add a bit of fun. But setting up with Marines had made the checkpointing more complicated due to the Marines dismounting when I left the hog, and that caused me to reconsider. One doesn't want to make one's tutorials overcomplicated after all. Since I also still hadn't managed a descent, I decided to start afresh without Marines. And I'm certainly glad I did, because that allowed me to bring in the Marines as a nice finale, complete with storyline ("Word had got around" etc.).

As with the previous movie, I've made an effort to get rhythm continuity across clip transitions, so hopefully you'll enjoy the percussive groove.

Just to mention, I'm not quite done with this business yet. I expect to write an article on the trick, and I also have a second movie in mind. All coming soon I hope!

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