H H A ~L OOO H H A A L O O HHHHH A A L O @ O H H A @ A L O H H A A LLLL, %OOOO Halo: Combat Evolved Only for XBOX by Wassup1444465 email at wassup1444465@aol.com Sites permitted to use my FAQ: Gamefaqs Version 1, last updated on December 8th, 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version History [November 30-December 1]- I started my walkthrough, getting section 1 done, and four level walkthroughs written. I made the FAQ/Rumor Dispellor seciton. I also corrected many of my "the" errors where I wrote it as "teh." I'll spellcheck it when I finish, don't worry. Also made weapons section. [December 2]- Started and finished sections 5 and 6. Same goes for section 7. [December 3]- Started and finished Section 8. Fixed some mis-capitalization with the word "I," and also fixed punctuation with the word "don't." I have to make this as perfect as possible, due to Halo's popularity :) [December 4]- I added another level to the walkthrough, adding a good 11 kbs to the FAQ. Goody goody. [December 8]- I added the sixth level to the walkthrough, along with a warning about playing the level. I suggest you read the warning. Note that is serious, not a joke. I also added a new FAQ question or two. Read the one that stands out most with hard to read words and stuff. My reply containts some rules for emailing me. [January 4]- Been a while. Wow. Well i added another level. I guess I have just been lazy for a while. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents 1) About Halo/The Basics `The HUD `Contolls `Settings `Difficulty Levels `Rules 2) Walkthrough # The Pillar of Autumn # Halo # The Truth and Reconciliation # The Silent Cartographer # Assault on the Controll Room # 343 Guilty Spark # The Library 3) FAQ/Rumor Dispeller 4) Weapons 5) Enemies Descriptions/Slight Tactics $Covenant $Flood $Sentinals 6) Good Guy Description and Weaknesses 7) Vehicles 8) In Depth Battlefield and Enemy Tactics 9) Multiplayer 10) Credits 11) Legal Info -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 1)* About Halo *********** Halo is a game designed by Bungie. It was the Xbox's best launch game, and many view it as the best video game ever. While it is generally not my place to disagree or agree, I will admit that I enjoy it greatly. Halo is about an alien race attempting to wipe out the human race, viewing htem as an affront to the gods. You are on the human side of this, and must prevent this from happening to some extent. You are a Spartan II; an enhanced human who has trained literally most of his life as a marine. Others of you also existed at a time, but a covenant attack on Reach, a human military planet, wiped all of them out. You and your marines made a blind jump in space, leading the covenant away from Earth. This is where this game begins. I can only touch up on the story, as there is both an instruction manuall, and a book. I strongly reccomend you read the book, titled The Fall of Reach. I picked mine up at Borders. As most everyone will tell you, it is an amazing book, explaining some events that occur in Halo. It begins decades before, and goes through over 300 pages of pre-Halo. It took me about a week to read each time; I read it twice. @@@@@@@@ the HUD@ @@@@@@@@ HUD is an abbreviation for Heads-Up Display. This game's HUD has several different features. Here is an ASCII version of what it would look like while walking. _______ ____ ____________________ | | | | | **###########| |60 x % | |@ 2 | | **###########| |_______| |____| | **###########| $$$$$$.......... ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ|#####| [][][][][][][][]ŻŻŻŻŻ <]==================== !!!!! !!! ! |\ | \ __ | \ / \ | / \ / | / ŻŻ |/ ** * * ____ * ^ * \ \ * \ , / * \ \ * \ / * \ \ * , \ / ^ * **\ \ * @@ * **/ / * , @@@@ , * / / * @@ * /___/ * ^ * * * * * That is what the Hud would look like. Now, you are probably going, huh? Well, I am going to explain. In the top left you see those two boxes. The first is the amount of amunition you have left for the weapon you are using. The number is how much, the symbol is what type of clip it uses (battery, clip, etc). The second box in the top left is grenades. The @ symbol is the type of grenade, and the 2 is how many grenades you are holding of that type. The dots under both of those boxes represent how many shots you have in a particular clip of ammo before you have to reload again. As you reload, the number in the top-left box depletes. In the game some will appear filled, others will appear empty. The filled are what you have left. In this case the filled ones were the $ symbol. In the top left you see that weird shaped bar and those boxes. The weird shaped bar is your shield indicator. The stars are where you just got hit, and those go away about a second after you got hit. The # symbol is how much shield you have left. This will recharge if you take no hits for a while. The blank space is what is not in your shield power. As your shield recharges, this gets filled in again. Let's say that your shield went out, and you still started getting hit by bullets. Those small boxes under the shield indicator are your main health boxes. If you get hit enough, one may dissapear. After a few are gone, the remaing boxes turn from blue to yellow, and if you still get hit, to red. After red, if you get hit enough, you die. The small bar under the health bars is your flashlight indicator. As you use your flashlight, this meter drains. Once it is completely out, you have to wait about ten seconds before it fully recharges. However, you can still use it when only partially recharged. Night vision does not deplete this meter. The slash marks forming the circle in the center of the HUD are your targetting recitles. This is where you aim your weapon. It turns red if you have a good shot on your opponent, but over time you will not pay attention to that function, especially from far away shots. The triangle arror to the right of the targeter is where enemy fire is coming from. Do not rely on this as much; it does not always work as well as you would like it to. The bottom left of the screen is your radar. The stars form the circle as it appears in the game. The big dot is you, in this case made up of the @ symbols. The slashes are your field of vision. The ^ marks are your fellow marines. In game, these appear green. Do not fire at these guys. The commas are enemies. They appear red in-game. These guys you do fire at. Note that radar is two dimensional. So just because you see the dots in front of you does not mean that the enemies aren't actually above you as well. Right above the targeter is the Nav point, what I made using exclamation points. These are used only at special times in the game. For example, you need to get to a special door, so Cortana gives you the Nav point for it. Follow these to get to your location. At the bottom right of the HUD, I made a small gun ASCII art. Different guns have different appearences. This one I made as the pistol. If you switch a weapon, that picture switches too. Of course, it is not that important, but I included it for fun. Note that that is how the HUD appears in game. The things are in that general location. That was not me randomly placing the displays. @@@@@@@@@@ Controlls@ @@@@@@@@@@ In this section, I will be mentioning the default controls. Although these are customizable, I reccomend keeping them the way they are. A Button: Jump B Button: Melee* X Button: Reload Y Button: Switch Gun Black Button: Change Grenade Type White Button: Activate Flashlight/Night Vision (using sniper rifle) Left Trigger: Throw Grenade Right Trigger: Fire Weapon Right Thumbsitck: Aim Weapon Left Thumbstick: Move Right Thumbstick Click: Zoom (only on certain guns)** Left Thumbstick Click: Crouch D-Pad: Move Back: Go back Start: Pause Menu * Melees are silent kills. You hit the enemy with your gun. Saves ammo; does not wake sleeping grunts. **The sniper rifle can zoom twice, once 2x, and once 10x. Other zooming guns: Pistol, Rocket Launcher @@@@@@@@@ Settings@ @@@@@@@@@ Here I will list the custom settings. Change Name- This allows you to change the profile name for your slot. Change Color- This allows you to change the color your character will appear as in free-for-all.* Controller: This allows you to do two things** 1) Thumbstick- This changes the way the thumbstick works, so say left makes you go right if you want, etc 2) Buttons- This changes the way the buttons are, so if you wanted maybe Y and to switch with X, you can. Advanced: These are some advanced settings for the way the controller works. 1) Invert thumbstick- This makes up on the right thumbstick make you look down, and vise verse. I highly recomdend that you do this. It makes the game feel more natural. 2) Look Sensitivity- If you find you are looking too fast or slow, here you can change it. Mine is at 2. 3) Vibration- This turns on or off the rumbling when you take a hit. I keep it on for realism, but some people find vibrations annoying. 4) Invert Flight Control- If you inverted the right thumbstick, you want to do this, as it makes flying not only be mroe natural, but it goes with your controlls and keeps you not confused. If you did not do the thumbstick on invert, then do not do this. 5) Auto-Center- Every time you move, the gun auto centers, until you move the gun. Kind of weird to me. I keep it off, but you may want it. *Notice I had said Free for All. This does not affect single player or co-op, or team multiplayer. **With this you choose from combinations, and you can not create your own to my knowledge. But there is still a lot to choose from. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Difficulty Levels@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ For each level, you are given a choice of what difficulty you would like to use. Easy- Easy is extremely easy. I reccomend not using it, as I did when I could not beat normal mode, and it took me a month to get good to do normal again. On easy, you really kick covenant butt. It is almost impossible to lose at, mostly due to the fact that there are barely any enemies to attack you. Your shields recharge almost as soon as they go out. Enemy fire barely damages you, and the enemies are dumber than that rock that I brought to the sience fair. The only time I use this mode now is for when I make a FAQ like this and need to get through a level quickly while still writing things down. Its pretty funny as I barely pay attention and still manage. Simply put, don't use this mode. It is a pain to get good again, and it doesn't prove much in the ways of skill. Normal- Normal mode is a giant leap from easy. It is not what I would call hard, but it is a good way to start out with Halo. On normal mode, things definately get harder. You find more enemies, but only a few. Like I said, this is what you want to start with. You can get killed here if you are not careful. Enemies are no longer dumb and oblivious like in Easy mode. No offense to those who struggle with it. Heroic- This is the difficulty level that I am currently playing on. So far it has been goign well for me, but it certaintly is not what I call a sinch. In some level spots on Heroic mode, there are many more enemies. In one spot, where on easy and normal you encountered one bad guy with a plasma sword, on Heroic you encounter four. And in that same spot, instead of fighting two jackals, you fight two hunters. Heroic gets the games nice quote of "Survival is not garunteed." It certaintly lives up to it, as you will need to be good at aiming. Ledgendary- This is a very challenging difficulty level at first, but from what people have told me, once you are good with online battles this is easy. There are tons of bad guys in Ledgendary, and they take a lot of shots to kill. This, as the game puts it, is suicide. It is a very big level of difficulty increase from Heroic. Trust me, I have tried it myself once. Do not jump to this from the start, as you will only be frustrated and angry. Note that while harder difficulties are, well, harder, they come with their own advantages. For example, on level one, you can only get grenades near the end of the level on easy and normal, but on heroic and ledgendary, you can get them as soon as you get the pistol. Also keep in mind that marines say different things on different difficulties. I have heard the f word only once, and it was on heroic. On lower difficulties, they tend to be less profane. On ledgendary they tend to be more talkative and vulgur. @@@@@@ Rules@ @@@@@@ Here are Halo's basic 'rules'. It is not possible to break them; the game doesn't let you. You can carry two guns at a time at most You can carry four of each grenade type at a time, no more Weapons have ammo limitations Marines can not drive or pilot vehicles other than the ghost Your shields do not start to recharge until you stop being hit Only the pistol, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle can zoom That's about it. You should be ready to play. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 2)* Walkthrough *********** Note: This walkthrough is assuming you are playing on normal, and sometimes I will mention certian things that happen in Heroic Difficulty. Legendary is an on your own thing, and some events or dialect may vary. ############################## Level 1) The Pillar of Autumn# ############################## **Revile** As you wake up in the cryo chamber, you are greeted by a technician. Depending on the difficulty level, certain events may happen. If you are on Easy or Normal difficulty, you will be walked through your controlls, such as looking and walking. The directions to this appear in the top of the screen. If you feel that your looking is too fast, then wait until you do the inverted look test, and save and quit. Go to settings and change the look sensity to your liking. Some prefer it fast, others, like me, prefer it be slower. Back to campaign, finish the shield test, and follow the technician to the room. This is where Heroic or Legendary will pick up. In those difficulties, you skip the tests. Either way, follow the technician, but keep a good distance from him. In the next room, he will stop by a door, but an explosion will send him flying, killing him. Look to the left, and you will see pipes. On easy and normal, you are directed how to jump over them, on Heroic and Legendary, you are expected to know it. This kind of thing continues throughout the level. Also, be aware that you get grenades at any time in Heroic or Legendary, as long as your enemy drops them. In easy/normal, you will only get them at the end of this level. Jumping over those pipes, look to the left and you see a door with green lights. These doors are accesible; doors with red lights are not. Go through the door and turn left. Here is a nice hint for this part: Go away form the enemies. You will find a marine that starts speaking to you, saying to follow him. Well, what are you waiting for? Follow him. He will take you to where the captain is; the ship's control room. He says that the captain is waiting for you. Go inside the room, and go to where the captain is. He is the only person standing still. A cutscene will start. Watch cutscenes in this game every time, and wait for it to say it is ending, so you do not miss a single bit of the plot. After the scene, the captain gives you a pistol. Do not get rid of this; the pistol is considered by many to be an amazing weapon. Right now as you have not likely gotten a nice chance to aim, it may not be as good, but as your skills increase, you will realise how important it is. Aim for the head of any enemy when using it. For now you do not have ammo, so turn away form the captain and go back to where you came from. **AI Constructs and Cyborges First** Going back, you will have a checkpoint, and your gun will do a reloading sequence. Aim for the heads of the grunts you see. Remember that thee guys are grunts. I will mention later in the walkthrough certain enemies and how to handle them in a particular level, so remember who they are. Kill the grunts, and proceed to the room straight ahead. You will pick up an assault rifle. It is semi automatic, but don't go overboard with holding the trigger. The best way is to do short bursts, as those are more accurate, and a quick triggger finger will help you do so. In this area, you will find marines fighting covenant. This si your first experience against elites. The elites are the tall blue guys. They can also be red, yellow, and blackish silverish. For now they are blue, and that is all you need to know. Take em out with head shots using the pistol, or with short bursts of the asssault rifle. There is another way to kill enemies, not using guns or grenades. The B button on defualt controls performs what is refered to as a melee attack. Getting behind someone and doing this is an auto kill, and it does heavy damage even from the front. I reccomend doing this just agianst the few elites in this area to get used to it, and later against jackals. Jackals are like grunts, but have energy shields. They use over charge plasma pistol shots, which automatically take out your shields should one hit. Keep in mind they can home in. More on them in the enemy section. So take out the elites in this room with melees, and assuming you attacked the guys on the front left (perspective of where the room was entered) then turn to the back-right corner, and more covenant will be coming in. Get these guys dead. This level does not require as much of saving marines, but do it anyway to get the hang of it. Once they are killed, proceed through the door they came in. Make a left turn, and take the next right. Kill the elite, and any other hostiles that you come across. This part of the level will be covered by me saying things like, go left fifty billion times then take the next right 100 times, just not with the numbers. It is to be assumed that you take out whatever hostiles you find, so do not email me saying exactly what happens. Also, difficulty levels and random enemy placements change this anyway. After the elite is taken out, follow where the marines start to go. This takes you to the next passage. If you have taken health damage, it is reccomended you pick up the health packs you find on the walls or floor. They are plentiful in this level. So follow marines to the left, and kill the guys you see. Go straight and left again. You will find a green arrow called STAIRS. Go in the door it goes to. Make yet another right turn, follow straight, and take a left. I am sure that you are tempted to be where the marines are, but take a right turn just before you get to them. Follow the passage and kill the guys you find. This was done because it was flanking the enemy, and it kept marines alive. Remember this for other levels. Now go to the next arrow. This one is labeled AIRLOCK. It is red colored. So once again, just follow the corridor. There is a dead marine on the ground; go past him. Kill the guys you find. Follow where the marines go and get the overshield in the airlock. It is a red ball in a clear box. This gives you plenty more shield power one time. In other words, once it is gone, you have normal shields until you find another. Go to the next corridor and duck under the partially closed blast door. Take a right, then a left after that, and kill the covenant you find. There is another arrow labeled stairs, once again green. Pretty good for directions, eh? take a right, and go past the dead marine. This time you will have a loading point, so if you are not sure if you are in the right spot and you passed the dead marine, the loading point is the giveaway. Follow the corridoor, and now you are finally at the stairs. This is likely the one of the trickiest parts of the level on harder difficulties. Go up the stairs, and once up, kill the elites first. Melee's will work pretty well, even if you can only make them fall of the stairs but not kill them. That can buy some time for your shield to recharge. Once everything is killed, marines start coming up the stairs. Go through door number 2 (it is labeled) kill the guys and make a right at the energy shield. A tip in this part, use that energy shieled against the enemy. Use the assault rifle with a full burst, not short controllerd ones, and it will have some bullets hit or get around it. Those that get around it can get deflected back at it at the right angle. Make a right after this energy shield, go striaght, make a left, killing the guys encountered, and kill anything else not dead. From here make two consecutive rights, and you will hear cortana mentioning the lifeboats. Look outside the window, and you will see as they are launched. Some are even being destroyed as they escape. From here, go past the windows and get the health pack if necessary. At the end of the passage take a left. Don't go too far, as you can see grunts talking to eah other. Their actions make them seem like they are bragging. Well kill them off, and cortana will give you a nav point. Nav points are indicators on your screen that show you where certain lolcations are. Generally, only vital ones are given, such as the location of a room. Go into the door the nav point leads to. Don't move anywhere. It is very easy to lose direction right here. Immediately as you enter the door, hit the white button, your flashlight. Take an immediate left, and at the end of the passage it takes you, make another left. Go straight to the end of this part, then a right. At the end of that passage, take a left, and at the end of that one, a right. There will be a loading point. Go straight, and as there is a checkpoint, stop. Cortana will detect forces at the door at the end of the passage. On Easy and Normal, radar is now turned on. On Heroic and Legendary, it will already be on. Either way, make a left just when the checkpoint hits. Follow the passage all of the way to the end, and the door will open. Take a breath, because you are out of those passages for now. Take a left, and melee the broken up door. Take another left, and melee the grunt. Go straight, and take the first left you see. Here you will find numerous enemies. Kill them, get the health pack and take a right, go straight, taking the open doors, and kill the elite. There will be some pretty big explosions here, so watch yourself. Take a right and kill the grunts off, and go to the small door on the left. You are in the dark rooms again. Yes, you all love this game don't you :P. In the dark rooms, go straight, right, and at the end of the passage take a left. Note you will encounter a couple of grunts here. After you took that left, you should have another loading point. From there, take a right, and goo straight. You are out of the passages again. Kill the enemies as normal, take a left, and another left after that, and once again, kill everything in sight. Take a right, and once again killing, and then a left. Here you will find an enourmous stash of grenades. On Easy and Normal, these are the first availible to you. On other difficulties, you already have some. Nevertheless, toss a couple grenades OVER the object in front of you, and kill some enemies. Then jump over the object, whatever the heck it is, and kill any remaining covenant. Then go to that open door that you passed right after you jumped over the object. It is labeled 62 I think. Once you are near it, the ending level cutsene begins. Finally, you have completed the first level. Give yourself a pat on the back. I realise my directions for this level were likely confusing, but it was the only way I felt I could explain it. The next levels are less, I guess the right word to use is repitive. It is not as complicated as it sounds, and I trust you could have done it without this walkthrough. The next levels are definately going to be harder, so be prepared. ############### Level 2) Halo.# ############### You start off with a cutscene in which your lifeboat crashes due to a bad impact. As you wake up, you find that all of the marines except for you have been killed. As you exit the lifeboat, pick up the ammo that you find lying around. Cortana will detect a patrol dropship searching for survivors, so take a left and you will see a bridge. Walk on it into the hills on the right, and follow the path, avoiding the banshees. You do not want to get engaged by them, as it only gives more time for the covenant patrols to catch up to you. And yes, that DOES happen. Instead, keep going, dodging banshee the plasma bolts. Soon you will find another covenant group hiding in rocks. This will be harder than the Pillar of Autumn battles, as these guys are hiding behind the rocks. Take out your pistol and shoot them all in the head; it is the best way to make sure that they are killed quickly. After you finish your buisness, proceed to the drop, and you will find dozens of covenant attacking something. A closer look and you will see that they are attacking marines. Try adn save as many of the marines as possible. Once this group is eliminated, go to the next area, where you will see a cave. It is quite out of the way, and from here there are two things you can do. One, there is a glitch where if you wait there for a long time, and I mean long, time, you will hear Cortana speaking to Echo 4-19 mentioning a warthog. If you go back, you will find that a warthog (jeep) has been deployed. That is the cheap way, and I have never actually done it, due to my lack of patience. The other way, which is more normal, is to turn around when each new group of covenant comes, and find a big hill. Hide behind the hill, and attack the enemy with your pistol by zooming in and temporarily climbing the hill. If you are far enough away, but still not too far, you can target enemies and shoot them. They will not be able to see you very well, if at all. Should they, however, spot you, go back down the hill for a minut or so, and you will be fine, and ready to once again emerge and attack. Once every group of enemies has fallen, Echo 4-19, the pilot of a Pelican Dropship, will come and drop off a warthog with a gunner in it. Gunners are very important in warthogs, and they are actually good at their job. All marine AIs are good, actually. Go back to the cave structure you saw before, and go inside. Follow the corridoor until you see a ramp below you and a hole that your warthog can drop into. Instead of making your jeep fall, keep going on the path and you will find another ramp. Go down it, and take a left turn. You will find yourself at the ramp that you decided not to drop to. This time, go up it. Keep your jeep straight at full speed and you will clear a jump. From there, turn right and follow the passage. You will emerge in an open area, and you will see a lot of covenant. Take a right and take out those guys there. Let your gunner handle them, and search the right wall for a small ramp. This is very easy to miss, but once you find it, go about halfway up it and stop. If you have a fragmented grenade, throw it at such an angle that it would bounce off of the wall and go into the left area, where you would turn if you went up the ramp. The reason this was done is simple. On Easy and Normal, there is one elite. On Heroic, and I think Legendary, there are two. Maybe there are three or something on legendary, but either way, your grenades hopefully killed wahtever was there. To make sure is you are on later difficulties, toss a fragmented grenade again, at the same angle, and if anyone was left, either the fragmented alone will work, or grenades dropped by whoever died first will explode too, hopefully killing the elite left. Now proceed up the ramp, and turn left, prepared to fight anything. If the coast is clear, proceed straight. Stop when the blue floor ends; you will be standing on glass. Turn left, but don't move, just turn. On your screen, the words PRESS X TO ACTIVATE LIGHT BRIDGE will appear. Press X, and after the short scene, go back to the warthog. Go to the center path, where you were before you took the right and started killing the covenant. From here, go straight and onto the bridge the control panel created. Go straight across it, and keep going straight when you get off of it. Follow the corridor and you will be outside. **Reuinion Tour** Now it is time to free some marines. A good start would be to go to the right. You will see blue lights. These will mark areas where lifeboats crashed. There are two entrences to each area. So take the entrence I mentioned, and Cortana will mention that there are marines fighting the rocks. First I reccomend you go to the crashed lifeboat. Trade in your assault rifle for a sniper rifle. Then go and hide in the rocks, bringing the jeep with you. If your gunner is not at good health, Get behind the warthog and hit X, and he will get off. Then get in the warthog, and marines will come in. Hopefully you will not get the same gunner, but repeat the process of getting him out of the warthog until you get one with good health. Now get out and start sniping the covenant. To snipe, hit the right thumbstick in (clicking it, as some call it) once and you get 2x scope. Hit it again and you will get 10x scope. Use the 10x and snipe out elites first. If any marines die that were holding sniper ammo, pick up the ammo they dropped. Once every wave of covenant has been defeated, Echo 4-19 will come pick up the surviving marines. Now get back in the warthog with the gunner and passenger, and exit the area. Take a healthpack from the lifeboat that crashed if you need it. Once you exit the area, you have two choices of where to go. You can follow the lake and get the survivors from over there, or go to the mountain area and get those survivors. The choice is up to you, but my walkthrough will cover the lakehead survivors first. Follow the lake to where you find a new area, and enter it. Do not go too far, as there are covenant. Get out of the jeep and if you have sniper ammo left, zoom in and snipe out elites first, and then jackals and then grunts. Once you run out of ammo, switch to the pistol and zoom in with that. Take out whatever remains with headshots and stuff. If you can not manage to kill some things, then get back in the warthog and go to the hill where there are marines. It is pretty obvious of their location, but it is on the right of the structure, perspective being where you entered. Go up there, and more covenant will come. You know the drill. Kill the covenant, and Echo 4-19 will come in for pickup. If you need new warthog marines, pick them up now, and then try and find the lifeboat in this area that crashed. There should be some sniper ammunition and a health pack. Exit the area when you finished getting what you need, and find the last area. The last area has a lot of covenant guarding it, so that is the giveaway to its location. Upon entering the area, stop again, and start sniping, taking out elites first, and grunts last. Remember to aim for the head for better chances of killing. Once most everyone has been killed, do as Cortana will likely be bugging you to do, and search inside the structures. Take out the covenant in there, and marines who were hiding will start emerging. Finish off the remaining covenant, and Echo 4-19 will come for pick-up. This time, get in with the marines, and you have completed level two. That is one fifth of the game! ###################################### Level 3) The Truth and Reconciliation# ###################################### Captain Keyes has been captured, and it is now your job to rescue both him and the rest of his sqaud. This is many peoples' favorite level, and it is often replayable. Before I start with the level, I am going to point out a few things. 1) This is the first level in which you encounter hunters. These guys are massive, and their only weak spots are orange spots on their head, stomache, and back. Thay can survive grenades if they do not detonate exactly on those spots. Sniper them in the back when they turn. More help on them in the enemy info section. 2) You get extended sniper rounds in this level. Once these rounds deplete to 25, you have the normal 25 limit again. Use them wisely, but do not hesitate to take a tough shot here and there, as it could pay off. 3) You get many chances for reinforcements. Do not waste the reinforcements or origional squads, the more you have, the better your chances. 4) There are health packs in most areas of the non-ship part of the level. I will not be mentioning them, as you should be bale to see them on your way of doing my instructions. Those said, I shall continue with the walkthrough. You start off by getting out of the pelican, and from there go straight and to the right where some lights are visible. You will see a ledge, and cortana will mention sniping. Hopefully, you got used to the sniper rifle in the first level like I said. Instead of following the ledge, go to the right and hide behind a rock with a small opening, like an upside down version of one of those baby toys with the block and the half circle missing from it. Well, this is a nice spot to hide, so first zoom in 10x and activate the night vision (white button while zooming). Take out the covenant in the Shade turret. Then take out grunts and jackals and any elites you find. Once you are unable to see any more partols, get out from behind the hiding spot, and coninue on the ledge like I told you not to before. From here, hide behind a rock and quickly take out a gunner. Do this first as you will be spotted and lose your cover if you kill someone else before you do this. From here, kill any remaining covenant, and jump out of your hiding spot. Attack anything left and continue on the ledge. This is where I reccomend letting the enemy fire at you. This draws your marines in, and lets you hit full force. In this area, go for the turret first, and hide behind a rock, attacking again with the sniper rifle. Should your shield go down, crouch until it recharges. Once everyhting looks clear, slowly move up to the tree at the far wall in the area. Before you pass it completely, face right and zoom in 10x. If you don't see anything, make sure you are facing right as the perspective of where you entered the area, and VERY SLOWLY keep going past the tree while still facing to the right. You should see a red elite. Aim and hit him as fast and accurate as you can, because he wil notice you too. He has a needler and is hard as hell to fight. Once he is gone, you should see your marines proceeding around the wall you were walking towards but not facing. Follow them, and kill what you see. If you zoom in enough, you should be able to see grunts coming in form a far wall. Snipe them off, kill whoever is left in your area, and go to where you saw the grunts coming from. The marines should go there too. Once you get fr enough, Cortana will tell you to take the path on the left. First, however, we will take care of some buisiness. If you can't see it, back up a bit, but there is a Shade on the "platform" to the right of where you came in. Kill the gunner, and look a bit to the left at the huge rock, and there is an elite walking. Kill him, then proceed on the path. Kill the first jackal you see, and look up (you should be a bit past the rock where you killed the elite). You will eb able to see another Shade turret; kill the gunner. Walk a bit farther on the path, and Cortana will tell the marines too move in on the center path. Zoom in and you should see an elite at the far wall away from you, near a tree. Kill him and turn left and take out that gun. Now go in and kill the guys attacking your marines from the back. That was just the one way to tackle that problem. There is of course, another way to do this. If you are one of the people who read The Fall of Reach, you will know there are multiple solutions to a problem. So this next way is to take out the shade as I said, as well as the elite. Now lob a grenade at where the shade was, but a little further back, and another one should be thrown to the side of it. This will take out quite a few covenant. Now see if you can snipe at least one jackal like you would going left, and then move in on the center path like before. Cortana tells the marines to take the left, so you should then snipe out all of the gunners to make it easier for them. From there, they get behind the enemies attacking you, doing a reverse effect of before. Either way, you now are in the same area with marines, and you should be closing in on covenant. I reccomend that you not use the latter way, as it has not seemed to work as much for me. However, you can still lob some grenades in the first one if you want, but I prefer to go unnoticed, as I have wound up with shades and grunts targeting me as I try to sneak around. Once the first group of covenant is killed, some more waves come in. Kill them like normal, and be careful of elites. Don't be afraid to lob some grenades at them; they usually roar if they stick, taking up most of the explosion timer, which does not give them much chance to return the favor to you. After everything is gone, and you can not detect any more forces, drop down and proceed into the small cave. The second you see an elite come, stick a plasma grenade to him and he will usually roar like normal and then blow up. After that, bouce a frag grenade so that it hits the wall and goes to the left part of up ahead. This will kill anyone left. Then proceed through the small cave and emerge on the other end. From here, kill the shade gunners and assault the covenant. Save the health pack you see for after you kill all of the waves of enemies. There are going to be two sets of each wave. One from the gravity lift, and another from a dropship. Remember this as it is important. Should you lose all of your men, Cortana will call for some much needed reinforcements. Keep these guys alive as best you can. After each wave ahs been destroyed, some music will start to play. Get your weapons ready. Two hunters will come down from the lift. Kill them using the tactics I mentioned earlier. Use the sniper rifle to get them in the back, even if you find it difficult. Once the hunters are dead, marines will go to the gravlift. Now is a good time to pick up the health pack and ammo. Once you are ready, go onto the lift yourself. **Into the Belly of the Beast** You now arrive inside of the ship. Cortana will say that there are no covenant in the area. You don't really think that is true, now do you? Here is what happens on Easy and Normal difficulty: You arrive in, Cortana says no covenant, and a door opens. Look around and you will see a floating sword. This is an invisible elite, and the sword is an instant kill to the marines, and to you on any difficulty other than easy. Take the thing out ASAP. From here, you will encounter wave after wave of covenant, until a big door opens and two jackals are located inside of it. Proceed to the door with the marines, and kill them. The marines will stop at the end of the corridoor, and say that the door is locked. Cortana suggests the side passages, but the marines wont go, as it is too dangerous, and they suggest you go around and open it. On Heroic and Ledgenary, things are not so easy. You arrive inside the ship, and as normal Cortana says the no covenant. This time, not only are enemies harder, but there are at least four plasma sword invisible elites. One comes in from each entrence. These guys are the top priority, so take them out FAST. After everything has been killed, the big doors open. Remember those puny jackals from before? Well mommy wow, your a big kid now! Sorry, just had to say that (for those of you who don't know, it is from a pampers diaper commercial). So instead of jackals, you get two lovely wonderful Hunters. As space is very tight, this will be harder than your other battle, but you shoudl manage. Take out the hunters, and your guys proceed to the door once again saying it was locked. Do not be suprised if you have very few marines on harder difficulties. I only had two and still managed. Either difficulty, the door is locked, and Cortana says to go around. So that is what we will do. Find a side passage, and navigate through the corridoor. It is hard to be too specific here, as there are two different enterences to the sides. So here figure your way through; the path is the one with covenant blocking it. Once you get out of the passages, you will be in a blue room with and elite who fires at you,as well as some jackals, and a few grunts from downstairs. Take out the elite, and snipe the jackals. You can continue here with two methods. One, you go throuh the door at the other side of the ledge and make your way downstairs, which I will not cover how to do as it is pointless and a waste, or two, you can do the following. Snipe and shoot at the covenant both on your ledge and downstairs. There is an elite downstairs, so make sure that you snipe him. To make sure everything is dead, toss grenades at both ends of the room's bottom. This will smoke some guys out. Once you are sure there is nothing left, drop downstairs by falling off of the ledge, but make sure you lank on one of the tanks, the big objects you see. This will soften your fall by a good amount, and you might not even take ANY damage at all. Once down here, do not activate the control panel yet. More covenant will enter the room; take them out. Once you hear the marines speaking and nothing is left, activate the panel, and the door opens. In the far right corner of the room (perspective being facing the way the marines were when they came in) there is a health pack and some ammo. Pick them up, and Cortana will mark a door with a Nav point. Go throuh it, and don't worry if your marines wont follow you at first. Just follow the path to the left and kill the guys. Your marines should be following you as you clear each section of enemies. Soon, you are outside of the side passages again, and in the shuttle bay. The music will once again start playing. First snipe out elites that do not see you, then take a full assault on grunts. After the room is cleared up, move on to the next room. Should you have lost all of your marines, Cortana will call in Echo 4-19 for reinforcements. Once you proceed to the next room, you once again need to take out more covenant, but remember that you should return to the previous room as more covenant swarm you from over there as well. Soon two hunters will come into the fight as well. Use your normal tactics for defeating them, and once all of the enemies are dead, a Nav point marks where to continue. Once inside the door with marines, follow the corridoor, and make it to the first ledge. If you are low on marines, Cortana calls in for more reinforcements. I do not know what triggers this, but it either has to do with wheather you got the first set of shuttle bay reinforcements, or the number of marines you have left. I had one left when she called them in, so zero marines would work too. Either way, in order to get them, you have to hit the panel in that center ledge next to the dropship, and the pelican will come with reinforcements. From here until the controll room, follow the passages and ledges, killing the covenant you encounter. Once you reach the controll room, stop before going too far. Take out the sniper rifle, and kill the plasma sword gold elite that you see up in the center platform. From there, snipe out everything else, and then assault any survivors. Once the room is clear, the marines will go up to the center platform where the elite was, and will say that they will hold their position. This next part is rather hard to explain. As there are many twists and turns, I will only be basic. First, Cortana makes a Nav marker of where to proceed. Go through that door. From here, you will have to follow whatever path has covenant guarding it. Once you find the brig, you will know it is the correct one because of all of the guys inside it. First, snipe out the plasma sword elite guarding the far end of the room. Then take out the grunts and jackals. Note you do this while standing at the doorway, not going too far past it. For the final part, activate night vision, and look very carefully for the invisible elite. With good eyes you should spot him. If you can't, go in and have him attack you, and shoot until you start hitting where the bullets come from. Once he is dead, go to the control panel the plasma sword elite was guarding, and activate it. A cutscene will ensue, and as normal, it is strongly reccomended you watch it, as it explains Halo, the planet you are on. **Shut Up and Get Behind Me.. Sir** First, zoom your sniper rifle towards the door 10x. The second you see it open, fire your sniper rifle. There are two invisible elites, and hopefully you at least killed one. Take out the other. This is a lot easier due to the fact that your marines now have plasma weapons. In the far left corner or the room (perpective being you facing towards the door from the control panel) there is a health pack and some ammo. Pick it up as there is some sniper ammo too. For now make sure you don't use your sniper ammo. Use whatever else you have. Kill the enemies getting yourself all of the way back to the controll room. As you enter it, stop. Notice the floating sword. Zoom in with the sniper rifle 10x and take it out. Now if you look to the far right of the room, you will see another floating sword. Take that guy out too with the sniper. After this, move in and go up to the center platform. Your other comrads are dead, so take their ammo, and exchange one weapon for a plasma rifle. Although the plasma pistol is better than it, for now you want this. From here you will need to fight your way back to the shuttle bay Nav point cortana gives you, and activate the panel. You will have to fight covenant along the way, but the plasma rifle helps for that job as well. Once you activate the panel, you and the others board the covenant dropship. Two hunters emerge, and keyes rams them with the ship. Good job for completing mission number three. ################################ Level 4)The Silent Cartographer# ################################ You start off the level with cortana explaining about the map room called the Silent Cartographer. It contains the location of the control room, which is used to activate Halo. As you land, take out anything but the pistol and attack the enemies. You want the pistol ammo for later. Once the beach is clear, Foehammer will deploy the warthog. Make sure your gunner and passenger have good health. Drive through the next area and kill everything before you come across a hill. Once the coast is clear, drive up the hill and you will see a structure containing covenant. Get out of the warthog and hide behind the log you see, and use the pistol's zoom function to take out the grunts and jackals. Once they are dead, get back into the warthog, and drive up to the structure. Have your gunner and passenger fire at the elites, while you lob grenades at them. Once they are dead, follow the structure straight and go down the ramp to the right. Follow the hallway down, and Cortana will say to not let them lock the doors. There is a glitch that stops it from happening, but it is very glitchy so we won't do it. Let them lock the doors, and kill them all. At this point I reccomend parking your warthog right in front of the door for now, and you singlehandedly go back up the structure. Take a left once you get out, and go down the hill. Walk to the left, and you will see another small hill. If you have some grenades, go up the hill, and looking down you will see a huge bunch of jackals. Frags work best here, but plasmas will work too, so toss a grenade in the center of the group and they will all die. Then an elite will attack you. Kill him, and go back to that hill from before. Near it there is a warthog next to some dead marines, some ammo, and a health pack. Get this stuff if you need it. Then go back to the trees where the elite was hiding, and you will see an opening in the wall leading to a path. Well go into the path, and beat up all of the enemies that you find there. As you keep following the path, you will find an opening. Don't go too far into the opening, as there are two hunters there. Instead, crouch, get out the pistol, zoom, and shoot at least one of them in the back. Then take out the other one like you normally deal with it (making it miss you as it swings, shooting its orange spot after that). Pick up the health pack if you need it, as well as the ammo, and make sure to get an overshield. Follow the path, going to the oppositeend of the area, and you will be confronted by yet another group of covenant. Take these guys out, and once again continue. You will be able to spot numerous grunts. Throw a grenade their way, and go to where they were turning right. Do not fall off of the cliff. As you turn right, you find another overshield should you need it. If you are on co-op and you have a really weakened one, have your partner hit you with a round or two at the feet so the overshield goes away and you can get the new one. Go inside this new structure, and you will find yourself up against two more hunters. This is a tougher fight, as you are in an extremely cramped space. Once you kill them proceed downstairs and activate the control panel. There will be a cutscene of the door opening and an elite with a plasma sword coming out. This is why you parked the jeep there. They will take out the elite for you if they were parked close enough. Well, it is time to exit the structure, so leave the way you came, and you will find youself up against invisible elites. Use your flashlight to spot their movements, and take them out. Once outside the structure, you will notice a crashed dropship and some grunts and jackals. Take them out from your location with the pistol, and then go all the way to the left where there is a hill and fall down from there. Get the supplies and return to the area where the door was locked shut. Now the door will be open, and hopefully your gunner took out the plasma sword elite. If not, then kill it yourself, and move on to the left. **Shafted** As you come around the turn, you will see an elite standing back towards you. Throw and stick a plasma grenade to his back, and he will die not noticing you. From there, assault the rest of the guys, and to the left there is a door. As it opens, you will spot some jackals. Take them out and continue down the ledge. Hug to the right at the wall as falling is an instant death. In the next room, you will spot two hunters and a lot of jackals. There is a healthpack on the right, but I suggest not using it now, unless you run dead on health. Kill everything in this room, and proceed to the ramp in the opposite direction of the healthpack. It should be where you first saw the Hunters come out of. From here, you repeat the pattern of going down a level and killing the guys, then continuing, and at one point following a ledge. This will lead you to the map room activation panel. Press it, and you go through a cutscene. After this, you work your way back up the structure. Now new enemies replace the old ones that were dead, and if they weren't dead, then you get the new ones in addition to the survivors. Just work your way in reverse of before, and as you exit the floor where the shafted subtitle appeared, you will find another plasma sword elite. Kill him with a grenade, and exit the structure. Get in the warthog if you want, and once you are "upstairs," you will be attacked by invisible elites. Take them out, and then Cortana calls in for the pelican. Get in, and you have completed level four. Now to get to the control room. ##################################### Level 5) Assault on the Control Room# ##################################### As you have actvated the map room, it is now your job to beat the covenant to the control room. In this level, you will be navigating through ice and underground hallways. This part of the walkthrough may be a tad bit simaler to the Pillar of Autumn level, but because of different chains of events, this should be much easier to comprehend. You start off by gettting off of the Pelican. Here you may want to jump into a shade turret in order to kill the enemies, or you may just want to attack them like normal. Once you kill them, go to the door that they emerged from. Follow this corridoor until you get to the next sliding door. It will open, revealing a room with two ring-like layers. One is the outside perimeter of the room, and one is the inside of the room. Follow the outside perimeter to the right and kill the enemies you encounter. You will come to yet another door. An arrow will point towards the door if you are in the right place. This happens to all of the doors like this that you find on the level. Follow the door and kill the covenant that you find in the hallway. You should emerge on a bridge, where you see two turrets and possibly some sleeping grunts. This is the first level in which grunts are asleep. If you melee them, they die and no others wake up. If you shoot them, they wake up. So melee the grunts, and proceed along the bridge. A Pelican will fly across the screen and will call a distrss signal to any marines. There is nothing you can do right now, so run to the end of the bridge, where you see another door. This will open, and you should be able to spot an elite with a plasma sword. Take him out and follow the passage. Inside the room, take a left and you will see an arrow pointing to a ramp going downish. Go down and around the ramp that is going up, and go through the door. You will be in a very cramped hallway. Follow it and you will emerge on a platform, next to a conrtol panel. Get on the platform and activate the panel. Once it stops, follow the next cramped hallway. Here you will find some more sleeping grunts. Melee them and proceed to the right, killing anything you have to in order to make it to the next door. Go into the door and out of the passage. You will be outside where marines are fighting. Take out the gunner on your right, and see if you can zoom with the pistol and take the gunner mounted on a rock far straight across but far away from the door you came out of. Once this is done, go to where the marines are and the overturned warthog. You do not want to use it in this part, as ice makes it slip and your guns will not work with what you are about to do. Pick up a rocket launcher and go to the covenant tank. It is the thing shooting all those blue bombs at you guys. Shoot the tank with the rocket launcher until it explodes, and then follow to the next area where enemies are coming out of. Kill them on and keep proceeding until you make a small step off of a low ledge. Here are more marines, as well as a tank. Get in the tank, and four of your marines will mount on. The tank makes this level a million times easier, so I am suggesting you use it. Even if your marines die, you can still put a nice dent at the covenant. Using the tank, eliminate any remaining covenant and proceed into the tunnel. Kill the guys you see. It is a bright idea to have the marine with the sniper rifle on your tank. In the next area, turn right around the incline you see. Go around it and you will see a tank and maybe some other vehicles. Shoot them with your main gun (right trigger) and they will explode. Pick off anything else that managed to remain. Proceed into the artificial cave you see (under the turret; it is easy to spot) and shoot the two hunters with your main gun. Follow the passage and open doors for you to get through. Do this quickly, as when you are too slow marines get out of the tank, and they have to get back on it again, wasting valubal time. Follow the passage to the end and you will come outside into a room where there is a bridge on the left and soem elites on your end. Kill them, and go onto the bridge. There are hunters at the other end of the room, so make sure to take them out as soon as you get the chance. After they are dead, get out of the tank and open the door, and quickly get back in. I will only say open the door form now on, but this is what that means. Follow the passage. **Rolling Thunder** As you finish killing everything and start to emerge form the cave, a dropship will come down, with some elites, grunts, jackals, and a few vehicles. Use your main gun blast once they are all deployed. As they are in a huge mass, this is a very easy way to ensure that the majority of them are killed, and anyone who had been in a vehicle had their vehicle blown up as well. After you do this, take a left and follow that path. You will see another covenant tank. Shoot it with the main gun, and go left to the cave it was guarding. Two hunters will emerge. Run them over or use a main gun blast, or even both. Once they are dead, follow the cave to its end. You will see some more covenant, and a narrow, curvy walkway down to below. There are some marines. From where you are, take out the covenant you can see that are on the bridge, and get out of the tank. Go down the path and find the hunters to the left. It is a good idea to use the pistol to take them out if you still have it. The rocket launcher will also work. Either way, take them out, and another covenant dropship will come. With you and a big group of marines, this will be nothing. Kill the covenant that come, and proceed to the next are, which is to the left of the "slope" you come out of. You will notice many poles. These stop the tank from proceeding, so should you still be inside of it, I am really sorry to say but you have to get out in order to move on. Get out and go through the cave to its end. In this area, you should immediatly kill any turret gunners. Then, mount in a turret and use it to destroy any banshees, ghosts, and any other enemies you find here. After this part, the mariens will no longer follow you, so you are on your own. Go into the door, and follow the passage, making sure to kill anyone that tries to stop you. You are once again in an in-door area. Take a left and follow perimeter until you come to a big left turn marked with an arrow pointing in it. Take this turn, and follow the narrow hallway nito the next elevator room. Activate the elevator, and once it stops moving go into the next area. Kill the jackals you immediatly see, and then follow the tight passage again. Once outside, you will be yet again in another interior room. Kill the jackals, and toss whatever grenades you have into the crowd of grunts above. After that, pick up ammo and grenades lying around, as well as the health pack. Make a right turn, and kill only what you need to in order to make it to the door you find. You need to start sonserving ammo for the next part of the level. Follow the door and you will be outside on a bridge yet again. Melee the grunts that you see on your bridge. Then look to the right and shoot a grunt or two over on the other bridge. This alerts everyone of your presence, so be careful. From here, follow the bridge. Two elites have needlers, so take caution against them. Try using some plasma grenades. At the end of the bridge, the next door opens and some enemies come out. Kill them and proceed through the corridoor. Here you will wind up once again in an interior room. Take a right, and from what I have experienced, you have a better chance of bypassing most enemies, and you will wind up right at the door. If you need ammo and/or a health pack, go just a little past the door in order to pick it up. Go through the door, and you will wind up in a straight room wiht quite a few enemies. Take these guys out and continue to the left. Here you will be in another interior room. Take either a right or a left. It doesn't matter. Kill all of the enemies and go through the door. You will be on a bridge again. Go across the bridge killing the enemies. Watch out for hunters shooting at you from the other bridge. It is best to ignore it and keep going instead of actually trying to avoid it. Once you get to the other side and go through the door, follow the passage. You will be in yet another interior room. Take a right and kill the covenant. Go through the passage you see like normal. In the next area watch out for invisible Elites, especially with plasma swords. Kill them and continue making a right turn at the end. Follow the passage and emerge at the incline. In this area you will spot two large objects on the motion tracker. Hunters are patrolling this room. I reccomend taking them out if you have the pistol and can spare two shots. Go through the next door and take out the covenant you spot. Follow the passage like normal. **If I had a Super Weapon** There is a tremendous shortcut here, and as it is not a glitch in the game, I will only be covering this route in my walkthrough. As you exit the area, you are once again outside. You can hijack a banshee and fly directly to the control room, or you can take some more in door tunnels. As you are likely sick of those and want to do things the easy way, lets just hijack the banshee. As soon as you get outside, run as fast as you can to the right. At the end of the path you will be able to see a banshee and an elite near it. A checkpoint should hvae happened right as you exited the inside rooms, so if you can not do this, revert to saved and try again. As you run up on the right, ignore everything but the banshee and that elite that you see next to it. Shoot him a tiny bit to keep him away form the banshee, and as you draw near it, rapidly hit X to ensure you get in it before he does, should you be head to head. Once inside the banshee, you can fly directly to the left, perspective being the way you were facing when you left the buidling. Flying to the left, go to the top part of the pyramid structure, meaning right at the top place you could stand on in front of the door. Before we proceed, I am going to explain how to use the banshee. First off, the plasma guns are used when you hit the right trigger. The fuel rod gun is used when you hit the left trigger. The fuel rod cannon needs four seconds of recharging before you can use it again, much like the tank's main gun. To fly, you use the trigger as if you were walking. Hopefully you set the invert flight control to yes if you inverted the thumbstick, and no if you didn't. This makes it very simaler to your main controls. Now land at that top area I mentioned, making sure it is right in front of the door. There is a conrtol panel that will open this door, located right next to it. Activate it and get back into the banshee. Use the fuel rod cannons and the lasers in order to put a nice dent into the covenant right form the start. IF you are begining to take a lot of hits, fly away. If you do not want to use the banshee, get out and use grenades, and definately rockets at long range targets. Once everything is gone, proceed to the end of the hallway and if neessary open the door to the right via its control panel. Walk to the end of the next hall that you jsut opened, and if necessary, use this control panel to once again open the new door. This will activate a cutscene. Congratulations for beating level five. You are halfway through the game now. ########################## Level 6) 343 Guilty Spark# ########################## A quick warning concerning this level. If you are easily scared, or something startling would cause you to experience a health problem or make you break out, then I reccomend you not play this level. This is very serious, as this level can be too frightening for many kids. While it is up to you on wheather you think the game could scare you, I advise that you have someone else who is older and less startled when they see very graphic and violent actions. And if you need to take a break while playing, do not feel embarassed. I myself took a three day vacation from this level upon getting past its halfway point. That said, let's get on with the show. You will get out of your pelican after the openeing cutscene. From here, go straight and you will find a pelican that apparently either crashed or could not make it off of the ground. If you listen carefully you will be able to hear a transmission that is apparently a fuzzy distress call. It claims that the marine group was ambushed by a new kind of covenant, but then the voice corrects itself, saying it was not a covenant. Listening carefully, you learn that the new enemy has apparently captured captain Keyes and his group. You are in for one hell of a level, let me tell you. Lying next to the dropship is ammunition, but what sticks out most is the hotgun ammo. On easy single player mode, there is a shotgun to go with this. On cooperative or any other difficulty on single player, the shotgun does not appear. So if it is there, grab it, and do not use it until I tell you to. From the dropship, take a right (perspectivebeing you going straight from where Foe Hammer let you off). Keep going straight and enemies will attack you. Kill them, and continue going straight. Once you hit a wall, take a left. Kill the jackals you see, and go to the log on the left. Go up it, and you will find yourself on a wooden bridge. Cross the bridge, but as you do it, take careful note at your motion sensor. It will show that you have fellow marines nearby. Using your pistol, quickly zoom to where the dots are, and you will see moving lifeforms. You have to be quick to do this. Now, these guys look nothing like humans. Odd, isn't it. Why would green dots be there if they weren't humans. Only marines would- Ok, lets just proceed. Kill first, ask questions later, as The Fall of Reach clearly sates. Continue going past the log, and up the hill past the shade turret at the end. Look at the building to your right, and you will be able to spot assault rifle blasts coming out. Then there will be an enourmous explosion, sending a shade turret flying and making the covenant run like they need to pee badly. First, kill the covenant. You will notice that the green dots will have completely stopped appearing. Once the covenant are killed, go inside the structure where the blasts came out of. Go straight in, but not too far, as there is a hole in the ground. A platform arises from the hole, and you are able to see controll panels on its sides. Wait, this is an elevator. But why did it get sent back up... Go down the elevator, and kill the enemies you find. You will notice that they were staying particularly close to one door. Well, what are you waiting for? Go inside the door. In the next room, kill the guys on your level of ground first, then aim at the floor below you and do the same to those covenant. Go inside the next open door. Follow the hallway, and give these covenant troops the same treatment as the others. Then, go inside the next green door. There is covenant blood everywhere. And I mean everywhere. If you are not the slightest bit worried, I am amazed. Follow the hall to the right and you will see even more dead enemies, as well as a green slime dripping from the cieling. Continue in the hall to the next room. There will be even more blood, and needlers as well as some needle crystals are lying on the ground everywhere. A door on a small ledge will appear to be flickering its green lights. Enter it, and follow the hallway. In the next room, do not go inside completely, but do go far enough so that you are past the door. A marine will be crouched against the wall. He mentions the screaming of the marines, how he played dead and so he wasn't turned into one of those things. But what does he mean? Let him finish his whole conversation. Approach him and he will start firing at you. While you do have a heart, and would want to let him live, it is best to kill him, so he can be put out of his misery. Its what he would have wanted anyway. Before we go on, let us recap what we have seen: A crashed dropship with no bodies, but still ammunition Random radar green lights The green lights leading to weird lifeforms An explosion plus human fire outside of the structure Covenant guarding doors Blood, both human and covenant everywhere Ammunition everywhere too Dripping goo from the ceiling A paranoid marine with some interesting statements Some broken doors and control panels Wow, that is a nice long list, isn't it? Well, go left of where you saw the marine and you will see burning platforms. Add that to the list too. Jump on top of the burning platforms, and go up the ramp. You will be on the next floor level. Go through the open door up there, and follow the hall. Once in the next room, activate the energy bridge via control panel, and go through the door at the other end. There are more weapons and blood. Take a left in the room you come into, and once you see the dead marine, take his shotgun, or the ammo from it if you are on easy mode. Go down the ramp and take a left. At the open door, you will see Jenkins, a marine, fall from inside, and a cutscene will start. This is one of the few times I explain a cutscene, but because of its importance, I will do so. You will see Sarge and a small sqaud sitting in a Pelican as it lands. The marines will joke about the music Sarge is making them listen to. The film fast-forwards to the marines going inside the structure, but there are no covenant and the area is clean of all the blood. It will fast forward again to the marines looking at a dead elite, with blood splattered all over the walls. He was apparently killed from plasma blasts, but the marines wonder who did it. In other words, they are thinking "what kind of a dumbass would shoot the elite enough times to kill it." Pardon my language, but it is the best way to put it. It fast forwards again to the area where you currently are in. The marines open the door like you did. A distress call form the marines guarding the structure is heard. They are shouting about some enemy that is attacking them but is not covenant. Then you hear their screams, and the com channel goes dead. Sarge orders Mendoza to go up there and investigate, but Mendoza tells him to be quite, and to listen. Weird rusteling and slime noises and stuff are heard, and a door breaks open. The screen looks at it (the screen is really Jenkins's combat recorder, by the way). Squid like enemies flood out of it, and the marines start shooting, but are overwhealmed. The camera goes black as the transmission is interrupted. **The Flood** From here, you encounter the Flood. Read my enemy descriptions and tactics on how to defeat them. The rest of this level is pretty easy to understand, so I will shorten its walkthrough a ton. You simply need to escape from the area, and use the green doors to run. You do not have to kill all of the flood you encounter, but for when they are in your way, use the shotgun. Go through each area through the green doors you find and follow those passages. You will at a point wind up seeing a flickering energy bridge. You can't cross it, so you will just have to drop down and take the alternate route. Don't worry; it is supposed to be that way. Eventually you will come to a room with an elevator. Go down it and kill the flood you encounter. There is an overshield on the sticking out wall with the boxes forming a ramp up it. Use the ramp formation to get it, and then go to the other side of the wall. There is a door you can go trhough there. From here, continue through like before, taking all of the available doors. Not much later, you will come to another elevator. Use it and there will be a group of marines waiting for you. They mention how the flood ambushed you, and Foe Hammer says to move out to a canopy where she can pick you up. Exit the structure with the marines. Keep in mind, these guys do not have MJOLNIR armor like yours. Therefor, the parasite floods can easily kill them. Kill the flood and follow the path forward, until your marines decide to stop moving. There is a tower nearby. Go towards it, and flying robots will come out and start killing the flood, making sure to not hit marines. Then, the cutscene goes where you are transported away by a different type of robot, who is free-minded much like cortana, and is in charge of the artificial planet you are on, installation zero-four. That means there are more Halos. At least three. Oh well, it doesn't matter much in this game anyway. ##################### Level 7) The Library# ##################### This is a very repitive level. Because of this, i am very simply going to sum it up and give you tips for fighting the flood. It may seem like I am lazy, and in part, I am, but you will come to realize by the time you are done with the level. Well, to sum this up, you follow the monitor everywhere he goes, clear out the flood in the area, and follow him again. Make sure you clear the area before you catch up to him. Note that he is not at constant movement. He will stop and wait for you, so use that to your advantage. At some point sin the level, Sentinals, those thigns that helped kill the flood in the last level, will come aid you as well. Keep them alive as best you can. They are very helpful. At certain times in the level you will have to hold your ground while the monitor goes off to do his thing. Usually it is only for a minut, but you need to be careful. Notice those big pipes on the sides of the room, with the bigass openeings? Flood come in through all those entrences, so it is very easy to get hit from behind. Also, this is the first level where you face the fat flood that explode on you. Kill them form far away. The explosion can hurt you a lot if you are two close. Also note that when a fat one dies, little ones come out. There are also a few elevators in the level, and many health packs, just to let you know. It is probably smart for me to list some tactics for surviving against the flood. For one, plasma is the worst weapon to use against them. Use the shotgun against the big floods; it garuntees they dont come back up. Frag grenades and meleeing are the best again the little ones. And also shotgun the fat flood. There will be times when your shotgun ammo goes low. When that happens, use the pistol. It is good against the small flood, and you can shoot off limbs of the big flood. You will probably be tempted to use the sniper rifle. Thats a no-no. It barely effects the flood and is hard to fire at close range, so whatever you do, skip that. Meleeing is also not smart. For a nice effect, shoot the flood as they jump at you in the air. For a few good seconds, they will be off guard, and you can take them out. At the last part of the library, there will be a huge room with a floating item in the middle. Sprint in, and ignore the flood. Just run like [insert bad word] and grab it. You automatically beat the level, and dont have to waste time and risk dying by fighting. Trust me, it is the best way to do things. Of course, shoot anyone who gets in your way, but ignore everyone else. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 3)* FAQ/Rumor Dispellor *********** This section answers questions other people have, as well as eliminate some rumors that came up. Be aware, you will find spoilers all throughout it, so if you do not wish for the game to be spoiled, I reccomend that you not proceed. Q: What is a Halo? A: Halo is the artificial planet that you land on in the game. Q: Why can't I hold more than 2 weapons? A: In order to make the game a tad more realistic, Bungie, the developers, decided to limit the number of guns you can carry to two, instead of having an invisible pocket that can hold fifty. Q: I heard that there is a wepaon called the flamethrower, but I can't find it. Where is it? A: Bungie took the flamethrower out of the game because it was not really setting things on fire. Q: If you beat Legendary Mode in under three hours, I heard you get more guns. Is it true? A: No, this is not true. Bungie said themselves that they would not be as cruel as to do something like that. Q: I am having trouble beating Hunters. What do I do? A: If you have read the enemy section and still can not figure it out, then here is a good explanation. Hunters are weak in their backs. Have them charge at you, and just before they hit you, move out of their way. They will miss, and expose orange flesh on their backs. One pistol shot to that orange spot will kill them. Q: I keep killing the flood, but they keep getting back up. Help! A: Use the shotgun, as it garuntees they will not get back up. Shooting their arms off with the pistol is also a nice method of doing this, as it makes them follow you, protecting you from being hit by others. Q: The flood just will not stop coming. I kill them with the shotgun like you said, but more just come! A: This is because there is an infinite amount of them in the area. Look at their spawn point and they will stop coming, or just go to the next room running like your ass is on fire. Q: Why won't my marines drive the warthog? A: Marines were meant to be passengers, and the game is designed for you to figure out where to go. Besides, if you have ever seen one in a ghost, the only thing they can use, then you should know how bad of an idea that that is. Q: My marines started shooting at me. Why? A: Because you likely killed too many of them, and they thought you as a traitor. Just don't kill them. I have heard but cannot confirm that if you kill a lot of covenant they are your allies again. Q: The marines started running over all of us in a ghost. Help? A: Marines are able to drive a ghost, and this si Bungie demonstrating why they did not want to let them drive vehicles. Just shoot anyone going for the ghost once or twice, but not kill them ;). Q: I heard there was a hippo in the game. Is it true? A: Suprisingly enough, yes it is. On a shotgun shell, if you took a fast and close look, you would notice that there is a hippo on it. Q: I heard that if you beat the last level on Legendary, there is a secret ending. Is this true? A: Wow, we are on a roll. It is true. Two true rumors for a change. Q: Well what is the ending? A: I hate to give it away (note I downloaded the ending as I sadly have not beaten the game). But it is of Sarge and an Elite fighting, who then hug when they see that the pillar of autumn is exploding. The elite then grabs Sarge's ass. Aaw how sweet. Q: I am having trouble with beating senetinals. What should I do? A: Hopefully you read the enemy section. Use plasma grenades, plasma weapons, and anything plasma. Some of them have shields, so be aware. Q: What is the best weapon? A: I, as many, would have to say the pistol. It takes out hunters in one shot, knocks off limbs of the flood, and can kill grunts and jackals in one hit. Q: My sniper rifle just wont harm the flood. Why? A: Bungie decided that it would be mean. The sniper rifle has almost no effect on flood, and takes many hits to kill them off. Q: My pistol just wont kill with headshots, and I am having trouble aiming at flood limbs. A: Headshots need to be slightly above the eyes. As for aiming at limbs, adjust look sensitivity in your profile settings and make it either slower or faster. Otherwise, just keep practicing. Q: I killed the driver of a banshee in level two, but I still can't ride the banshee. Why? A: Bungie took out the feature of riding it in level two because it could corrupt text boxes, and certain events that should happen. The warthog deployment or light bridge activation wouldn't happen, and that would mess things up as well. Q: Will there be a PC version of this game? A: Yes, in 2003 Bungie will release a PC version. Q: Is this game coming to Gamecube or PS2? A: Would you really think Microsoft would sell Halo rights to other companies? in other words, no. Q: How many levels are there? A: There are ten levels, and four difficulties levels to choose from for each missoin. Q: Is it possible to save throughout the level? A: Yes. Hit the start button and hit save and quit. This will save the game at the last checkpoint you visited. Q: How come my suites color won't change? I remember changing it. A: This is because it only changes in free-for all multiplayer, not single player, co-op, or team multiplayers. Q: I can't find the correct button combination. What do I do? A: If it doesn't exist, there isn't antyhing you can do, but there are plenty of combos to choose from anyway, so find another, or go with the default like me. Q: Can I play online using Xbox Live A: No, Halo is not Xbox Live Compatible. Q: Well what can I play Halo online with then? A: Gamespy Software and Xbox connect. Q: In level six I can't get across that flickering bridge. What do I do? A: It is impossible to cross it. Drop down and use the tunnel and hallway routes from there. Q: u are teh crapeest revewi rightter ver. **** u!! y [insert rest of extrememly vulger message] Y cant u l33rn to maajfhke a walkthrooo?? A: First off, now is a great time to go over some rules for emailing me. No spam, porn, or extremely vulger and/or hard to read messages. Flaming me will only get you flamed back, and then blocked, giving me the last word of the argument. Than i report you to AOL or whatever mail service you use. 1337 speak counts as hard to read, but i will kindly ask you to translate it instead of flaming and then blocking you. Should you not comply, you will be blocked. And as for you, Mr. Flamer, I do not see you pulling your weight around here, so just do us all a favor, and keep your mouth shut in front of the children. Please. :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 4)* Weapons *********** In this section I will cover the different human and covenant weapons. Note that I may mention a spoiler or two, so that is just my warning. &&&&&&&&&&&&&& Human weapons& &&&&&&&&&&&&&& Name: M9 HE-DP Grenade Description: This is the standard duel prupose grenade. It can be bonced off of surfaces. It has a fragmented explosion. These grenades are hard to spot, and detonate one second after landing and coming to a rest. They are not commom in levels, as only the few existing marines drop them. They are set off by other grenade explosions, should they be lying on the ground. Rating: Very good. Use these against jackals or Flood. Name: M6D Pistol Description: This is the handgun often used by marines. It is very powerful, and if you shoot unshielded covenant in the head with it, they are automatically killed. Ammunition is commonly found for it, as most marines use it for quick defense. It is Semi-Automatic. Feature(s): A 2x scope zoom Rating: An excellent weapon, I reccomend it whenever possible. Insstant hunter kills from in the back, and the ability to shoot off limbs of the flood make this a great choice. Name: MA5B Assault Rifle Description: This is a semi automic firing weapon that is best used at short ranges. From distances, it is very innacurate. Ammunition for it is plentiful. It is best used when fired in small, controlled bursts. Feature(s): None Rating: On lower difficulties, I suggest using this. On flood levels this is also a good idea. Otherwise, don't use it. Name: M90 Shotgun Description: This is a short range weapon capable of killing instantly. Not much to say about it. Feature(s): Ability to interrupt reload with melee or grenade, and ability to kill flood for good. Rating: A good choice on flood levels, it packs a powerful close range blast. It is altogether so-so. Name: S2 AM Sniper Rifle Description: This is a long range weapon. It is armor piercing, allowing it to cut through multiple covenant at once. Very innefective against the flood, however. Feature(s): 2x Zoom, 10x zoom, night vision Rating: Use it in level 2 and three only. Against the flood you will find it pretty useless. I'd say so-so. Name: M19 SSM Rocket Launcher Description: A slow rocket firing weapon. Found starting with level four. Feature(s): 2x zoom. Rating: Prettu bad. Its slow missles are easy to avoid, and close range attacks will kill you too. Name: M41 LAG Description: A light anti-aircraft and anti-infantry gun mounted onto the warthog. Feature(s): Unlimited ammo, automatic fire Rating: Very good if a gunner is in the warthog. This can be deadly against covenant. Note: While human weapons are very good in many cases, covenant weapons are found much more often in most levels, and are stronger against the covenant. While I am still recommending the pistol, you may find that things such as the rocket launcher are dangerous to use, or that things like the shotgun are ridiculous at long ranges. Learn what suits you the best. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Covenant Weapons& &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Name: Plasma Rifle Description: An automtic plasma firing gun used by elites and red grunts. Feature(s): Automatic fire with good accuracy no matter what range. Because it uses batteries instead of ammunition clips, it is reccomended that it be switched with a new weapon when possible. Rating: Very good, although it overheats with too much firing at once. Name: Plasma Pistol Description: Weapon used by standard grunts, and all jackals. This is also battery powered, so switch it off with a different plasma pistol whenever you can. Feature(s): Overcharge shot, semi automatic. Also has slight homing with the overcharge. Rating: The best covenant wepaon IMO, an overcharge takes out elite's shields automatically. Use it. Name: Needler Description: Weapon used by grunts and elites. It can home in on targets and cause explosions. Unlike the plasma pistol and plasma rifle, this gun uses ammunition clips. Features: Homing Rating: Pretty bad. Gives away your position. I do not reccomend using it. Name: Shade Description: The covenant stationary gun, this cannot be moved, but has unlimited plasma ammo. Feature(s): None really. Rating: Not bad if you are far from your opponents. Otherwise, don't use it. Name: Plasma Grenade Description: The covenant grenade, this for some reason sticks to marines or vehicles, but not trees or water. Explodes three seconds after sticking to something. Plentiful in most levels. Feature(s): Sticking to guys. Rating: Use it on everything except flood, as it is commonly found and can do a lot of damage when stuck to things. Note: Covenant weapons are found very often in most levels. They are good to get used to using as in harder difficulty settings not all of the human weapons are as effective. Also, covenant weapons do not require reloading, the needler being the only exception. They run off of battery packs, which can not be recharged. However, they can overheat if either used to rapidly, or overcharged, and that takes some time away. The needler creates two grenade like explosions with a full clip. Combined with a grenade, this can be very deadly, but ammunition is short and often hard to find. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 5)* Enemies *********** In this section I will be covering the enemies you will encounter in the game. These are obviously spoilers, so if you don't want later levels given away, do not read on. Name: Grunts Species: Covenant Rankings: Standard, Red, Black Description: Grunts are the covenants most commonly deployed foot soldiers. They wear an atmosphere suit in order to breath. Standard grunts are often very clumsy and only use plasma pistols. Red ones use plasma rifles, and show more signs of actually hacing a brain. Black ones are a menace. They throw grenades whenever they want, and some use fuel rod guns. The fuel rod guns explode after the grunt who was using it was killed, setting off grenades in the area. Name: Jackals Species: Covenant Rankings: Blue, Yellow (shield colors) Description: These covenant use energy shields simaler to the ones the gungans used in Star Wars: Edpisode I. They are generally not as smart as the instruction booklet may say, and are very oblivious to grenade throws. If you need to snipe them out, shoot trough the hole in the shield where their gun comes out of. For up close combat, either greande them or melee them. Don't waste ammo. These guys tend to use overcharge shots from the plasma pistol, which takes out your shield in one hit. Watch out. Name: Elites Species: Covenant Rankings: Blue, Red, Invisible, Yellow, Black Description: These guys are the generals of the military. They are equipped with MJOLNIR-like energy shielding that deflects bullets until it goes out. Blue and red ones commonly wield plasma rifles, but on occasion you can find them using needlers. Invisible ones are not shielded, and can be found in a dark room by using your flaslight. Part of their body appears when they walk into the light. Once you find one, shoot him as rapidly as possible; noting that they do not appear on motion trackers when invisible. Yellow elites are a big pain in the post-exterior end (I am not allowed to be vulger, as little chidlren might see, even though this game IS rated mature, hehe.). Yellow elites commonly use plasma swords. On any difficulty from normal and up, it is a one hit kill to you and your marines. And to be even mroe fair, bungie made it so that you can't use plasma swords dropped by elites. Note that invisible elites may use these too, but will not have shielding. Black elites are the special ops elites. They are really more silverish, but I call them black elites to go with grunts. These guys will often throw grenades, and never worry about stepping into the fight. The plasma pistol ought to be your best friend here. Name: Hunters Species: Covenant Rank: None Description: These guys are huge. There are no rankings on them. These guys carry enourmous shields, and have fuel rod guns attatched to their arms. Unnlike black grunts, these guns do not explode when the hunter dies. The best way to kill a hunter is to snipe his back. However, as you likely have lost your cover by the time they appear, this is rather difficult. So take out a pistol, get close enough to one so that he charges you, and just before he swings his shield, jump to the left, and he will miss. Then turn towards his back, and you will see an orange spot. This is what you want to hit with the pistol. One shot there and he is out for good. Hunters always come in pairs, and eveen grenades wont always kill them. Rockets also aren't good for the job. I have hit one directly with a rocket and it shrugged off the damage like it was nothing. Use the tactic I just said. Name: Flood Warrior Speicies: Flood Rank: None Description: These are bodies of infected marines or elites that were not able to hold their own against the flood. They are immune to the sniper rifle, and often when they die they will simply play dead and spring back up to attack you. They are fearless and will charge at you no matter what, which rules you the possibilties of a plasma grenade. Their limbs can, however, be shot off, so use that trait to your advantage and use the pistol to shoot off their arms. This makes them follow you, as well as not be able to shoot at you, as they have no arms. Plasma weaponry is very innefective against these guys, so don't use it unless you run out of ammo. Also, use fragmented grenades on them. And the shotgun is an instant kill to any flood, for good. Once they are hit with the shotgun, they do not get back up, assuming you hit them in the stomache or head. These flood can carry any gun, but not pilot vehicles. Name: Flood Parasite Species: Flood Rank: None Description: The name is fairly redundant as all flood are parasites. However, this is the best way to describe them. These guys are very tiny. They look very much like white jellyfish. They will grab on to any living thing and drain the life out of it. This includes your marines, the covenant, and even you. However, once your shield is up, these guys can do little damage. Once you shield drains, however, each oen touching you will take away a fulle health block. These guys explode when hit, killing any of their species around them. The explosion is more of them popping, not a grenade explosion. The pop is good enough, as I said, to take out nearby parasites. The assault rifle is a good weapon to use on them, but it is a waste of ammo, and a gun slot, so you are better off with melees and frags. Name: Flood Carrier Species: Flood Rank: None Description: These are flood that did not have very good host bodies, so they turned into what you encounter now. They are waddling fat flood, and although they look harmless, they are very bad to be around. They will get close to you and explode, but if you kill them otherwise, they will still explode. They detonate your nearby grenades too, which is another thing to watch out for. After they explode, they release flood parasites at you. Name: Sentinal Species: Ancient A.I. Rank: Silver, Black Decription: At first these guys are on your side of the fight, but soon you will find yourself against them, mainly for the last three levels. They shoot out laser beams, which can be very effective against you. Should you be trying to take out a bunches up group in a small space, use grenades. Also, plasma pistol overcharges work very well on these. Most other guns do not perform as well, although the plasma rifle has worked wonders for me sometimes. Some sentinals are also equipped with the nice little shielding, but the plasma pistol and grenades still work for that. As a sentinal dies, it hits the ground and explodes. It is hard to tell the difference between ranks, but you will notice some difficulty differences, and if you look close you will see. Note: The tactics I added with the descriptions were only touching up on combat. Later in the guide, you will find a more in depth section. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 6)* Good Guy Desriptions *********** Name: Catpain Jacob Keyes Species: Human Description: This is the captain of the Pillar of Autumn, a ship that had been planned ot be used for a secret mission to attack the covenant homeworld. With a number of "victories" in experiences with the covenant, he was one of the best Earth and her colonies had agains the covenant. Many people refer to him as the hero of Sigma Octanus IV, a human colony that was attacked by the covenant. The only one so far to survive an attack against the covenant, this victory gave a huge moral boost to the rest of the UNSC. This captain is brilliant, but has an even more important trait. He can keep a secret... Name: Marines Species: Humans Description: These are what make up the army of the UNSC. They put up an amazing display of courage, bravery, and daring against the covenant. They would never give up. These guys will work together and adapt to situations. Completely loyal, they will do all in their power to keep you alive, as well as put a nice little dent in covenant forces. However, keep in mind that they are only human... Name: Cortana Species: A.I. Description: Cortana is the best A.I. there is. Made from cloned barin cells of Dr. Hasley, the creator of the Spartan project, she is extremely intelligent. She was to be with the Spartans on a mission to attack the covenant homeworld, but that was all canceled when Reach was attacked. After Reach fell, Cortana became the main A.I. of the Pillar of Autumn, due to the fact that there was no need any longer to use the Pillar of Autumn's main A.I. Cortana provides you with loads of information and the latest on covenant whereabouts. Name: Master Chief Species: Human Description: This is your character. His first name is all anyone knows about him, other than his rank of Master Chief. He was kidnapped at age six and replaced by a clone. From here, he trained for years with fellow recruits in order to learn the meaning of leadership, teamwork and other important battlefield tactics. After his training was complete, he was injected with special drugs that enhanced everything in his body, including his reflexes, by an enourmous amount. Half of the spartans either died, or were too sick from side effects of the drugs, and could not continue. Getting used to an enhanced body, MJOLNIR armor was also given to him and his comrads. This enhanced his strengths even more. In order to get to where he is today, he fought many covenant battles, earning him countless medals. His record was very popular with the media, and he was the best-known Spartan. On Sigma Octanus IV, the Spartans managed to snatch a few covenant shields, and scientists remade the same technology into newer, better, and more enhanced MJOLNIR suits. An AI slot was also added to the battlesuit, to make life much easier for the Spartans. After Reach fell, John was the last Spartan alive, except for three that could not be at the battle because they had duty elsewhere. Escaping from Reach, the covenant were able to track the Pillar of Autumn as it emerged from its blind jump in space. This leads to the story line of Halo. The MJOLNIR suite that you wear is very exclusive. The shields recharge, and targeters switch depending on the gun you use. This is what is expected to get you through the Covenant. It is Earth's last weapon. Now, for the weaknesses of marines. Marines can not jump from place to place, nor do they have the benefits of the armor you wear. Because of these two things, your choices are more limited in battle. You have to make sure they can all get from one place to another without too much trouble. The best way to do this is to clear the path as best you can, and then have them follow you and clean up the rest. Another weakness of marines is that they do not know the weak spots on enemies. They do not know that shotguns are good at close range only, or that the covenant jackals can be killed best with grenades, or that hunters are weak in the back orange spots. Instead, they just attack as if the enemy were totaly defensless. Because of this, you need to be able to use them as a distraction while keeping them alive. This is difficult, but here is a nice example. You have a whole group of marines and two hunters. Lets say hunter number one was killed from friendly fire (it does happen sometimes). So hunter number two ignores you totally and goes for the marines. Now they don't know to shoot their orange spots with pistols. Instead, they spray it with the assault rifle. Use this chance to get behind the hunter and take out your pistol and kill it yourself. There you go. You used a weakness of your teamates and made it your personal advantage. As you can see, you have to work your way around the disadvantages. Just because your marine can't snipe for beans does not mean that he is not a good warthog gunner. Some more weaknesses include the ffact that somtimes marines don't attack with you. Instead, they wait behind and elt you do the dirty work. Or maybe they will just not be able to keep up with your quick pace. So how do you handle these two things? You can clear the path as best you can, and go and find them and see if they start to follow your lead. Sometimes you just have to show them what happens. This has worked for me too. Other times, you simply HAVE to do the dirty work, and it pays off on later spots of the level. I hope all of that went into a nice spot in your brain. It is good stuff to remember. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********** Section 7* Vehicles ********** Here I will explain the vehicles you may find, and what levels they can be used on. Name: M12 LRV Warthog Description: This is an anti infantry vehicle used by many UNSC forces. Armed with a light anti-aircraft gun and room for up to one passenger and one gunner, this is a devastating vehicle agains the covenant. You can run them over with it, and the three barrelled back gun never rums out of ammunition or needs reloading. This is the most important part of the vehicle. The passenger seat is also good, as a decent sniper could sit there attacking at long range while the gunner goes for medium range, and the driver runs over enemies at short range. Levels Found: 2,4,5,8 Name: M808B MBT Description: This is an outstanding vehicle. It is a heavy tank capable of hold up to four marines on its sides. The driver can control a main gun, which is an extremely fast traveling 90MM HV gun. He or she can also control a gun turret similer to that of the gun on the warthog. Both can be fired simultaneously. This vehicle is ideal in taking out other vehicles, as well as infantry forces. You can use the four passenger seats for a good mix of marines. Two snipers and two assault riflers would work well if you could find them, although I think there is only one sniper on the level where you can use this. Either way, you get a nice mix. Levels Found: 5 Name: Ghost Description: This is the covenant ground vehicle. It is armed with two plasma cannons, but only one person can pilot it. This is the only vehicle that marines can use, but you don't want them in it. If you see one goin for it, just shoot him once or twice to give him the message, but make sure you don't kill him. The ghost hovers above the ground and is not effected by ice the way the warthog is. Ghosts are good when you need to get somewhere fast but cannot use a banshee. Levels Found: 5, 8 Name: Banshee Description: This is the covenant air vehicle. It is armed with two plasma guns and two fuel rod cannons. The banshee is extremely manuverable, but it is only flyable on two of the three missions you see it. This is great for taking out covenant tanks or hunters, or for just getting somewhere you can't reach by normal methods. Levels Found: 2*,5,8 Name: Wraith Tank** Description: This is the covenant tank. It fires an enourmous but slow moving plasma bolt. However, the pilot usually anticipates where you will be heading, and its plasma bolt is huge, so it is not so easy to just avoid getting shot. The tank itself is pretty slow, and it can not be piloted by you or marines. Only Covenant can use it. Levels Found: 5,8 Name: Pelican Dropship*** Description: This is the dropship that Echo 4-19 uses to pick you up all of the time. It is supposed to have two rocket pods, but those were taken out as it would make the game unfair. The Pelican is also used by other fireteams, such as Zulu in level 5. Levels Found: 2,3,4,5,10 Name: Covenant Dropship**** Description: This is the annoying dropship that always deploys covenant at the bad moments. This can't be destroyed, so don't make a fool of yourself trying. It releases vehicles in addition to grount troops. It also has a turret that will fire at you should it decide it does not like you. *You cannot use the banshee on level two. The game developers, Bungie, decided to take it out as using it would corrupt many events that needed to happen. The lightbridge activation is one good example. **The Wraith tank is not able to be used by either you or the marines. Although it can be flipped, this is all you can do to it, exluding blasting it with grenades and rockets. ***The Pelican is not flyable, just like the Wraith Tank. The most you can do is get in its side seat when you are extracted, but that is just about it. ****Once again, this is not flyable either. It can't be destroyed, so don't waste ammo and grenades trying. It can not be piloted by you either. So once again, do not try. That should be of some help to you regarding vehicles. I do not believe I left anything out here, but if you think I should add something please email me and let me know. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 8)* In Depth Battlefield and Enemy Tactics *********** This section will go more in depth at defeating enemies. I will cover how the enemies genrally react to certain situations, starting with the covenant. Once again, I warn of spoilers when I get past the covenant, so be cautious if you don't want anything spoiled. The covenant are a rather large group of enemies. Because of this, it is rather difficult to make a broad statement. I will be going by species to help you understand what happens, and then make a combined species part. Gunts: These guys are on the low end of the covenant military. They are not too powerful, but can be deadly in groups. Grunts generally will tend to stay in packs, but they can be spread out. When they are not with each other, life will be a lot easier to ifght, so you may want to find some way to scatter them around. This is probably going to be done better on co-operative, but you could do it on single player as well. First, you need to be able to have marines attack on one side of the covenant, while you sneak up behind the enemy and mellee any elites in the back, and then as your enemies are confused, either nail some fire their way, or hide somewhere (a rock is always handy) and take them out with pistol headshots. Their are other ways to do this, such as them attacking low and you attackig above them, which will spread their fire a tad more. On co-operative mode, this is a bit easier, as your partner is smarter, and he can last longer and keep some marines alive. Then you sneak up like normal, and lob a grenade near the covenant but far enough that your partner and the marines wont die. This works fairly well, and you can finish the job by enclosing the covenant. However, that is only if grunts are in a group. That can also help spread them around, as they will often flee. This gives you cahces for your shields to recharge or for you to snipe them as they run. If you happen to find a group all spread out already, then there are other things to do. Grunts will generally call in for back-up if they see you, which regroups them all, bringing you back to square one. So you want to snipe them from a distance. The pistol works best with this, as head shots will tkae out a grunt in one shot. If you do not have the pistol, the sniper rile is another good alternative, as it is possible to take out multiple grunts if you can hit through one grunt's head in one shot, while the others are lined up and also take head shots. This saves you ammo, which is not in great lots nor is it very common in most levels (save Truth and Reconciliation). Continue sniping out everything, but remember to move away if one starts running deliberatly towards you. You don't want him calling everyone else. Should you be able to do neither of these possibilties, try to lob some grenades and anticipate where the grunts will go so that they step on it whiel it explodes. This is harder to do, but it is the other possibility. Grunts are also very lazy. In some levels, they can be found asleep, but firing at them does not work, as they wake up. So how can you use this wonderful opportunity to kill them all? Melee them. Walk up to grunts and hit them with a good old punch. As melees are silent, they will not be woken, and you can take out a good portion of grunts with this, without wasting ammo or taking damage. The obstacle to this, however, is that there are often elites patrolling where grunts go to sleep. Elites do not sleep, and if you are spotted, they will shout, waking up any grunts that dozed off. Their placement is random, so if you can't manage to get in a good round of pain, rever to saved and try again. Also, jackals will do the same thing as the elites, as they do not sleep either. Remember to pick up whatever grenades grunts drop, as well as their weapons if necessary. Also, grenades lying on the ground can be detonated onto other covenant. Just throw your own grenade at the ones on the ground, and kaboom. Their will be multiple explosions, and enemies nearby will more than likely be killed with the explosions. Jackals: Jackal are the covenant holding those shields, in case you forgot. These guys are a step up from grunts, but are not much better if dealt with properly. These guys will not use grenades on you, but instead a weapon that is more lethal than innacturate grenades. Jackals carry plasma pistols, capable of the overcharge. They will very often decide to use it on you, so watch out. And no, stepping sideways will not make the shot miss. It has slight homing. One shot from it puts your shields out automatically, even with an overshield. However, they are cowards like grunts. You really do not want Jackals in a tight pack, as that lets their shields cover from all directions. So killing an elite will do the trick, as it makes jackals flee for their lives. As their backs will Likely be turned, you can take em out with a nice shot there, or let them scatter before they start acting a bit braver. Jackals have a tendency to not notice grenades. Therefor, if you spot a nice tight pack that does not notice that you are there, lob a frag their way. A plasma grenade will do fine if you do not have frags, as jackals are pretty oblisious anyway. They will likely not spot the grenade, and the whole pack of them will be killed from the explosion. Two things to be careful of when doing this: One, make sure you don't have the plasma grenade stick to them, as they will run alerting their comrad of the grenade. Two: Make sure you don't hit their shields directly with it, as it will bounce off and back at you, not only raising the chances of them spotting you, but also raising chances of you being killed. A good throw is a bit below the shield, so it bounces under it, or not into it at all. There is a way to tell if a jackal has overcharged his pistol. If you look closely, you will see a green glow completely surrounding him. This is a good givaway, and depending on your strategy you might want to get an elite in front of this guy and have him accidentally friendly fire, taking the elites shields down, or you may want to kill this guy right away or save him for last. Of course, you may still have some ideas of your own, so be creative. Jackals have a nice small hole in their shield where they stick out their gun. If you are sniping, this is a nice spot to aim for, as it goes beyond the shield and into the jackal, usually killing him. Jackals are also good to deal with by meleeing them. This saves your ammo, and they go out in one to two punches. Elites: Elites are the commanders of the military. These guys have shields just like you unless they are invisible. For a good description see the enemies section. First I will start off with taking out standard elites; the ones who are visible and carry the plasma pistol. These guys can be taken out fairly easily, although they are smart enough to go for cover should their shield go out. A plasma pistol overcharge takes out their shields in one shot, and this is a ncie way to start when fighting them. After their shields are out, use your pistol and hit them in the head for an easy kill. They drop grenades, so if there are multiple elites, throw some of your own on the pile for even easier kills. Elites DO sometimes carry needlers. They shoot it in huge sprays of fire; enough to kill you in one go should you not be alert. It is hard to kill them when they do this because they keep a good distance. So how are you supposed to kill the damn thing if it wont stay still? Well, a good sniper would do the trick, or you can use the needler right back at them. Because of wonderful homing capabilities, this is where I say that the needler is a good idea, and disregard my previous statements, for the time being, that is. The needler will keep these guys on the run, and a full clip will cause two or three grenade-like explosions, and as long as the needles latched onto the elite, he will die, not question. This detonates nearby grenades too, which is wonderful against covenant. Just make sure you or your marines didn't get any of the explosions. Elites also tend to use plasma swords. On hit kills that are a pain in the butt to deal with, these guys are fast and have shields. The best way to take them out without losing half of your marines is to grab its attention, and from there run back while shooting forward. The needler may also be a good idea here, but because the guys is constantly following you, use a plasma pistol overcharge, and then finish with the pistol in a head shot. The plasma pistol overcharge will stun him, so use that time to switch of to the pistol instead of wating for it to cool off. You will have like a split second to shoot him in the head before he regains control of himself. Even if he does start following again, just shoot him in the head as you back up. He will die. A bigger problem to you is invisible elites. The marines somehow do not realize that a floating sword is following them. However, you will be able to, and as there are no shields on the invisible elite as it is invisible, you should just spray some assault rifle fire on it. This makes it slightly visible, and you can make quick work of them. Probably the biggest threat is completely invisible elites, with normal guns. These guys are hard to spot. How I do it is I activate my flashlight, and wherever I see slight abnormalities in my vision, I fire. If you can picture the shape of an elite with a shielf going around him, this is more or less what it will look like. Once you can spot an invisible elite, spray him with some fire. He will become visible, and will likely die quickly. Elites almost always drop some grenades for you, and their plasma rifles are like covenant assault rifles, but with amazing accuracy. However, they tend to overheat, so use them wisely if you want to. Hunters: Hunters are amazingly powerful covenant, with huge shields. They will always be deployed into groups of twos. They only have fuel rod guns, but can be very powerful if you are not careful. Hunets have a few weak spots on them. To be specific, orange patches on their neck, stomach, and back. These spots are not covered by their armor or bones. A good pistol shot will take a hunter out in one shot if you can hit him there. The best spot is the back, as it is a nice big patch. The problem to this is how to get behind it. To make matters worse, you still have to worry about the other hunter blasting you as well. While this method I am about to explain is risky, it works. First, we are assuming you can't snipe the hunter. So we need to get behind him. First you need to get close enough that he will not fire the fuel rod gun. Instead, he will start chasing you. Stand still and stay calm. Right as he starts to swing his shield at you, immediatly move to the left as fast as possible. He will miss, and if you are quick you can get right behind him and nail that orange spot with the pistol. It should kill him in one shot. Repeat this with the next hunter. I would like to point out that hunters are not very weak against grenades or rockets, as you might think they were. I have hit them directly with a rocket and they survived. Same with grenades. They can be sniped from a distance with the sniper rifle, but this can only be done when they do not notice you. If they do, you will either be killed by fuel rod fire, or they simply wont expose weak spots. Either way is not good. Hunters do not leave anything behind when killed, except for maybe a nice bloody battlefield. It is often a must to kill them when you see them, so remember this tactic, as it wastes two bullets and no health if done properly and perfectly. The covenant when grouped up are a pain to fight. Hunters are often alone, save a few spots in the fourth and tenth levels. A mix of the species is usually deployed. SO you need to use tactics in mixes. Also, grunts and jackals when grenaded will run to other enemies. This is pretty useful, as it can be a good night to an elite. Elites never flee unless you throw a grenade at their face. Then they start running away. Otherwise, if you stick a grenade somewhere else, they will roar, and start charging at you. The roar takes up about two seconds on the timer, so it is not a big threat, but can still take you out should you not be careful. Enemies also dive from grenades, so keep they in mind. All together, the covenant ae likely to be the biggest threat to you in the game. The Flood: Note: This is a big assed spoiler, so it is highly reccomended that if you have not beaten level 6 and 7 at the very least, you do not proceed. Flood Parasite: These are the tiny jellyfish flood. Flood parasites tend to attack you in veyr large groups. Their only tactic is to charge at you and stick to you, sucking the life out of you. Parasites are simple to defeat. A good spray of asaault rifle bullets would do the job, but often not even that is needed. When you kill a parasite, it causes a small explosion, doing small damage to you. With that said, it may only be necessary to use a simple one shot with the pistol, or even a wel timed melee attack. These things do not use too many tactics, and if they miss you when they jump, they will turn around and jump again. These are not mutch with your shield up, but if your shield is completely drained then each one that latches onto you does a full bar of health damage. Run away when your shields drain completely. It is not reccomended that you use plasma grenades on these guys, even if you are far away. There is always the good chacne that the parasite will bring it back to you. Fragmented grenades are great howver, especially against a whole swarm of these guys. Flood Carriers: These are really fat flood, who need to cut down on the pie. They are very slow, but when they get near you, they will explode, doing anywhere from half to a full bar of health damage. In addition, and grenades in the area will go off, and up to six parasites will come out of the carrier. These are how the parasites are born. A good shotgun will make it explode right away, as well as two pistol shots or any other damage you cna do, other than melees of course. These guys are just like the parasites and will keep running towards you. I do not reccomend grenades at all, as it could send the carrier flying right towards you, exploding in midair, and releasing flood to suck away your health. Simply keep racking on dmaage with guns and life will be easier. Also keep in mind that these guys will also hurt any of their fellow flood in the area of the explosion. Knowing this, you may want to wait to set on off until he is right beind the guys attacking you, then let him blow. Flood Warrior: These are marines and covenant who ahve been infected by flood, as I already said. These guys will carry any set of weapons, and will melee you quite often. They ahve a tendancy to pretend to be dead but get back up and attack you again. Because of this, you will need to find a way to stop them completely. The shotgun is the answer. One shutgun in either the head or chest/stomache kills one of these guys for good. You should also try using the pisol and shooting off their arms. This makes them helpless, but they still follow you, and can act as a "body guard" when dealing with other flood. In many places in the game, these guys will simply keep coming an unlimited amount of times. In order to stop this, you need to look at their spawn point. That is, where they are magically reapearing. This stops them from coming. Plasma weaponry is very innfectective against a warrior, let alone any flood. It is best to tear through them with something more like the rocket launcher. The assault rifle is not so good against them either. Use the pistol and shotgun just as I reccomended. These guys can jump far. In one level they jump from one bridge to another. They also tend to use melee attacks agains you. Watch out for these as well, because should you decide not to pay attention, you will quickly find yourself dead. Some of these guys only have tentacles and no weapons, and only melee you. This is also pretty bad, and you do not want to let the guys have this chance. Remember to use the pistol to take off their arms. The shotgun can also kill miltiple flood from a good angle, so use that to keep the pain going as well. All in all, the flood are not as good as the covenant. However, when you find the two sides in a battle, the flood almost always prevail. But you can make quick work of them anyway. As a group, try only using the shotgun against flood. This can kill multiple flood at once, and remember to make the explosion from the carriers go against other flood. It can be a nice helpful distraction, even if it doesn't put the flood out for good. Sentinals: These are really only one type of enemy, but I need to add it anyway. Sentinals are 343 Guilty Spark's personal "soldiers." They shoot out laser beams, and are immune to almost any type of human weapon other than grenades. They will always come in groups of at least four. Sentinals can track your movements, but their beams do not penetrate walls. They generally remain stationary with the exception of some slow motions in order to readjust their aim. The best way to take these guys out if they are flying over a hole in the ground or a drop where you would die if you fell from is to use the plasma pistol overcharge. This is the fastest way they are going to die. If they are bunched togehter, do not be afraid to stick a plasma grenade to them. They never seem to notice it, and it will cause every sentinal close enough to your main victim to explode. Sentinals explode once they die and hit the ground. This CAN do a lot of damage to you should you be close enough to the debris. Some snetinals also have shields, which could be a nice pain in the butt to deal with. In many locations, there are glass panels that sentinal lasers do not penetrate. It is best to hide behind these and jump out periodically to shoot. When sentinals hover over a ground surface you can walk on, throw some grenades their way. It will take them out very quickly. If you are good at beating these guys, then you should wait untill they take out all of the other enemies in the area before going for them. If you are not so good against them, kill them first. Now if you happen to find everyone at one location blasting the heck out of each other, the best thing to do is to wait for them to finish fighting, and pick off anyone who survived. I however, tend to throw in my two cents of the conflict with a couple grenades and rockets here and there. I suggest you feel free to add your opinion to the matter like a gentleman does ;). I hope I have been very helpful in handling your problems with the enemies you encounter on Halo. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********** Section 9)* Multiplayer *********** Mutiplayer mode has many options. Before we start playing, I will go over what those are. Co-operative play: Co-op mode, for short, is when two people play together in camaign mode. In other words, there are two Spartans, one for you, one for your teamate. The difficulties are the same as in single player, so if you want to beat Ledgendary easier, this may be your chance. However, I often find it harder doing co-op with a less experienced partner, or one who just fools around killing whatever. Split Screen: This is where two to four people go against each other in deathmatches, capture the flag, or whatever. These are generally more fun with more people, especially on teams when you can have your teamates as partners on the tank or in the warthog. Capture the flag is one of many peoples favorites. As long as you are doing free for all, you maintain your multiplayer color you selected in the options menu. System Link: This is where you play the game online, or by connecting four Xboxs with a crossover cable. Up to sixteen people can play (four per XBox). Otherwise, this is the exact same thing as split screen. Edit Gametypes: This is where you create or edit your own gametypes. Want to have all vehicles in Blood Gulch? Want everyone invisible? Infinite grenades? This is how. You can choose what type of game (slayer, race, CTF, etc) and if there are teams as well. Want to get rid of those cheap tanks? Here you go. Use this for some interesting results with your friends.