HHH
 HH         H
 HH         HHH           A         LLLLL
 HH         HHH          AAA         LLL                  OOOOOOOOOOO
 HH         HHH         A  AA        LLL              OOOOO          OOO
 HHHHHHHHHHHHHH             AA       LLL           OOO                 OOO
 HHH        HHH        AAAAAAAA      LLL         OO         OO          OOO
 HHH        HHH      AA       AA     LLL         O          OO          OOO
 HHH        HHH     AA         AA    LLL                               OOO
 HHH        HHH    AA           AA  LLLL           L  OOOOO          OOO
HHHH        HHHH AAA             AAA  LLLLLLLLLLLLLL      OOOOOOOOOOO




                                   COMBAT EVOLVED



                              LEGENDARY DIFFICULTY GUIDE


                            By: DeusExMachina (Neoseeker)
                                MrWalkthrough (GameFAQs)


                                 __________________



Contents:

1. Intro
2. Storyline
3. Characters
4. Difficulties
5. Weapons
  -Human Weapons
  -Covenant Weapons
6. Enemies
  -Covenant
  -Flood
  -Monitor and his friends
7. Artifacts
8. Vehicles
  -Human Vehicles
  -Covenant Vehicles
9. Other tips
10. Walkthrough
  -The Pillar of Autumn
  -Halo
  -Truth and Reconciliation
  -The Silent Cartographer
  -Assault on the Control Room
  -343 Guilty Spark
  -The Library
  -Two Betrayals
  -Keyes
  -The Maw
11. Secrets
12. How to contact me
13. Legal
14. Final word






1. Intro


     Hi, my name is Anton Bovin and this is my fourth guide. The other
guides I’ve written were for the games called Evil Twin: Cyprien’s
Chronicles, Myst III, and Worms: Forts Under Siege. This guide’s name, of
course, comes from my legendary writing skills. And, of course, the last
sentence wasn’t serious. I don’t consider them legendary and neither will
you.


     I’m planning to make this guide more complete than the others I saw on
the Internet by adding a complete walkthrough. While the others do give
some very useful advice about playing Halo, something as simple as a door
you can’t find might halt your progress through the game and all those tips
on killing the bad guys won’t help.


     But...if you haven’t passed at least one of the easier difficulties
(preferably Heroic), then it’s probably not a good idea to even attempt
passing Legendary. You’ll probably meet the same fate as your enemies in
Easy difficulty five minutes into the game. And again. And again. Well, you
get the picture. So if you don’t have a history of finishing games on their
hardest difficulties, for you playing on Legendary is just a reason to die
a lot. I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but it’s not very practical to
learn how to handle certain guns when you’re surrounded by the game’s most
advanced enemies.


     So if you feel like you’re up to passing Legendary, this guide might
help you a lot. However, if you need help passing the game on another
difficulty, this is still usable. The number of enemies might just be
slightly different.


     You may find the walkthrough unclear about precisely where to go and
the number of enemies in every area, but I will include the vital
information about how to stay alive and finish the game that way.


     There are some spoilers outside the walkthrough part, so if you care,
play the game first.


     I’m going to try not to make everything sound too easy, while others
say something like, “Take down that Gold Elite’s shield with the Pistol
from long range, then get up close and kill it with the Assault Rifle”.
That distorts the hardness of the Legendary difficulty and if you follow
similar advice, you’ll spend a large fraction of the time seeing yourself
flying through the air and restarting from the last checkpoint.




______________________________[ 2. Storyline]_____________________________


     The story is set in the future, in the year 2552. Humankind is tired
of living on Earth due to overpopulation and decided to build an engine
that will transport spaceships at the speed of light to other planets. They
built it and started going to those other planets. Everything seemed to be
going all right when all contact with the colony called Harvest was lost.
The human government sent the ship Argo to see what happened. Argo was
never seen again. That was a cue for the United Nations Space Command to
send a fleet of warships to Harvest. One surviving ship returned and
reported that an alien warship was in the colony’s orbit and had
obliterated the population.


     The war went on for thirty years during which humans got a
transmission from the aliens, which revealed that they called themselves
the Covenant and for some reason they didn’t like humans and decided to
kill them.


     It so happened that because of this, the humans didn’t like the
Covenant either, so they decide to board a Covenant ship and find their
home world. They put the boarding party on the ship called the Pillar of
Autumn, but before they could organize, the Covenant destroyed Reach, the
last human citadel against the aliens. The Pillar of Autumn had to make a
blind jump to a random location in space to try to lure the Covenant away.
They arrived near a huge ring-like artificial planet near a gas giant,
Threshold. Now they have to land there and discover what it hides...




______________________________[ 3. Characters]____________________________


     Master Chief-this is the last survivor of the secret Spartan II
project. From what I hear, he once was a normal kid, then the government
trained him in the military, artificially strengthened his bones and
muscles, implanted an interface chip into his brain and put him into the
MJOLNIR armor he will wear throughout the game. The armor contains a layer
of crystal that’s capable of supporting an AI construct and it also
contains the Holy Grail of your survival: the shield. It regenerates a few
seconds after you’re hit and can do so indefinitely. But if you’re under
constant fire and you lose the entire shield before it regenerates, your
health starts decreasing. Once that is gone, you’re toast. So if the shield
gauge is nearly empty, take cover. If there is no cover nearby, hope for a
miracle. If you don’t like hoping for miracles, like me, fight till you’re
dead or “revert to saved” in the pause menu.


     Going back to the less important parts, Master Chief is the most
important member of the Pillar of Autumn boarding party, since the rest of
the Spartan II’s were killed when Reach was destroyed. You will be him for
the entire game.


     Captain Keyes-he is 26 years into his military career and became a
minor hero when he saved a colony ship from a Covenant ambush. He was also
chosen to be the captain of the Pillar of Autumn and the leader of the
operation to board the Covenant ship. You’ll spend a lot of the game trying
to save him from the Covenant and generally looking for him.


     Cortana-the Pillar of Autumn’s AI core, 80 percent of the game you’ll
have her inside Master Chief’s armor. When the Pillar of Autumn lands on
Halo, Master Chief has to take her off the ship so that the Covenant
doesn’t capture her. She will be quite handy, intercepting communications
and opening doors. She’ll also give you vague hints about what to do and
where to go.


     Marines-I thought for a long time whether to put them into the
characters section, but they’re human after all and don’t really fit
anywhere else.


     Well... they’re marines. They’re not very good at fighting and usually
serve as either cannon fodder (sacrifices, if you want it that way) or a
source of ammo. They tend to get themselves effectively exterminated at the
start of every major battle (all the game, really) and are of no real use
except for a few rare occasions where they stick around long enough to take
a lot of fire that would otherwise go towards you. They almost always carry
Assault Rifles and assuming you prefer to use it, the game should be made
considerably easier by the marines.




______________________________[ 4. Difficulties]___________________________


     This guide is for Legendary, but since I recommend playing at least
one of the easier difficulties first, I’ll include a full description of
them. I will start each description with the description provided in the
game.


Easy

-“Enemies cower and fall before your unstoppable onslaught, yet final
victory will leave you wanting more.”


     Easy is the easiest difficulty and you can literally run through,
shooting the Covenant and generally having a good time.  In my opinion,
this is the best place to get started, but because the difficulty increases
exponentially (i.e. the enemies’ strength and the damage they do to you is
doubled each time you go to a harder difficulty), some people reasonably
argue that it’s better to get started with Normal rather than Easy. But if
you trust my opinion, start with this.


Normal

-“Hordes of enemies vie to destroy you, but nerves of steel and a quick
trigger give you a solid chance to prevail.”


     This is remarkably more difficult than Easy, but the description says
the truth: be patient, fire at everything that moves that’s not a human,
and if you get killed too much, figure out a new way to do things. Always
sneak up on enemies if you can, and use cover to dodge enemy fire. Use
grenades to clear up areas that you’re finding hard to clear from where you
are.


Heroic

-“The enemies are as numerous as they are ferocious; their attacks are
devastating. Survival is not guaranteed.”


     This is a challenge. You’ll have to pick the strategy you will use,
not just run into an area full of enemies and start emptying your guns into
them. Do it and you will probably die. Always take cover and allow the
shield to recharge. Reload your guns. Backtrack to a previously cleared
area to get grenades, new weapons and ammo. Get back to the enemies. Flank
them if possible. Use a nearby object as cover, throw in a grenade or two,
and start shooting.


Legendary

-“You face enemies who have never known defeat, who laugh in alien tongues
at your efforts to survive. This is suicide.”


     This in-game description doesn’t leave me much to clear up. Like it
says, this is suicide. You will be dying a lot, but if you have enough
determination and patience, you might actually make it to the end of the
game in one piece. If your life expectancy is too low, rethink your
options, start using different guns to see how good they are against the
enemies you face, and of course, be as careful as possible.




______________________________[ 5. Weapons] _____________________________


Human weapons

     The usefulness/uselessness of these weapons varies. The only three
weapons equipped with scopes are human-made, so they are good for stealthy
and efficient attacks, something you’ll need in Legendary. Weapons, along
with strategy, are everything in Halo. In Legendary you’ll have to fight
like there’s no tomorrow, so you need to know which weapons suit your
strategy best. I’ll write about every aspect of every weapon I can think
of. And more as I think of them. At the beginning of each one I’ll write
some statistics (to provide some vital info to those who don’t want to
spend hours reading all the text) that are my opinion only. At the end I’ll
write a verdict.


-MA5B Assault Rifle

Accuracy: 3 (out of 10)
Power: 4
Clip size: 8 (60 rounds)
Number of rounds you can carry: 9 (600 plus those in the weapon itself)

     This is a gas-operated, magazine-fed, automatic weapon. Firing 7.62 mm
armor-piercing rounds, it sounds pretty good. But no, it takes something
like two clips to kill a Blue Elite, assuming you get at least half of the
rounds into it. And that’s hard because the Elites can dodge your shots
very easily.


     This gun is useless against most enemies, whatever the name implies.
However, it’s great to kill Flood Spores and is almost as good for Grunt
disposal. Just take individual shots at each Spore, since any kind of
damage destroys one and the others that are near it. As for Grunts, come up
close and empty twenty rounds into it. That should kill one for good.


     Don’t even contemplate killing an Elite with an Assault Rifle unless
you don’t have any ammo in the other gun. If you empty a whole clip into
it, you still probably won’t take down its shield. While you’re reloading,
it’ll take down your shield and a number of health bars. The second clip
might not even be enough to kill it.


     One of the other things that make the Assault Rifle useless is its
inaccuracy. It’s only effective against Grunts and Spores, and it’s only
effective against them at close range. Otherwise, the shots just spread out
and you don’t hit anything. For better accuracy, repeatedly press the
trigger, so the recoil doesn’t have enough time to affect your accuracy too
much.


     It has a useful feature: a compass that points you in the general
direction of the gas giant. I don’t use it much myself, but when you’re not
outside, it can be used to orient yourself in the right direction.


     What else...oh, yeah, these are pretty common among the marines you
meet, and if you prefer this gun over the others, you can usually pick it
up next to a marine that is laying on the ground with an unusually large
amount of blood around him. In fact, there are practically no marines in
the entire game that have something other than the Assault Rifle, and
that’s the Sniper Rifle. Some carry the Covenant guns they find, but the
majority just prefer to use their original weapons. Too bad. They can do a
lot better with the Covenant ones. There are also some humans that carry
Pistols, but those are Pillar of Autumn engineers or something.


     I admit that this is one of the best weapons against Banshees. They
always swoop on you when they attack (that’s pretty much the only way to
attack), and sometimes you can obliterate a Banshee the first time it does
this. Great. It’s one of the very few highlights of the Assault Rifle.


Verdict: doomed to mediocrity... do not use this unless you have no other
choice. You can usually squeeze better results out of even the Plasma
Pistol.


-M6D Pistol

Accuracy: 9
Power: 8
Clip size: 8 (12 rounds)
Number of rounds you can carry: 9 (120 plus those in the clip)

     At first, I underestimated that usefulness of the Pistol, but then, I
didn’t need the stealthy and useful kills it delivers. Now, however, I need
all the usefulness of the weapons that I can get.


     Now, just to get this clear, the Pistol’s degree of usefulness depends
on the situation. If you can choose between a Pistol and an Assault Rifle
prior to going into an area full of Grunts, then, of course, choose the
Assault Rifle. But, if you’re going into an area with Grunts and Elites,
take the Pistol and some weapon that’s good against Elites (my choice is
the Needler). Pick off the Grunts from a distance with the Pistol, then
kill the Elites with the Needler. But it’s not going to be this easy. The
Elites are going to put up a good fight and you probably won’t get out of
this without losing at least a couple of health bars.


     It’s good against Grunts. One shot to the head immediately kills a
Grunt, so sniping them is easy. When the situation demands that you have a
Pistol, use it on Grunts instead of more valuable and/or less efficient
weapons.


     The Pistol is one of the best weapons to use against Jackals. If you
can shoot one in the head, that’s great. But sometimes, I could just shoot
randomly at the Jackal and still kill it in one or two shots. Maybe I
accidentally hit it in the head. When you can, shoot the cracks in its
shield and the Jackal should only take a couple of shots before departing
to some happier place.


     It’s virtually useless against Elites. If you’re trying to snipe the
Elite from a distance, the Elite will fire a few shots at you, then crouch
behind a rock or something until its shield recharges. This will continue
until you run out of ammo, get tired and kill the Elite with something
else, or die at the hands of said Elite. But don’t get any ideas, you can
actually kill a Blue Elite with a single clip of the Pistol, but you can
only do it when it’s charging at you from a distance and doesn’t have any
cover. And when there are other enemies around, you will get killed before
you know what’s happening.


     But when you get close to a Hunter it’s a completely different story.
Believe it or not (I’d prefer you to believe it), one shot from the Pistol
kills a Hunter instantly. That’s assuming you manage to get one of their
weak spots. Those are the orange parts that are not covered by the armor.
It’s therefore easy to snipe one down from a distance. Well, actually it’s
not easy because they tend to face you when you’re within shooting range.
You can still get one by shooting the very narrow gap between its head and
its armor. Otherwise, wait for it to melee you. When it’s running toward
you, dodge the attack, then turn around sharply and shoot the big orange
part of its back.


     The Flood have a weakness that’s not easy to spot, but it’s there. Not
only can they be killed with four or five shots, you can actually shoot off
their arms. Or those things on them that somewhat resemble arms. So if you
care to try this, you could make yourself some pet Flood. No, seriously,
these Flood that can do nothing more than to walk around after you and take
enemy fire that is intended for you. I actually never succeeded in making
one, because I hit the wrong parts and ended up killing the Flood.


     Pretty much the only thing that will keep you from always having a
guaranteed shot is the fact that the bullets don’t reach the target
instantly. Try not to shoot from too far away because of that.


Verdict: some people consider the Pistol the best weapon and I don’t blame
them. If it’s not the best, then it’s certainly a runner-up, directly
behind the best weapon. It’s perfect for sniping and kills some enemies in
one shot.


-S2 AM Sniper Rifle

Accuracy: 10 (duh)
Power: 9.99999
Clip size: 4 (just what it says- 4 rounds)
Number of rounds you can carry: 7 (24 plus those in the clip)

     I really like this gun. But it’s a shame that you don’t get to use it
a lot. It’s powerful and kills some enemies in one shot. Like the Assault
Rifle, it’s gas-operated and magazine-fed. There are two scope
magnification levels: x2 and x10. The scope also has a built-in night
vision function activated by pressing the white button.


     One of my biggest complaints is the reticle. It’s very small and it’s
the only thing that makes the Sniper Rifle a sniping weapon only. Of
course, it’s possible to get good enough with it to use it in close range
combat, but again, the reticle is small and it’s hard to tell when you’re
targeting an enemy or not.


     The clip size is horrible. It can only hold four rounds at a time and
Master Chief can only carry 24 rounds (plus those 4 in the clip). That
doesn’t apply to the Truth and Reconciliation level, where you have
something like 64 rounds in all. And until you get below 24, it won’t take
any ammo.


     The scope lets you be far away from enemies and still make their ranks
noticeable thinner before using something less powerful to finish them off.
On Truth and Reconciliation, for example, you can use the Sniper Rifle to
kill almost all the enemies before running in and risking your own hide.


     The Flood are absolutely immune to the Sniper Rifle. NEVER take on one
of the converted Flood (Flood humans, Flood Elites) with the Sniper Rifle
unless you’re totally insane or want to see how long you’ll last.


     The scope’s got another serious drawback, and that’s the fact that for
some unexplained reason, when you take any damage while the scope is on,
the scope turns off. This may often lead to your sudden demise, because
it’s hard to kill anything without the scope. That applies to the Pistol
and Rocket Launcher too.


     I’ve never actually used it on a Sentinel, but even if it works very
good, it would be mighty hard to kill one because while you’re aiming, even
one Sentinel will turn off the scope and half of your shield along with it.


     Don’t waste it on Grunts unless you know that you won’t need it
anymore. The very least I recommend you to use it on are the Jackals.


     The manual says that a Sniper Rifle round is anti-materiel munition
and can easily penetrate several armored soldiers. In English, you shoot
everything behind the target as well as the target itself. Watch what’s on
the other side of your target before shooting. If this is true, then you
can use less ammo and still kill a lot of enemies.


     The Sniper Rifle rounds are visibly deflected off a Jackal’s shield.
Don’t even attempt to kill one by shooting at its shield. The technique
that works best is to wait until they start walking around calmly, thinking
that you’re gone. You see, when a Jackal does it, its entire head is above
the shield... You know what to do.


     A Hunter can be instantly killed by a Sniper Rifle shot into one of
its weak spots. When there is an area with Hunters in it, you can sometimes
hunt them down with the Sniper Rifle. Wait until it’s facing away from you,
then target the orange part of its back and fire.


     I discovered that the melee attack is one of the fastest. You can use
it to move Shades to more comfortable places in case of an enemy ambush.
Let’s say you’re on a ledge with a Shade next to you and below is a narrow
three or four meter deep passage. You know for a fact that there are
enemies just around a turn in that passage. Melee the Shade down into the
passage (it slowly moves if you melee it, so it should take a number of
attacks to get it down there). Flip it if necessary, then lure the enemies
out and, exploiting the narrowness of the passage, mow them down with the
Shade. Oh, and you can actually do it in Truth and Reconciliation.


Verdict: all right, but the clip size is the only thing that restricts it
from being one of the most useful weapons. If you prefer to kill enemies
before they have a chance to kill you, the Sniper Rifle is just for you.


-M90 Shotgun

Accuracy: 9 up close, 5-medium range, 2-long range
Power: 9 up close, 5-medium range, 2-long range
Clip size: 8 (12 shells)
Number of rounds you can carry: 9 (60 plus those in the gun itself)

     Great gun. Against everything. This is how you use it: fill it with
all 12 shells and kill everything in your way.


     The first time you’re allowed to use it is in 343 Guilty Spark level
and it delivers awesome one-shot kills to the Flood. Any type of Flood. I
don’t recommend using it on Spores, mainly because it’s too valuable to
waste. If you see a Flood Bomb near a large number of enemies, shoot it and
the enemies are done with. Saves you ammo and health.


     It’s good against minor Elites. A few shots kill a Blue Elite. But you
have to be close to a Grunt to kill it... the reason for this is beyond me.


     Occasionally, you can bring down two Flood from a distance with one
shot. Sometimes they won’t even get up! The Shotgun occasionally blows
their limbs off, and can be used to do so instead of the Pistol. It’s going
to be a miracle if you complete a level after 343 Guilty Spark without
using the Shotgun.


     Try it on Hunters. It kills them very fast, just shoot the head until
it’s dead. If it melees you (or tries to melee you), dodge, turn around,
and shoot the back. Very easy. Just make sure that the other Hunter
(assuming it’s alive and well) doesn’t walk/run/waddle at you from behind
or starts having fun with its Fuel Rod cannon because you’ll probably die.
They’re harder to kill in enclosed areas because there’s not enough room
for them to move around. So they stay close to each other. That means twice
as much firepower all directed at you. And that’s bad. For these
situations, it’s better to have a Pistol. Wait for them to empty the Fuel
Rods, then zoom in and snipe the weak spots on the front.


     On Normal and Easy, a couple of shots kill a Sentinel. On Heroic, it
takes three to four. Imagine what it’ll be like on Legendary. In other
words, don’t waste it on them. It’s much better to use it on Flood and
smaller Covenant.


     It’s too bad that Bungie didn’t put combos into Halo. It’d be awesome
if you could detonate a grenade flying through the air or lying on the
ground with a shot from the Shotgun.


     You usually have to use Shotgun shells in colossal quantities and it
helps that you can carry 60 shells in your pocket and 12 more in the
Shotgun itself. ALWAYS reload before going into a room you haven’t cleared
before. The more time you can fire without reloading the more chances you
have of survival. Of course, if you have two shells in the Shotgun before
going into an area with numerous enemies, you chances of survival is
practically zero. Of course, you can empty those two shells, then take
cover and come out shooting. But the enemies will know that you’re there
and you won’t be able to catch them off guard again unless you wait outside
for long enough.


Verdict: unless you’re trying to perform some subtle maneuver which requires
you to drop the Shotgun (like trying to take down an Elite’s shield and
then killing it with the Pistol), carry this gun at all times.


-M 19 SSM Rocket Launcher

Accuracy: depends on your aiming ability, enemy movement, etc... otherwise
I’d give it 2
Power: 10
Clip size: 2 (only two rounds!)
Number of rounds you can carry: 3 (8 plus those in the weapon)

     This is good for cleaning up enemies that are harder to kill with
other weapons. Those are vehicles and Hunters. You can also use it on Gold
Elites. The number of rockets you can carry is even more horrible than the
Sniper Rifle (only ten). But the rockets are huge, judging by the size of
the wooden (??!!) crates they come in.


     I use this mainly on Wraiths. It’s not very easy, but if there’s a
Banshee next to one or two of those Wraiths that I need to fly… well, I
gotta blow them up. And this is the only choice. Otherwise the Wraiths will
probably kill you.


     This is good against Hunters. Shoot a couple of rockets at one from
the front or one from the back and it’s dead. That seems fair: a Rocket
Launcher against its Covenant counterpart, the Fuel Rod cannon.


     This weapon has a very, very big fault. It’s called the reticle. Or
rather, its size. It’s gigantic and it obscures most stuff around the
target, making it nearly impossible to aim at long range.


     However, the last sentence of the previous paragraph wasn’t entirely
true due to the fact that the Rocket Launcher is equipped with a feature
that isn’t exactly mentioned in the manual, but I think there’s a vague
hint of it. The feature is a x2 scope. It helps when you’re trying to take
apart a Wraith from far away, but can’t quite get it because of the
immensity of the reticle. It’s also helpful when targeting a Shade.
Sometimes when you hit a Shade, the thing will turn over and no one is
going to turn it back over, making it unusable for the Covenant.


     One shot is lethal to you. That makes Rocket Launcher-wielding Flood
very dangerous. They’re sometimes even accurate with it. I remember a part
of the Two Betrayals level where you have to assault a large field with the
widest variety of enemies I’ve ever seen in one place. There were two
Wraiths, Gold Elites, a couple of Invisible Elites, some Blue and Red
Elites, a very large number of Grunts and Jackals, two Hunters, Flood
Elites and Flood humans (one of them carries a Rocket Launcher)... a lot of
stuff. Imagine getting through all those enemies just to get to one of
those Banshees that you need to fly. Now, when you come to that place, wait
for the Flood with the Rocket Launcher to do some damage to the Covenant
and get killed. Hopefully the Flood with the Rocket Launcher will destroy
or damage one of the Wraiths. Now pick up its Rocket Launcher and shoot the
Wraiths. If you’ve got any rockets left, use them on the Gold Elites.


     The melee attack looks like it could do some big damage, but I don’t
think it’s more powerful than the others.


     Try not to use it on Banshees. You can rarely hit them with a Rocket
Launcher and the rockets are way too powerful to waste. On the rare
occasion when you do manage to hit a Banshee with this gun, the flaming
wreck will descend upon thee with very nasty consequences unless you jump
out of the way or hide behind something (any part of the environment will
do as long as it protects you from touching what was left of the Banshee
while it’s still moving).


     DO NOT shoot anything near you with the Rocket Launcher. Say there’s
an Elite running toward you. By the time you decide to fire, aim, pull the
trigger, and by the time the rocket reaches the Elite, it will have covered
half the distance between you and itself. That means that it will be
considerably closer to you. And that means that you will be twice as likely
to take damage from the shot. Of course, it depends on how far the Elite
originally was before taking this pessimistic view of things. So use your
common sense.


     Sometimes it’s good against Ghosts. If one is standing still
reasonably close to you, shoot it and it might not have time to duck before
taking the rocket. But if it’s far away don’t even think about shooting it.
It’s uncomfortably easy for them to dodge any rockets that you fire at
them.


     You can use this to get Elites out of cover or use the huge splash
damage to kill them right there. If there’s an Elite behind a rock, shoot a
rocket at the ground beside the rock to get the Elite out of there, or if
the rock’s relatively thin, fire at the rock itself to kill the Elite.


     There’s a useful trick that can be used to improve accuracy. When you
have a Sniper Rifle and a Rocket Launcher, zoom in on a target, then
without moving get out the Rocket Launcher and fire. The rockets go
directly through the center of the reticule, despite its size, and if you
don’t move, you can send all of your stock at the same exact spot. This
doesn’t work on Elites, who can dodge the rocket long before it’s even
close to the Elite itself. Oh, and I know for a fact that another person
has this tip in their guide. I swear on my Xbox that I discovered it myself
before reading another guide for Halo.


     Like I said before, this weapon is great against Gold Elites. Actually
it’s the best one there is against them. A Gold Elite can survive a direct
hit with a rocket, but two halfway accurate shots should kill it for good.


     It’s hard to hit a Sentinel with a rocket, but if you do manage to do
it, you will receive a reward in the form of several dead Sentinels that
were caught in the explosion.


     When carrying a Rocket Launcher it’s better to have the other gun out.
If you accidentally press the trigger with a wall directly in front of you,
prepare a coffin and a death wish.


Verdict: guilty. Life in prison and few seconds on the electric chair after
that. The gun is just something to occupy a weapon slot if there are no big
enemies around. If that wasn’t enough, you have to be close to the enemies
to hit them with the Rocket Launcher at all, something I wouldn’t
recommend.


-M41 LAAG (a.k.a. Machine gun)

Accuracy: 8 up close, 4 at long range
Power: 9 up close, 5 at long range
Number of rounds you can carry: none (can’t carry anything for the Machine
gun)

     This gun is installed on the Warthog and the Scorpion. While it’s dead
useful on the Warthog, the Machine gun on the Scorpion is kind of bleak
when you can use the Cannon instead of it.


     When you have a Warthog you don’t have to have any marines to use the
gun. When you’re alone, park the Warthog reasonably close to an area with
enemies in it (I think it’s not hard to realize that I’m not talking about
an area containing Hunters). Make sure that the Warthog is facing in the
general direction of the enemies so that if you need to recharge your
shield, you can jump off straight behind the vehicle. Now get into the
gunner seat and mow down the enemies with the gun.


     It’s great against Grunts even if the Grunt is far away. When you
arrive at an area full of enemies, first kill the Grunts to eliminate a
major threat because three or four Grunts with Needlers can stick enough
needles in you to start an explosion.


     It kills Elites better than almost any other weapon. Stand in the
gunner seat and shower the bullets in an Elite’s direction. They’ll be too
busy dodging the bullets to fire much at you while you’re quite effectively
killing them.


     To get the best results out the Machine gun on the Scorpion, hold the
left trigger to constantly fire the Machine gun and use the Cannon when
necessary. The damage won’t amount to much because you’ll be probably
targeting major enemies.


     It’s not very accurate at long range, but still more or less
effective. The shots spread out due to the recoil.


     The bullets are very visibly deflected off a Jackal’s shield like the
Sniper Rifle. But that doesn’t mean that the Jackal can stand up to the
barrage of lead before rolling over to the side. When it does that, some of
it is exposed. If you’re lucky, some of the bullets will hit the Jackal.


     All the techniques of using the Machine gun on the Warthog that I
mentioned are perfectly usable during the Silent Cartographer level. You
see, all of them involve you being without marines or at least without
anyone in the gunner seat. On Legendary, if you follow my advice in the
walkthrough, all the marines are going to get killed very early in the
level. But you have to get used to that.


     The advice on the Scorpion is usable only during the Assault on the
Control Room level, primarily because it’s the only level where you’re
actually allowed to use the tank.


     I guess that in co-op and multiplayer you’re allowed to be in the
gunner seat while your friend is driving, but here I don’t have any
possibility of any kind of multiplayer, including co-op and split screen.


     I discovered it kind of late, but the M41 LAAG is by far the best
weapon to use against the Banshees. It’s very easy to kill one without even
losing any health bars.


Verdict: awesome at short range, fine at long range. I can’t guarantee that
you’ll like it, but it kills even Elites very fast up close.


-90mm HV gun (Cannon)

Accuracy: if you can aim it right, almost perfect
Power: 10
Number of rounds you can carry: none (can’t carry anything for the Cannon
either)

     The most powerful gun in the game. Absolutely. Totally. It kills two
Hunters that are close to each other in one shot. That should give you some
idea of how good it is.


     It’s the best weapon against Wraiths. It’s very long-range and can
easily take out a Wraith from far away as long as it’s not hiding behind
something.


     The splash radius is enormous and it’s not a good idea to fire at
something anywhere near you. It can kill the marines sitting on the tank.


     The reticule is relatively small and is perfect for short and long
range targeting. There’s an indicator underneath it that shows how much
time is left till you can fire the next round. Well, it doesn’t exactly
tell you how much time is left, it’s just four dots. When all four appear
and disappear, you can fire.


     It’s good for destroying Banshees. Unlike rockets, the high velocity
projectiles travel very fast and give you a considerable chance of shooting
the Banshee down.


     If you see a group of bigger enemies close together, shoot them. That
should kill all of them, except for some stray enemies that didn’t happen
to be close enough to the shell.


     You can’t look very high with it. What I mean by that is that you can
only look 45 degrees or so up or down from the horizontal position. That
severely limits your ability to shoot.


     It’s one of the best weapons against Ghosts. The rockets from the
Rocket Launcher are too slow to hit a Ghost and grenades are too valuable
and inaccurate.


     I’m not sure, but I think it detonates any grenades that are close to
the blast. That kind of puts you in danger of eating your own bullet/Cannon
shell if you fire it too close to yourself. Assuming the tank is relatively
close to a grenade you fire the Cannon close enough to detonate the
grenade. This is very unlikely, but it’s possible.


Verdict: extremely good, but Bungie did the unforgivable sin of not letting
you have the Scorpion outside a short fraction of the Assault on the
Control Room level.


-Fragmentation Grenade

Accuracy: all depends on how you can aim
Power: 6 (it varies, but it generally does a lot of damage)
Number of grenades you can carry: 3 (only 4 grenades in your pocket)

     I personally consider it more useful than its Covenant counterpart,
but I guess that’s only because it requires less skill to use. You can
sometimes pick this up around dead marines. They are not as common as the
Plasma Grenade, so use wisely.


     This is the best weapon to use against Jackals. Just throw one at a
Jackal and take cover while the grenade explodes, usually killing the
alien.


     One of the most important advantages of the Frag Grenade is the splash
damage. It’s bigger than the Plasma Grenade’s and gives you more chance of
killing the enemies in the area.


     It has an approximately three-second timer that starts once it hits
some solid surface. But it doesn’t mean that it can explode in the air. If
it comes to rest immediately after it hits some solid surface, it will
explode after three seconds. If it hits a wall and comes to rest on the
ground underneath it in two seconds, it will be a second before it
detonates. Of course, if it comes to rest immediately after touching some
solid surface, the grenade will explode after three seconds. The timer is
another advantage of the Frag Grenade over the Covenant version: it doesn’t
give the enemies as much time to run away.


     This grenade is almost invisible once you throw it, but it does light
up the surroundings slightly. If you’re behind cover and are planning to
throw a Frag Grenade into the enemies you’re taking cover from and you
accidentally throw the grenade at the object you’re using as cover, the
light and the sound of the grenade hitting the object should point out to
you that you have two options: run away as if a Gold Elite cornered you or
lose your shield and two health bars.


     Again, these are rare, so use wisely. Frag Grenades are useful if you
tend to use an organized approach in Halo. By that I mean, you don’t throw
a Plasma Grenade somewhere and hope it sticks to an enemy. Choose where you
throw it carefully.


     Don’t try it on Elites. Sometimes it will damage its shield, but I’ve
never seen a Frag Grenade take it down completely, let alone kill the
Elite.


     A Frag Grenade can be bounced off walls into places that are hard to
reach from where you are at the moment. It can also be used to get enemies
out of cover. But that doesn’t help much because the enemies will go right
back under that cover.


     Grunts and Elites jump away when they see a grenade, so it’s not very
useful against them. It doesn’t do much damage to Hunters either. But it’s
more or less useful against Flood. Since it’s predictable where they go
(straight at you) you can make makeshift landmines out of the Frag Grenade.
Just throw one at the ground where the Flood will be in a couple of seconds
and hope you get them. But if there are two or more Flood in one particular
place that are too busy shooting you to move, throw a Frag Grenade at them.
They don’t care, but you may, since it might make all the difference.


     I read somewhere that marines can be kind of erratic with Frag
Grenades in Legendary. I didn’t believe it at first, but, believe me, they
are. In the very beginning of the Silent Cartographer level, I tended to
rush in... straight onto their grenades.


     They can be detonated with the Rocket Launcher, Cannon, and other
grenades.


Verdict: they are good against the smaller Covenant and Flood. They’re not
very useful, but for some reason they’re something of a rarity.


Covenant weapons

     The Covenant weapons are sometimes more powerful than the human
weapons, but while the human weapons can be used in a more subtle fashion
(sniping and some other hidden stuff like bouncing the Frag Grenade off
walls and shooting off the Flood’s limbs), the Covenant guns are designed
for cruder combat. You just can’t do anything with them except for running
into an area full of enemies and start shooting away. By the way, some of
them have hidden functions that are not easy to notice.


-Plasma Rifle

Accuracy: 8
Power: 7
Number of rounds you can carry: 8 (100 units of total charge-200 shots)

     In my opinion this is one of the best Covenant guns. It’s like the
Assault Rifle, but much more powerful and accurate.


     The only thing that kept me far away from this weapon in Legendary is
the aspect put in to compensate for its numerous advantages: overheating.
It’s annoying how fast it overheats and how long it takes. It’s just a
couple of seconds, some people might say, but those people probably don’t
realize that a couple of seconds is more than enough to lose your shield
and sometimes even your life.


     The Plasma Rifle battery contains 100 units of energy and each shot
takes .5. So that’s two hundred shots altogether. But you can only get full
Plasma Rifles from enemies in vehicles, who haven’t used it yet.


     It’s good for killing Spores, but the battery size is three times
smaller than the Assault Rifle, so it’s three times as valuable. Still, if
you don’t have an Assault Rifle, this is still usable.


     It’s still not perfectly accurate, but much more so than the Assault
Rifle. It’s effective against the Covenant, but the Plasma Rifle is very
effective against the Sentinels. It kills them very easily and fast. On
Easy I could kill a Red Elite before the gun starts to dump the heat. On
Legendary you don’t get such privileges. You have to use other guns to
effectively kill the bad guys.


     Well, no. You can actually kill a Red Elite with a Plasma Rifle before
the latter starts dumping heat. But that is assuming that you’re very
accurate with it and there are no enemies around that can take the hit.


     The Plasma Rifle can be picked up from most dead Elites and some of
the Flood. If you always use this, it will be pretty common. Actually, only
some very rare Elites have Needlers and a slightly larger fraction have
Plasma Swords. The rest wield Plasma Rifles.


     It doesn’t exactly have any special features except that it’s one of
the two Covenant guns that overheat. That doesn’t give you a lot of
advantage over your enemies, and that’s it. The same old Plasma Rifle all
the time.


     It’s forgivably ok against the Flood. No, it’s not the best gun
against them, and no, it can’t shoot their limbs or anything like that. But
if you have this and the Sniper Rifle, it’s obvious what to choose.


     Try this on Sentinels. It’s the best weapon against them (aside from
the Plasma Pistol), but you’ll run out of ammo before you notice it. Still,
if you have Sentinels in the same room, use the Plasma Rifle.


     It disposes of Grunts and Jackals pretty slowly, but if you have a
Plasma Rifle nearby, take it, kill the minor enemies, and then pick up the
weapon you dropped.


     The Plasma Rifle is more or less accurate at long range. The reticule
doesn’t light up red if the target’s too far away, but you can still use it
as a last resort.


Verdict: it’s useful against pretty much everything, but it keeps
overheating in the middle of a battle, which is not very useful.


-Plasma Pistol

Accuracy: potentially-8
Power: 3 through 8
Number of rounds you can carry: 8 (100 units of charge, 200 shots in normal
mode, 10 in overcharge)

     Hmmm... Where should I start?...  Right. The Plasma Pistol’s useful in
some situations, but completely useless in others. It depends. This may be
your favorite gun, but it may be the one you stay away from most.


     This dividedness of mine is caused by the fact that I like automatic
fire weapons. Yes, it’s possible to fire it very fast, but makes me tired
and I need not to be.


     The function that sometimes makes it useful is commonly known as
overcharge. Basically, you hold down the trigger and the gauge on the back
of the gun will fill almost instantly. When you release it, naturally, it
fires at the enemies. The beauty of it is, it can take down any energy
shield (Jackals’, Elites’, and yours, not Hunters’). The enemies don’t
usually dodge it, so it saves you a lot of pain by taking down Jackals’ and
Elites’ shields before they have time to hurt you. And it makes finishing
them off immensely easier. The part of it that makes hitting enemies a lot
easier is that it also homes slightly. Once I actually shot it at a Banshee
a few meters away and it homed in so well that it hit the Banshee when it
was about a hundred meters away.


     One overcharge can shoot down a Sentinel. That’s proven at the very
start of the Two Betrayals level, when you have to kill off the Sentinels
with the Plasma Pistol.


     With no Needlers or Rocket Launchers around you can use the Plasma
Pistol to make Elites a lot easier to kill. Just use an overcharge to take
down one’s shield and then kill it with some other weapon. But remember:
when you take down an Elite’s shield it’ll take cover for its shield to
recharge. When it does that, get behind the same cover and point out to it
that taking cover doesn’t always help.


     Like the Plasma Rifle, the Plasma Pistol battery consists of 100 units
of charge. The semi-automatic mode is much more economic, requiring .5
units per shot. Each overcharge requires 11 units and rips through the
battery like a Cannon shot does through enemies.


     The overcharge’s homing ability is the only thing that keeps me
occasionally using the Plasma Pistol. Without it your foes can step aside
at the last minute, wasting 11 units of your battery. You can still do it,
though, but it’s made a bit more difficult. The Jackals don’t usually dodge
it at all, taking the hit and then dying very easily from any weapon.


     The overcharges can home even if the reticule is only close to the
target. That makes hitting enemies with it even easier.


     That’s all about the overcharges. Now going back to the normal firing
mode. This is semi-automatic, and done by tapping the trigger. As I
mentioned before, this can be done real fast, but I evidently don’t possess
the ability to do so.


     Looks like the melee attack is actually done with Master Chief’s fist.
That makes his inability to melee when he’s without weapons inexcusable.


     Jackals, some Grunts, and some Flood have this gun. And since the
Grunts are the most common enemy in the entire game, that should make
getting it pretty easy.


Verdict: I don’t use it a lot, but sometimes it does the jobs no other
weapon can do by taking down shields.


-Needler

Accuracy: 10 (highlight of this gun)
Power: can be up to 9
Clip size: 8 (20 rounds in a clip)
Number of rounds you can carry: 8 (80 plus those in the clip)

     This gun is kind of weird. Basically it shoots glowing purple rounds
that somehow home in on the target and stick to it. After a couple of
seconds they kind of explode with the sound of breaking glass.


     The Needler keeps its ammo in clips, like the human weapons. The
rounds are usually collected from some dead Grunts’ Needlers. But there are
clips for the Needler that are found only in the 343 Guilty Spark level.
The Needlers lying on the ground are pretty abundant, especially around
dead Grunts.


     The Needler is one of the best weapons against Elites. That’s because
if you stick six or more needles into an enemy, they explode on a big
scale. And I mean it, two or three of these explosions kill a Gold Elite.
Empty a clip into one and it’s dead.


     If there’s an Elite with a Needler, take cover and pray. I think that
these are only Blue Elites, but I may be wrong. Oh, and I found two Red
Elites with Needlers in Easy, but I never saw any in Legendary. Anyway,
these Elites fire around ten needles in you at once and that could easily
take down your shield. Dodge them if you can. Take a Needler yourself and
stick a clip into the Elite.


     The Needler has an interesting property about it, which is those
crystals/needles on the top. As you fire a round, one of them will drop
slightly. As you empty the clip, they become noticeably smaller. When the
20 rounds are gone, the crystals are gone too.


     The Flood often carry Needlers. Beware those. I’ve been lucky enough
to be able to dodge the needles so they don’t start an explosion, but you
may not be able to do it. But even without an explosion they can decrease
your shield dramatically. When you see one, take cover behind some object
(preferably one set into a wall by one end so it can’t flank you) and wait
for it to come after you. When you see it, kill it with a Shotgun if you
have one or at least a Pistol.


     Most Grunts carry Needlers in Legendary. Try not to take on more than
two or three at a time in case something bigger decides to come your way.


     Learn how many explosions are needed to kill each enemy. At the moment
I’m passing The Library level, so I’m no longer using the Needler (it’s no
use against the Flood, they just keep going at you and using your own
needles against you), but to use it more economically on non-Flood levels
you need to learn that.


     It’s kind of satisfying to stick a clip or two into a Hunter and watch
them explode. They don’t do a lot of damage, but they jerk the Hunter
momentarily, giving you something of an advantage. The needles bounce off
the Hunters’ shield, so don’t try this from far away. It’ll kill you before
you do any damage to it.


     You can also use corpses on the ground to make makeshift landmines.
Say there are enemies running toward you and there’s a corpse on the ground
between you and them. Fire off six or twelve shots into the body and in a
couple of seconds it will explode.


     The explosions detonate all nearby grenades lying on the ground. It’s
kind of hard but possible to use it for unexpected attacks.


     The needles bounce off the Jackals’ shields, so the Needler’s useless
against them. On the rare occasion when you manage to hit one with a couple
of needles it’s cheaper for you to just use grenades. It’ll do you a
lot more damage than you’ll do to it.


     Although the tracking ability’s a lot better than the Plasma Pistol’s,
this is still useless against Banshees. The Banshees are slow, but still
fast enough to easily dodge your needles. They will explode before they
reach the aircraft.


Verdict: use only in appropriate situations and I certainly don’t recommend
taking it everywhere with you. Use it on Elites and maybe Hunters if you
can afford to.


-Fuel Rod cannon

Accuracy: 4
Power: 9
Number of rounds you can carry: can’t carry anything with the Fuel Rod
cannon

     It sounds kinda nuclear... looks like the Covenant doesn’t care about
environment pollution.


     Although it sounds and looks more powerful then the Rocket Launcher,
it’s really not. But it’s still the closest.


     My only complaint is the fact that you only get to use it on the
Banshee because the Fuel Rods the Grunts carry self-destruct after the
legal owner is dead and the Hunters’ Fuel Rods are integrated straight into
their armor. But that still doesn’t explain why Master Chief can’t just rip
it out.


     It’s good against vehicles, but since the vehicles it’s usually used
on tend to contain you, that’s kind of not good news. But you can still use
it on other Banshees (you’ll get a chance to do it in the Two Betrayals
level).


     Although the Fuel Rod cannons are not a serious threat to a Wraith,
they can still take one down. All it takes is time.


     It’s useful against infantry. Don’t try to take out a Hunter with a
Fuel Rod cannon, but it works pretty well against Grunts, Jackals, and the
weaker Elites.


     Unlike the Rocket Launcher, mother gravity has some effect on the Fuel
Rod projectiles. Remember that when you use the Fuel Rod on a Banshee.


     Enemy Banshees only use the Fuel Rod cannon to extract you out of
vehicles and gun turrets. That’s a relief. Otherwise it would be much
harder to shoot the Banshees down.


     I’ve been directly hit by a Fuel Rod cannon a couple of times and
discovered that it’s not lethal. But it does shatter your shield and a two
health bars. Most of the damage you’ll be taking from the Fuel Rod cannons
will be splash damage. The Hunters usually are not very accurate with it.


     The Grunts carrying Fuel Rods are even less accurate. All that seems
to matter to them is to carry it upright and fire. I’ve never been as much
as scratched by a Grunt carrying a Fuel Rod cannon. And you can use them to
hurt their own comrades. Kill a Grunt with a Fuel Rod cannon when there are
enemies around and the cannon will detonate after a few seconds, killing or
at least everyone nearby.


     The range of the Fuel Rods is practically unlimited, as long as you
can see the target. Again, the projectiles drop slightly, so you usually
have to aim slightly higher than the target.


     Gold Elites are one of the hardest targets to kill with the Fuel Rod
cannon. Believe me, even on Heroic one of these things can survive a direct
Fuel Rod blast with some shield left.


Verdict: not the best weapon, but it might have been if you could have
carried it around with you outside of a Banshee.


-Shade

Accuracy: 6
Power: 9
Number of rounds you can carry: infinite

     This is technically a gun turret, but since all it does is stand in
one place fulfilling its role as a gun turret until someone shoots its
organic contents out of it, I decided to list it as a weapon only.


     To be clear, this weapon is not only installed on the turret, it’s
also available on the Covenant Dropship. It can be a pain if there’s one
around, but it’s easy to dodge it, especially from a distance.


     Don’t try to use it when you’re surrounded by the Flood. I once tried.
And I actually used it for five seconds before they turned it over. It
doesn’t do much damage to them, but the Flood will kill you very easily.


     All right. I wasn’t fair in the last paragraph. It’s actually very
good if the Flood are coming from one direction. The four energy bursts
that shoot at once kill them very fast. They just keep going at you, so all
you have to do is hold down the trigger. But again, they have to come from
only one direction because the slow rotation speed of the turret will make
it impossible to concentrate on two sides at once. Note that although the
Spores attach themselves to the turret and appear to suck something out of
it, they don’t do any damage. When you’ve disposed of the bigger Flood,
jump off and melee them to cause a chain reaction.


     Let’s say there’s a Shade with a Grunt in it and next to it is a
Wraith. That eliminates the possibility of using most weapons. The Shade
can actually do more damage than the Wraith, because it’s easy to avoid the
Wraith’s weapon and the same can’t be said about the Shade when you’re
close. If you’re out in the open with no place to hide, the Shade is almost
guaranteed to kill you. Shoot one with a Rocket Launcher to turn it over or
you can try to stick a Plasma Grenade to it.


     As I mentioned before, Shades can be meleed to different places. If
there are a lot of grenades around, you can use them to move the Shade more
quickly and fill back up with the ones lying around.


     If there are enemies running at you from one direction, you can use
the Shade to mow them down very fast.


     I noticed one tendency of fighting enemies while their Shade is turned
toward you, which is that they take two times less damage if you’re firing
at the front of the Shade than if you’re shooting the actual enemy. Try not
to do this, but snipe them from a distance while the Shade is turned away
from you.


Verdict: awesome against most enemies, good for people like me who like to
pick up a big gun and fight standing in one place.


-Plasma Sword

Accuracy: depends on the Elite that’s carrying it
Power: 10 (lethal on Legendary)

     This is one of the most annoying Covenant weapons, especially because
you don’t get to use it.


     It’s probably not hard to guess that this is a melee weapon only. The
bad thing is, it’s lethal to you on all difficulties including and after
Normal. Absolutely lethal. Ouch.


     Only Elites carry these (thank Bungie), but it doesn’t help that these
are mostly Gold Elites. But as long as you can fill one with a clip from a
Needler from a distance, you’ll be fine.


     Some Invisible Elites also carry Plasma Swords, but then there’s not
much point in being invisible when you have the very visible sword hanging
in front of you. I guess the only benefit of that is that you can’t easily
bring the Elite down with a melee attack, since it’s hard to see the back.


     I think that you’re allowed to use it in Halo 2, but I don’t have it
yet. Too bad.


Verdict: keep away from the Elites carrying Plasma Swords and everything
should be tip top.


-Plasma Cannons

Accuracy: 7
Power: 8
Number of rounds you can carry: infinite

     These are the equivalent of two Plasma Rifles, mounted on a vehicle.
They always come it twos and are on Banshees and Ghosts only.


     If you’ve got a Banshee flying towards you, hide. The Plasma Cannons
can rip through your shield very effectively and you may not get out of
this mess with your health like it was before meeting the Banshee.


     The Ghosts are no less effective with them and they can kill you very
fast due to their maneuverability, which makes them hard to hit.


     Use the Banshees’ Plasma Cannons as long range weapons against the
lighter infantry. They’re not very accurate, but because of the absence of
any kind of ammo or heat issues you can hover directly above enemies and
pound them with the Plasma Cannon rounds indefinitely, depriving Elites of
cover because there’s just nowhere to hide if a 2.25-ton aircraft is
hanging directly above and raining down plasma in very large quantities.


     With time, you can actually kill a number of Gold Elites in the same
area with these guns if you’re on a Ghost, which is proven in Two
Betrayals.


Verdict: it’s not the best weapon, but it can be quite scary in the right
hands. It can kill multiple big enemies in one area very fast. Most weapons
can’t do this.


-Plasma Grenades

Accuracy: depends on how you aim it
Power: 8 (can kill any Elite if it sticks)
Number of grenades you can carry: 3 (4 grenades in you pocket)

     This is the Covenant version of the Frag Grenades. As I mentioned
before, I consider them less useful for killing enemies.


     The best part of the Plasma Grenades is that they stick to the enemies
they hit. They kill any Elite, big or small, Blue or Gold, but it has some
consequences. If you kill an Elite with a Plasma Grenade, you sometimes
don’t get to pick up grenades that it carried. But still, it’s kind of
satisfying to hit an Elite with one if you can. Usually when you stick a
Plasma Grenade to an Elite, it valiantly runs away, declaring ”Aeeeee!” in
a very brave fashion. Sometimes it runs in circles and then runs away. If
you’re close enough, it tends to charge at you, sometimes catching you in
the explosion.


     The Grunts do something similar. They usually run away shouting “Get
it off!!” and then exploding. I think that they run pretty much randomly,
but sometimes they decide to formally address their own comrades with their
new problem. That often results in the mass death of the late Grunt’s
friends.


     The Black Elites tend to throw their Plasma Grenades at you, and they
are very accurate. This is especially noticeable in The Maw level, where
you have to assault the cafeteria. The Elites there throw their unlimited
supply of Plasma Grenades at you, forcing you to dodge them.


     The grenades are useless against Hunters. I’m not sure how much damage
they do to the things, but my impression is that it’s somewhere around
zero. Don’t try to use Plasma Grenades on them.


     NEVER use Plasma Grenades on Flood unless the Flood don’t know that
you’re there. The reason is that the Flood keep running at you no matter
what, and it’s not very good if they have a powerful explosive device on
one of them.


     Say there are Spores crawling toward you. If you throw a Plasma
Grenade on one of them, it’s going to stick. Then that Spore will continue
crawling toward you. You can imagine what happens when the grenade
detonates.


     It’s even worse with the Converted Flood. Although you can outrun the
Spores, you can’t outjump these things. Meaning that if one of the
Converted Flood is running toward you with a Plasma Grenade on it, it’s
very bad. They tend to stay as close to you as possible and if one lands
next to you, the consequences could cost you a full shield and a couple of
health bars.


     The Flood Bombs are for some unexplained reason thrown away by
grenades. Although your grenades stick to the front, the Flood Bombs
usually land way too close to you for comfort.


     It’s not very easy, but you can get some kills by kind of sniping
Elites with Plasma Grenades. When you hide behind cover, Elites don’t
always face in your direction. Use these moments to come out slightly, aim,
and stick a Plasma Grenade to an Elite. Unlike the Frags, Plasma Grenades
stick to enemies and guarantee the death of the Elite they stick to.


     The Plasma Grenades have a smaller splash radius than the Frag
Grenades, which makes them less suitable for throwing in the middle of
enemies and hoping they hit something. They do guarantee one death if you
throw them into the middle of a group of enemies, though.


     The fuse is slightly longer than the Frag Grenades’, but it still
gives enemies a bigger chance of jumping out of the way before it
detonates.


     It’s good against Sentinels if you can stick one to a Sentinel. When a
Plasma Grenade goes boom, it takes out all Sentinels close to the grenade
at the moment.


Verdict: the Plasma Grenades only work if you can aim them accurately
enough, but then it pays off with a number of dead enemies.


-Mortar

Accuracy: 1
Power: 10

     This gun is installed on the Wraith only. Meaning that you can’t pilot
it. What a shame...


     It’s the Covenant version of the Cannon. I guess that’s because it’s
the most powerful Covenant gun.


     It kills you with a direct hit. When you’re around a Wraith, keep an
eye out for the Mortar projectiles, another for your stock of rockets, and
another for the Wraith itself.


     The only thing that stops it from being the ultimate killing machine
is the accuracy. The projectiles are very slow and extremely easy to avoid.
I’m passing the game for the fourth time and have been hit by a Mortar
three or four times.


     When you’ve got a Banshee and are trying to take out a Wraith it helps
to know that the Mortar rounds have a height limit. Meaning that you can
stay safe and at the same time bombard the tank with anything at your
disposal.


     The Mortar has a characteristic sound to it. When you hear it getting
more noticeable, look around. It might make the difference between life and
death.


Verdict: it doesn’t pose any immediate danger to you, but still, watch out
for them, especially at short range.




______________________________[ 6. Enemies]______________________________


     Every race is every other race’s enemy, except when the Sentinels help
you in 343 Guilty Spark and The Library levels. If there are different
races on one playground at once, stay out of the way and wait for one race
to remain, tossing in occasional grenades and trying to keep the population
of each race reasonably even so the leftovers don’t waste your health and
ammo when they can get disposed of by the other race.


The Covenant

     Your primary enemies. They come big and small, but all share one
quality: they will do everything in their power and as far outside their
power as possible to destroy you and all the other humans on Halo. The
Covenant are often your worst enemy, so unless the other side(s) are
winning, do not help the Covenant.


-Grunts

     These aliens are small, short, stupid, dog-like, suicidal, and the
only enemies except the Monitor that can speak English.


     Believe me, if there are more than five Grunts with Needlers in the
same room with you, they can actually be dangerous. But otherwise, they’re
easy to kill. A couple of melee attacks will do.


     The Grunts are one of the three enemies that are killed with a melee
attack from behind. Use this to your advantage when you’re wearing an
Active Camouflage.


     I can almost picture this ad in some newspaper: Grunts come with
glow-in-the-dark blood, Needlers, Plasma Pistols, and Plasma Grenades!*

*Each Grunt killed separately. Parental discretion is advised.


     These are mainly a source of ammo. Nothing else. They’re barely strong
enough to carry their own weapons, let alone fire them accurately. One
headshot with the Pistol (which I recommend you to carry at all times) and
Mr. Mediocre (also known as Grunt) is dead. Of course, one headshot with
the Rocket Launcher works better than anything else, but it’s just too
valuable to waste on Grunts.


     The Grunts are used as cannon fodder by the Covenant and cannon fodder
is usually supplied in large quantities. So are the Grunts. They’re
probably the most numerous enemies in the game.


     The Plasma Grenades are the most important thing they carry. Not all
of them actually carry the Plasma Grenades, but they could help a lot.


     If there are Elites around, pick up a dead Grunt’s Needler and kill
the Elites.


     Grunts say stuff like “Heads up!” and “Here it Goes!” when they throw
a Plasma Grenade. Listen for those when there are Grunts around. That could
save your life.


     Grunts come in three types: Red, Yellow and Black. The Yellow Grunts
are slightly easier to kill and I think they always carry Plasma Pistols.
Red Grunts is the type of Grunts you’ll encounter most in Legendary and
they sometimes carry Needlers and Plasma Grenades. Looks like Bungie
decided not to be so kind as to fill the game with weaker enemies. On later
levels Black Grunts sometimes carry Fuel Rod cannons. They’re still too
weak to get the aiming right, but the splash damage can hurt you. Bad. Use
the fact that the Fuel Rods explode a few seconds after you’ve “taken care”
of the Grunt to hurt its own friends.


     Their voices almost made me fall out of my chair the first time I saw
them. Just thought I’d mention it.


     The Grunts have a very interesting habit of falling asleep if they
think that you’re not around. If a Grunt is sleeping, one melee attack
should kill it. Good for sneaking up on them. Just don’t fire your weapons
or get noticed by the bigger enemies because they will inadvertently come
your way and wake up the sleeping Grunts, giving you another pain in the
pants.


     The Grunts are also cowards. If you kill one or two of the nearby
Covenant, they start running away. But that positions that big thing on
their backs between your Pistol and their heads. Not very good for saving
ammo. Still, it gives you some time and room for fighting the bigger
enemies.


     They mostly use the grenades when you’re in a vehicle. If you’re
trying to kill them with the Warthog’s Machine Gun, be ready to jump off
and run away very fast.


     I think that the Grunts are one of the two types of enemies who can
pilot the Shade.


-Elites

     Elites are the commanding officers in the Covenant military. They are
big and painful and the only enemies that have a shield like yours. That
leaves no weak spots and makes the Elites a lot harder to kill than most
enemies.


     The Elites are annoying. Very annoying. They are very multi-functional
and can pilot vehicles and Shades.


     The Elites actually come in five types.


     -Blue Elites

     These Elites are the easiest to kill, but that doesn’t necessarily
mean that they’re easy to kill. They can be very annoying if they want to.
They carry the Plasma Rifle and I think that the Blue Elites are the only
ones that carry the Needler in Legendary. When you see an Elite with a
Needler, hide or run away. When you can, shoot one with a rocket because
the Blue Elites are the only ones that are completely killed with one. You
can kill a Blue Elite with a single clip of a Pistol if it’s charging at
you or, most importantly, when it has no cover.


     -Red Elites

     They are just a tad stronger than the Blue Elites. They fire slightly
more plasma and can be easily killed by a rocket and a Pistol shot or two.
Do not take one on in the open (that actually applies to the Blue Elites
too) and take cover to recharge your shield. You can use a technique I call
Plasma Grenade sniping that I mentioned in the Plasma Grenade section.
That’s very effective against them and can save you a considerable amount
of health and ammo. I’ve seen these use Needlers in Easy, but nowhere else.


     -Invisible Elites

     Unless you can’t put two and two together, it shouldn’t be hard to
realize that these are invisible. They’re actually permanently invisible,
but that gives you an advantage too. As a consequence of being permanently
invisible, they have no shield. That means no mess with Elites taking
gigantic amounts of firepower, crouching behind rocks, and coming out in
their shiny new armor. The only difficulty in disposing of them is that the
permanent invisibility makes them somewhat hard to see. When they’re firing
at you they become slightly visible (actually they’re always slightly
visible, like a blur in the air. The trouble is spotting it). That’s your
chance. The Pistol works great. Just wait in some bottleneck opening with
cover in it. Wait for them to come out and start firing. Do as much damage
as you can and use the cover for your shield to recharge. Rinse and repeat
until there are no more Invisible Elites left to kill. You get a chance to
do exactly this in the Silent Cartographer level, when you’re coming out of
the security room toward the place with the two dead Hunters in it.
Occasionally these don’t have the Active Camo and for some reason, no
shield.


     -Black Elites

     The Black Elites are very hard to kill. And I mean, very hard. They
are nearly impossible to approach without losing a number of health bars
before you fire a single shot. Killing them is another thing. With a
Shotgun it’s hard, but it’s a better option than the Pistol or, especially,
the Assault Rifle. The only place where I recall any Black Elites is the
cafeteria in The Maw level (but there is actually a large number of them in
Keyes level in Legendary). The cafeteria in The Maw is a very hard part and
it took me almost an hour to figure out how to do it. Eventually I managed
to kill them and get past. Happy end for all except those Elites.


     -Gold Elites

     AVOID AT ALL TIMES. I mean it. They’re gold, mean, and extremely ugly,
and when one is carrying a Plasma Rifle behind you, you’ll be dead before
you have time to turn around. If there’s a Gold Elite with a Plasma Sword
behind you, you’ll be dead even faster. The Gold Elites jump very high and
that makes them harder to avoid. You can use rockets against the Gold
Elites with Plasma Swords (as long as you can stay away from it), but my
favorite is the Needler. One clip is enough to kill one. But when there’s a
Gold Elite with a Plasma Rifle, I recommend using rockets only. To kill a
Gold Elite with a Needler you need to stay out in the open to have enough
time to fill the Elite with a clip. With rockets you can get out of cover,
shoot the Elite with a rocket and retreat back behind the cover. Three
Sniper Rifle rounds are enough to kill one. Two rockets can do the job too.


     Despite my paranoid opinion of the Gold Elites, believe it or not, you
can kill one with two clips from the Pistol. But that’s assuming that it
doesn’t have any sufficient cover and you do. This is possible to do in the
Two Betrayals level when you have to take out the second pulse generator.
Park your Banshee on the platform outside the generator room and just snipe
the Elite on that massive structure in the middle of the area you’re in.
When it starts firing, retreat slightly toward the generator’s door and
wait till the Elite stops firing. Come out and continue sniping. Repeat
until the Gold Elite’s dead.


     Try not to come close to an Elite while it’s still in its most
unpleasant condition (alive). Their melee attack is really painful and I
think it can kill Master Chief if he’s hit from behind. The attack can take
down half of his shield and often makes me start over.


     Learn the Elites’ phrases. When they see you for the first time they
make one sound. When they see a grenade they make another sound. When one
of them has its shield depleted it makes yet another sound. A hysterical
“Aeeeeeee!” means that the Elite’s probably dead.


     They have this habit of wasting time by waving their arms in the air
and making a certain sound that makes the words “war cry” come to mind.
They only do it when they have their shield empty or are about to fight.


     When you hit an Elite with a rocket it starts doing what I mentioned
in the previous paragraph. The best way to kill it off is to save the
rockets and use the Pistol. Gold Elites aren’t very common and an average
Elite is usually killed with a couple of shots from the Pistol after it’s
taken a rocket.


     They dodge very effectively, but sometimes it’s a death sentence to
the Elite. On the Assault on the Control Room level where you have to
assault the bridge with the empty Banshees on it, you can make an Elite
dodge right off the bridge. Just grab one and swoop down on and Elite. If
it was on the edge of the bridge, it sometimes dodges straight off. Very
satisfying. Note that you can’t do this Legendary.


     The Elites are another race that’s killed instantly by a melee attack
from the back. This is extremely useful when you’re cloaked and want to
kill some bigger enemies and not have to fight them when the cloak turns
off.


-Jackals

     I hate them. Those shields they carry are practically impenetrable and
you have to avoid close range combat with them.


     Jackals come it two types: Blue and Yellow. That’s determined by the
color of their shields. In Legendary there’s not much difference between
them, since the color of the shield is one of the two things that
distinguish one type from the other. The other thing is that Blue Jackals
are easier to kill.


     The overcharges could really hurt if there’s anything nearby with a
gun or at least with an ability to hit you, bite you, or explode in your
face.


     Your best option is the Pistol. A few shots kill a Jackal and a
headshot kills it faster. Snipe them from far away for some easy kills.


     A melee attack works very good. Whack a Jackal with your gun and it
will let its shield drop for a second. That’s your chance to fire. Three
melee attacks kill a healthy Jackal.


     Grenades work all right. The Jackals start to step aside as an
afterthought when the grenade is about to explode and that’s usually the
last damage that the Jackals will ever take. Plasma Grenades sometimes take
down a Jackal’s shield without killing it. Kill those Jackals before they
have a chance to recharge their shields or you’ve just got a newly shielded
problem that wasted your grenade.


     I’m not sure about Frag Grenades, but I know for a fact that Plasma
Grenades bounce straight off the Jackals’ shields. Not that it’s far, but
it’s usually too far to cause the Jackal any damage. I recommend throwing a
grenade at their feet as that guarantees that the grenade won’t bounce off.


     The Jackals are yet another, and last, race that’s killed by a melee
attack from the back. I don’t use this a lot because most of the times that
I was wearing an Active Camo I didn’t meet any Jackals. But if they’re
facing away from you, you can use this to your advantage.


     When they see you, they waste time by pointing at you and making a
sound- trying to get their friends’ attention. When they do this, it
apparently doesn’t occur to them that that gives you plenty of time to kill
them because their shields are wide open. Use this to your advantage too.


     The Jackals carry Plasma Pistols only. At least. If they carried
Needlers or Plasma Rifles, you wouldn’t stand a chance against even one in
close range combat.


     Try shooting those cracks/notches in their shields. I think that if
you hit one’s arm, the arm will get caught by the bullet and it will make
the entire alien to twist along with it. That leaves a chunk of its back
exposed where the shield came off. If you manage to shoot that, the Jackal
will twist again and the alien’s entire front will be exposed and welcoming
any firepower that comes its way.


-Hunters

     They’re the toughest enemies, but in a way, they’re also one of the
weakest. All depends on the weapons you use.


     The thing that makes the Hunters tough is their armor. It’s literally
indestructible and makes it impossible to kill a Hunter by shooting its
armor. They also have a shield made of some kind of metal, which they use
to melee you if you’re close enough. The shield is also impenetrable and
can protect Hunter from any kind of firepower.


     The thing that makes them weak is that they have “weak spots”. Those
are the orange parts that spray nasty orange substance in all directions
when they’re hit. And they are the large orange sector of the back and the
neck. There’s also an orange spot on the front, but it’s inaccessible when
the Hunter’s in combat position.


     When a Hunter doesn’t know that you’re there, it relaxes and reveals
all of its weak spots. When it gets any kind of warning that there’s
something that could potentially hurt it, it contracts to its combat
position. That pretty much leaves only one place to shoot it, and that’s
the back. A very lucky shot could take it out from the front if you somehow
manage to squeeze a bullet in between the head and the armor.


     As I mentioned before, a Hunter can be killed with a single shot from
the Pistol or a single shot from the Sniper Rifle. Other weapons are much
less effective and it takes a lot of ammo to kill a Hunter with them. But
if you don’t have an alternative... I recommend the rapid-fire weapons like
the Plasma and Assault Rifles. But my favorite (besides the Pistol) is the
Needler. When you face Hunters you usually have a lot of Needlers around.
Try to get it to melee you. Then turn around and load the Hunter with a
clip from the Needler. It jerks them forward and I think does substantial
damage to them.


     If one is facing toward you and you feel like you should take it out,
shoot its front with a rocket or two. That often puts them out for good.


     Their Fuel Rods are a very scary weapon sometimes. I think I once saw
a Hunter fire three times in a row before its Fuel Rod started cycling. And
I think they’re more or less accurate with it at long range, certainly more
accurate than you would expect if you’ve seen how they fire it at short
range.


     The thing that makes the Fuel Rod shots easy to dodge is the Hunters’
slow rotation speed. You can jump around one and it will fire off its gun
as much as 90 degrees in the wrong direction.


     Like anything else, Hunters can be easily disposed of by running over
it in a vehicle. They tend to dodge vehicles and then use their Fuel Rods
on the vehicle. That often shatters any heroic plans of overriding a Hunter
with a vehicle, since the only vehicle that car really do the job is the
Warthog, and the latter gets easily overturned by a Fuel Rod projectile.


     You usually take on two Hunters at a time. I usually wait for one to
come after me and finish it off first instead of fighting two at once, as
that usually results in me having to rethink my strategies slightly.


     It’s immensely better to have at least one marine while hunting
Hunters. While the Hunter is trying to hurt the marine, you can pound its
back with some weapon or vice versa.


The Flood

     This is a race native to Halo, and the Flood is often even worse than
the Covenant. The Covenant tends to lose battles to the Flood unless there
are Hunters involved. The Flood are all predictable: they go at enemies no
matter what, and that gives you a slight advantage to work with.


-Flood Spores

     The Flood Spores (further called Spores) are the original carriers of
the Flood. They attach themselves the enemies and turn them into Flood.


     Spores are by far the weakest enemies in the game. Any kind of damage
makes a Spore... kind of... pop. I’m sure that if the Master Chief had the
option, he could poke through and kill a Spore with his finger. That damage
also includes other Spores popping around them. If there’s a tightly packed
group of Spores, you can kill one and it’s going to set off a chain
reaction. Great way of Spore-killing.


     They are normally present in very large numbers and don’t seem to
realize that going at you is complete suicide. When a Spore impacts your
armor, it pops. The damage is pathetic, but can add up to a lot if you’ve
got some bigger Flood around and you’re concentrating on them.


     But when you don’t have any shield left, beware of the Spores. One can
attach itself to you and suck out as much as two health bars. If there are
many Spores in one place, they could theoretically kill you in less than a
second.


     To save ammo, I don’t usually shoot them. A melee attack is enough. It
takes some simple timing and some getting used to, but generally it’ the
best option against Spores. I used to carry an Assault Rifle specifically
to use on Spores. Now I don’t. It’s better to carry a Shotgun to use
against the bigger Covenant and bigger Flood and a Pistol for sniping.


     Do not use Plasma Grenades on them. I already explained this, but I
need to stress it. If there are Spores going at you, a Plasma Grenade is
likely to stick to one of them. Then the Spores are going to go on at you,
but this time they will have a Plasma Grenade, ready to detonate, on one of
them.


     These Flood are the nastiest when they meet marines. When a Spore
attaches itself to one of them, the other Marines might shoot it, and
therefore hurt their own side.


     When you have some spare rapid-fire weapons near you and a lot of
Spores, you can pick them up and use them to speed up the Spore disposal
process. Then pick up the dropped weapon. The Assault Rifle is perfect for
this, seeing how much ammo one clip can hold.


     Frag Grenades work fine, but I personally don’t think that it’s
acceptable to waste them on Spores.


     As I mentioned before, Spores are killed by any kind of impact. If one
is as much as touched by a moving vehicle, it’s dead. This was proven in
The Maw level.


     Note that if there are Spores going at you and there are Converted
Flood around that don’t know that you’re there, the Spores won’t attract
their attention. That means that you can stay concealed in one place
indefinitely, fighting Spores, even if there are hordes of Converted Flood
all around you who don’t know that you’re there.


     Be careful with the Rocket Launcher if there are Spores around. If one
is directly in front of you when you decide to fire the rocket, then you’re
probably toast. The odds of that happening are very long, but don’t rely on
that.


     The Spores produce a characteristic sound that is easily recognizable
even if the Spore is behind you.


     It’s important to know that Spores can climb walls better than a
mountain goat. Don’t expect to hold them off by being on a ledge above
them.


-Flood Bombs

     These were once Grunts that were infected by the Flood. Now they’re
disgusting incubators for Spores.


     They’re just what the name suggests- bombs. That means that under
certain circumstances they explode with the force of a grenade, which can
be very bad, depending on how close you were at the time of the explosion.


     If you meet one face to face and you have your back against a wall,
it’s usually a good idea to “revert to saved” before the Master Chief’s
armor can experience the terrible suffering that the Bomb will cause.


     There are a couple of ways to detonate a Flood Bomb. One is to simply
get close enough. When the Bomb waddles close enough (I can’t really apply
the term “walking” to how they move) or you do, it detonates. Since they
can move by themselves, it’s really unpredictable when one is going to
catch you off guard by exploding behind you. The other way is to just use
your guns to prematurely detonate the thing. One reasonably close Shotgun
shot is usually enough.


     Another alternative is to use the Pistol. One or two shots in the legs
makes them kind of trip and bulge, like their normal suicide-bombing
process, or it sometimes just explodes without any warning except jerking
up slightly. Don’t stand close to a Bomb and shoot it with a Pistol,
expecting that to warn you. It won’t help.


     Even if you’re too far from the initial explosion to cause you damage
but your shields are down, still be careful. The explosion releases five or
six Spores (how they survive the explosion, I don’t know) and they can do
some serious damage if you don’t have at least a bit of your shields.


     Don’t try to use grenades. An explosion of a grenade or another
powerful explosive for some unexplained reason usually causes the Bombs to
fly away, bounce off walls, and detonate. It’s often very close to you and
can cause a major drop in the shield status.


     They can’t do much except walk around with those tentacles of theirs
stretched out and explode next to an enemy. That means that they can’t
attack you from a distance. That gives you something of an advantage.


     The Bombs detonate any grenades nearby. Plus I noticed that they
manage to launch some of them away from the explosion and then make them
detonate. That makes it good to have a nice thick wall between you and the
Bomb. The grenade-throwing tendency often led to my unexpected death in
closed environments.


     Don’t try to melee them unless you want to end up in the same
condition as you usually do after a direct Rocket Launcher hit.


     Make sure that if there are Flood Bombs near you, they’re coming at
you from only one direction. It sometimes makes a nasty surprise if a Bomb
explodes directly behind you.


-Converted Flood

     Technically, these are two different types of Converted Flood, but the
origins of the two kinds are the only things that separate them.


     -Flood Humans

     They’re humans that were infected by the Flood. They have an obvious
head, but I don’t think that a headshot kills one. Nothing else to say
about them, really.


     -Flood Elites

     They used to be Elites. Although some people think that they don’t
have heads, they do. Sometimes when you look at a Flood Elite’s corpse, you
might see a hose-like protrusion where their heads are supposed to be.


     In the best zombie traditions, sometimes you can do enough damage to
them to kill them... then they get back up. Naturally, you can do enough
damage the first time, but that requires certain weapons and/or a lucky
shot. Never turn your back on a dead Converted Flood because it might not
be quite dead.


     If you desperately need a Frag Grenade and see something on the ground
that resembles one, don’t get your hopes up. That might just be a piece of
one of the Converted Flood.


     They’re easily disposed of by one Shotgun shot from short range.
Actually, it depends on how the shot is spread out. Sometimes you can put
down more than one from far away with one shot and still not have them get
up.


     The Converted Flood have extendable limbs, so these personas non
gratas often extend them and smack you. Try to avoid contact with them
whenever you can. The melee attack can take a large chunk out of your
shields more effectively than most weapons. To make matters worse, half of
them don’t carry weapons and melee you only. And the ones that have weapons
don’t miss a chance to punch you when they’re close enough.


     Again, use the fact that these troglodytes keep going at you with any
caution they used to have long gone, to your advantage. What works even
better than the Shotgun are the Frag Grenades. Apparently the sludge in
their skulls that’s officially called a brain is not capable of realizing
that it’s not good for their health to have a Frag Grenade explode under
their feet. Kill ‘em all. Muahahahahaha!


     They look bad. Probably smell bad too. Never mind.


     Any type of Converted Flood is capable of carrying weapons from either
race. What I mean by that is, Flood Humans can carry human and Covenant
weapons and Flood Elites can carry human and Covenant weapons.


     I think that it’s a widespread belief that Invisible Converted Flood
don’t exist. So I reject that belief and tell thee the truth. They actually
do exist invisible, but only in one place. The place is the armory in the
Pillar of Autumn on The Maw level. Just as you enter it and go around the
weapon stand in the center of the room, it should be pretty obvious where
the Invisible Flood Elite is. I think that in Legendary there are a couple
of them (one or two will come out of the door in the armory later). The
only difference from the normal Flood is purely the fact that they’re kind
of hard to see.


     It sure makes me feel better to melee the green-brown goo out of them.


     When fighting a Flood Elite of a Flood Human that has a Rocket
Launcher, never have your back against anything because even if the rocket
misses, it will probably hit the object that you have your back against.
This normally ends the same way as a rocket hitting you directly. I learned
this the hardest and most painful way and will remember this lesson forever
and ever and ever.


Monitor and his friends

     These are robots that are native to Halo, like the Flood. They’re
friendly at first, but later become not so friendly.


-343 Guilty Spark (Monitor)

     He’s just a flying spherical AI. You can’t do any damage to him (and
he can’t either) when you see him or you’d have one problem less.


-Sentinels

     They’re the Monitor’s guards. They also fly, but unlike the Monitor,
they can hurt you and they can hurt you bad.


     They’re equipped with lasers that you can’t use. The lasers can burn
through your shields like they do through Grunts and make recharge breaks
occur very often.


     Some also have shields. Those are especially hard to kill. Not that
you meet them often, but they can be a real pain you-know-where,
you-know-why.


     Plasma Pistol overcharges work especially well. One overcharge brings
down a Sentinel. The reticule doesn’t necessarily even have to be on
target, but somewhere close.


     The runner-up is the Plasma Rifle. When there are some extras around,
use them to kill the Sentinels.


     If you kill a Sentinel, don’t run up to it or at least don’t let it
fall on top of you. That could really hurt your shield.




______________________________[ 7. Artifacts]______________________________


     This section is about almost anything you find in the environment more
than once as long as it’s not a tree, rock, wall, or a corpse.


-Clips

     Just what it says- clips for guns. In Legendary they’re the most
essential thing after cover and med packs. They’re available for several
weapons:


     -Assault Rifle

     They’re rectangular clips with an orange sector that has some text on
it. They’re the ones I rarely use, but they’re very useful if you’re using
the Assault Rifle for some special purpose it’s good for.


     -Pistol

     It’s the same as the Assault Rifle clip, only the orange sector’s
replaced by black. As the Pistol’s more useful than the Assault Rifle, it
logically follows that its clips are more valuable.


     -Rocket Launcher

     It’s not exactly a clip, but it didn’t feel right to say “big boxes
with big projectiles for the big gun”. Each contains a maximum of two
rockets.


     -Sniper Rifle

     It’s a box with a maximum of 16 rounds for the Sniper Rifle. Not as
much as I would feel comfortable with.


     -Shotgun

     Not much different from the Sniper Rifle clips. About the only
difference is that the Sniper Rifle Clips are seen on one or two levels.
You see these slightly more often.


     -Needler

     They are like small purple crystals. What’s perplexing is that you
only see them on the 343 Guilty Spark level, one where you completely don’t
need them.


     Watch your ammo before you take a clip. If there are ten rounds gone
from your Pistol (no matter how full your clip is), the clip on the ground
will fill up the ten rounds and then disappear. Say you don’t have any ammo
for your Pistol in your pocket or the weapon’s clip. The clip on the ground
will fill up the 120 rounds in your pocket, but not in the Pistol’s clip.
So the Master Chief will reload and you’ll be left with a full clip with 12
rounds and 108 rounds outside the Pistol.


-Destroyed or pilotless vehicles

     They provide great cover against minor weapons. Use them to hide
during the open-air battles. Most of the time, though, they will have small
gaps that firepower can come through. Still, it’s better than standing out
in the open.


-Com Boxes

     This is what I call them because of the sound some of them make, but
they might be used by the Covenant for storage. They’re purple boxes that
are available on most levels and can be used essentially for cover.
Sometimes you can find just the right spot to crouch so that the box holds
you in a crouching position.


-Over Shield

     This is extremely useful in some tough spots. All it does is provide
you with two additional layers of shield. Those don’t recharge, so use
wisely. I personally don’t really like the Over Shields because they make
me kind of “extra careful” in futile attempts to save the Over Shield. Note
that if the current Over Shield is not completely depleted, you can’t use
another to refill. Be especially careful around Jackals, as they can take
down an entire Over Shield with a single overcharge.


-Active Camouflage

     The Active Camo makes you invisible like the Invisible Elites. But
unlike them, you (presumably) possess a brain and should be more careful.
It takes an Active Camo a couple of seconds to completely activate after
you pick it up, so don’t run into the battlefield right after that. Another
very important thing to point out, if you fire a weapon or take a hit, the
Active Camouflage becomes weaker and enemies start to notice you. If you’re
trying to do a stealth assault on some enemies, be sure not to bump into
one of them. If you do, they sometimes fire in the relative direction of
you. If it hits, your degree of toastedness depends on the enemies in the
area, and is usually somewhat high. So try not to get noticed. Of course,
the inability to fire weapons leaves you with only one weapon: the mighty
and feared melee attack. Oh, and you can also use grenades. They don’t
reveal where you are but they do cause a reaction from most enemies. Try to
melee Jackals, Grunts, and Elites in the back while you’re wearing the
Active Camo. That’s one of the most effective methods to kill Elites.


-Med packs

     They’re rare, so be careful when using them. Like the clips, Med packs
completely refill your health, but once used, they’re gone. Of course, if
you’re never ever going to come back to the area with the Med pack and have
lost some health, there’s not much point in leaving it there.


-Pre-dead marines

     They’re marines that already dead without any help from the Covenant,
Flood, or Sentinels. They are oases of health and ammo in the desert of
poor health and shortage of ammo. These marines lie around with ammunition,
Med packs, and a lot of blood around them in places that usually start
questions like “How on Halo did they get there?”.


-Stationary shields

     They’re shields that are just standing on the ground and can’t be
moved. The Stationary shields are used mainly by Elites to recharge their
own shields and by Grunts who accidentally get behind them. Note that
enemies can’t see you while you’re behind a Stationary shield (strange- the
shields are transparent) but you can see them while they’re behind a
Stationary shield. Use the rare moments when an enemy is behind one to toss
a grenade at the shield. The Stationary shields can also be destroyed by
all Covenant guns except the Fuel Rod cannon, the more powerful human guns,
and a vehicle ramming into one of them. A few seconds later the shield will
reappear.


-Human shields

     These are found on the Pillar of Autumn only. They’re metal shields
(which I will call them in the future).


-Active checkpoint

     What I call an active checkpoint is a checkpoint that doesn’t
disappear after you’ve triggered it, but continues to checkpoint your
progress no matter how many times you pass through it.




______________________________[ 8. Vehicles]______________________________


     This section will describe... vehicles. They come in different shapes
and sizes, and most have guns. They make some places much easier to survive
and sometimes are even necessary for the story to proceed.


Human vehicles

     The recognizable trend of the human vehicles is that they’re
indestructible. Pound them as much as you want, they won’t even show a
scratch.


-Warthog

Crew: 3 people (driver, passenger, gunner)
Armament: M41 LAAG (Machine gun)
Maneuverability: pretty good

     This light reconnaissance vehicle is the game’s trademark vehicle.
It’s the first one you get to ride and it packs a very heavy gun in the
back. More on that after the commercial.


     Commercial.

     The Machine gun is one of the best in the game. You can use it very
effectively even without marines to use it, but it makes you a sitting duck
with no one to drive the vehicle, unless, of course, you’re playing in
co-op.


     The Warthog is not very maneuverable and the controls take some
getting used to just after playing PGR 2, where you could do everything
with the left thumbstick and the right trigger. Here the Warthog goes where
the camera is pointing. That doesn’t allow for very much maneuvering and
takes more concentration. But since all you can do in a Warthog is drive
it, the only thing you really need to concentrate on is the driving.


     Try overrunning enemies with the Warthog. They tend to jump out of the
way, but there’s a trick to this. If you’re speeding toward an enemy, turn
for a second in any direction, then sharply turn in the other direction. If
done right, the Warthog will turn 90 degrees and hit the enemy with its
full side.


     It can carry three people: the driver, the passenger, and the gunner.
The gunner is the one you should watch out for and if he gets killed,
replace him with the passenger. The gunner seat is the first one they go
for, so it’s easy. If you want to save the marines for later and drive the
Warthog somewhere yourself, don’t let them get near the vehicle as they’ll
get in.


     The passenger seat is the one you want to sit in least, because the
view is limited to the 180 degrees in front of the Warthog. But once a
marine with a Sniper Rifle gets in there... death to the Covenant. If
you’re trying to use the passenger seat as cover while you’re in it, it
only covers a small fraction of the Master Chief’s person and, quite
literally, in the passenger seat the only thing you can do is shoot. No
grenades or moving.


     Don’t even try driving the Warthog on ice. It’s practically immobile
on there and will almost certainly get you killed.


     Be careful where you drive the Warthog in general. If you crash it
into a log or something, it’s not going to respond very well for a few
seconds. And that will normally cost you a full shield if you’re surrounded
by enemies.


     It’s one of the fastest vehicles in the game. Use it. Not many enemies
can outrun it (actually, no enemy can outrun it) and it’s good for hitting
things, especially those that don’t know that you’re there.


     Be careful not to run into small objects. That sometimes turns the
Warthog over and puts you in a very tight spot if there are big enemies
around.


-Scorpion

Crew: can be up to five people (1 driver/gunner plus four marines on the
tank pods)
Armament: 90mm HV gun (Cannon), M41 LAAG (Machine gun)
Maneuverability: maneuvers better than the Warthog on ice, otherwise very
bad

     The human tank. It’s a big, heavy, and slow thing that has a very big
gun on top and normally gives the driver the ability to completely kill
everything in his way.


     You need to know that you’re allowed to use it only on a very small
part of one level. The level is Assault on the Control Room and it comes in
handy during the short part when the Scorpion is available.


     It’s very maneuverable on ice, certainly more maneuverable than the
Warthog. I could actually almost outrun a Wraith, which hovers and should
logically be a lot faster. Taking into account how much of the part of the
Assault on the Control Room level where you can use the Scorpion is covered
with ice, I can’t see how you could use the Warthog wore effectively.


     The Cannon is the most powerful in the game. It can potentially kill a
Hunter or a group of Elites in one shot. The bad thing is that you have to
concentrate on driving and firing at once, which is hard when you’ve got
enemies on both sides (they can easily flank the tank).


     The Scorpion also has a Machine gun. It’s very useful on the Warthog,
but it’s a very minor weapon on the tank. It gives me reasons to think that
it’s much less accurate on the Scorpion, so I use it only against the
lighter infantry like Grunts and Jackals until my Cannon recharges if
they’re especially annoying at the moment.


     It’s easy to snipe things with the Cannon. One hit can take apart a
Ghost or turn over a Shade and send it flying decameters off of where it
originally was.


     It’s great for killing Wraiths. A couple of shots and you’re done.


     Thank whoever I should thank that the Flood can’t pilot vehicles. It
would be a big pain if you had to fight head to head with a Scorpion.


     The tank should protect you, but it does not. Whatever damage is
inflicted on the tank is inflicted on you unless a marine on one of the
tank pods takes the hit. I don’t see how that can happen, but it does.


     It’s not very maneuverable, so try to stay away from cliffs or those
big holes in the ground that are so common on Halo. Sometimes it might seem
that you’ve got enough room to maneuver, but in a couple of seconds you
sometimes discover that it wasn’t, but it will be too late.


-Pelican

Armament: none that I know of (no, actually there seems to be some kind of
mini gun on the underside, but it’s never actually used)
Maneuverability: as far as I can tell, fine

     The Pelican is the human dropship. You can’t drive it, so don’t get
too happy that you’ll be able to carry more than four marines around. I
only mentioned it because this section describes vehicles and it doesn’t
feel right to skip any.


Covenant vehicles

     The defining features of the Covenant vehicles are the purple color,
the hovering ability, and the fact that they’re destructible. Don’t expect
to be able fly around on one of these and be able to take infinite damage.
Each one can carry one passenger only. Apparently the Covenant doesn’t
favor risking more than one soldier in case the vehicle explodes.


-Ghost

Armament: Plasma Cannons
Maneuverability: the best

     It’s the Covenant version of the Warthog. It’s fast and has a powerful
gun on it.

     First of all, the maneuverability. It’s the most maneuverable vehicle
in the game. It can move forward very fast, backward equally fast, and
strafe to a side. The latter is very useful for a certain cheat that you
can find out in the Secrets section (so you can read on without having to
skip the spoiler, if you care about them).


     You can use the speed to circle enemies and pound them with the Plasma
Cannons while taking minimal damage. Don’t try this on Hunters, though,
because of their armor. It doesn’t work on Wraiths either because the tank
will hit you with its Mortar before you can do any serious damage. And long
distance targeting doesn’t work because the shots just spread out and the
Wraith takes practically no damage.


     But the Ghost still has finite armor. It explodes after a direct hit
with a rocket, that should tell you something. Be very careful when
handling a Gold Elite. They shower plasma in your direction in immeasurable
quantities and can put down the Ghost’s armor in seconds.


     You can do the wheelie on the Ghost. Just press the A button and the
front end will pull up. This is useful for heaving the vehicle over some
obstacles or onto a higher platform. It doesn’t work while strafing to the
side or going backward.


     It’s just low enough to hit Elites. And that means that it’s low
enough to hit you. Be careful not to let a Ghost overrun you.


     Ghosts are the only vehicles marines can pilot. They’re useless as far
as combat goes, but they provide a great and long-lasting distraction for
enemies. This is especially good when there’s a Wraith that you need to
deal with.


     Remember that when there’s no pilot in a vehicle, it’s indestructible.
Use Ghosts as cover. The Master Chief always comes out the right side of
the Ghost when you tell him to get out, so you can turn your left side
toward the enemies and hop out straight behind the vehicle. When you get
back in the Ghost will have just as much health as it did before you got
out.


     Be very careful not to run into small objects (relatively small, of
course) because they might flip the Ghost over and that sometimes results
in you getting hit by the vehicle, which may result in your unexpected
demise.


     The Ghost can literally be used as a parachute. But that I mean that
you can jump off cliffs or buildings and not take any damage as long as the
Ghost doesn’t turn over.


     It’s very hard to control the Ghost in corridors and on narrow
walkways because it easily gets stuck where I would have thought that it’s
almost impossible to get stuck.


-Banshee

Armament: primary-Plasma Cannons, secondary-Fuel Rod cannon
Maneuverability: could’ve been better

     It’s the only vehicle that can fly that you can actually fly. But the
places where you‘re allowed to fly it are very limited as you might go
somewhere where you’re not supposed to go.


     The Banshee is not very fast or maneuverable, but the fact that it can
just hover out of range compensates for that. But still, I expected it to
be a lot faster. It’s an aircraft, after all. But since it doesn’t need
speed to keep itself in the air, the designers probably decided to make it
slower.


      Still, you can go at eye-popping speeds in the Banshee. To do it, go
high up and let go of the controls. Don’t do anything. It should hover for
a second and then drop. Just don’t steer it. It’s really fun to drop from a
mile or two up there. Strange thing is, vehicles can be damaged by weapons
only, so the fall doesn’t affect them in any way. All the better.


     Like any other vehicle, the Banshee kills anything it hits. To use
this effectively, swoop down on some enemies, ram all of them that happen
to get in your way, and then fly away. It’s useful against Hunters, who
can’t be damaged by the Banshee’s weapons.


     You can kill a Wraith with the Banshee, it just takes time. The Fuel
Rod cannon’s not exactly up to the job and it takes ten or twenty hits to
take down the Wraith. But it’s still possible. It takes something like
fifteen minutes if you’re doing it in the careful way (swoop down on the
Wraith, fire as many rounds as possible, and get the Halo out of there),
but if you don’t have a Rocket Launcher and need to take care of a Wraith
for some reason or another, this is a way.


     The Mortar has practically no chance of hitting a Banshee, but if
you’re not looking... well, you may regret not looking. One shell is
guaranteed to knock the aircraft out of the sky. That might happen if
you’re trying to destroy it the way I described in the previous paragraph
(it’s sometimes hard to avoid a Mortar shell if you’re flying directly at
the tank).


     The Banshee can get you to good spots for sniping. The range for the
Sniper Rifle is almost unlimited, so take your Banshee, fly up to whatever
place that will provide a good sniping spot, and kill anything that you
see.


-Wraith

Armament: the terrible and feared Mortar
Maneuverability: very bad

     The Wraith is the Covenant tank. You’re not allowed to pilot it
(NOOOO!!! WHY? WWHHHHYYYYYY???), but at least it’s not present in very
large numbers. But I still want to meet to guy who decided not to make the
Wraith pilotable.


     The Mortar doesn’t present any serious danger to you from long range,
but at short range it could be very dangerous. One hit kills Master Chief
and the splash damage usually takes a couple of health bars. That’s
assuming that the tank can hit you.


     Take care of the Wraiths first unless you’re in immediate danger from
something else. That eliminates a very big threat.


     Don’t play macho and take on a Wraith from a few meters away. That’s
almost certain to kill you (the Mortar projectiles are slow, but they’re a
great short-range weapon). Use rockets or something equally powerful to
kill a Wraith from long range.


     I think that you can turn a Wraith over by running into it at top
speed with a Warthog. I’ve never done it, but I think it’s possible. Most
of the time Wraiths stay on ice, so it’s difficult to ram them with a
Warthog.


-Covenant dropship

Armament: Shade
Maneuverability: apparently, good

     I’m mentioning it for the same reason I mentioned the Pelican: it’s a
vehicle. The Covenant dropships can be a pain with their Shade. And they
add to the Covenant in the area. The troops don’t come out at once, so use
that second or two to snipe them.




______________________________[ 9. Other Tips]____________________________


     This is a section where I’ll summarize some of the things that I
mentioned before and didn’t mention before.


-Take cover

     Again, take cover. Always take cover. It’s one of the most essential
things in Halo. Without cover you’ll die and have a very small chance of
completing the game.


-Reach my level of perfectionism- to a reasonable degree

     If you accidentally lose some health during an easy battle that had a
checkpoint before it, I really recommend restarting the battle. But there
are some places where it’s just acceptable to lose some health. But those
places are rare. I usually have full health while playing Halo (who knows
what I might run into next?) and the restarting tendency made passing Halo
a lot longer than it would have if I didn’t restart. It still helps,
though.


-Use appropriate guns for appropriate jobs

     If you’re going to fight the Flood, naturally, don’t use the Sniper
Rifle. If you’re going to fight the Sentinels, I would recommend a Plasma
Pistol or a Plasma Rifle. And so on.


-Use grenades as weapons of mass destruction

     First, grenades are the ideal weapon of cleaning up areas full of
enemies. Second, they really can be used as weapons of mass destruction.
Sometimes some places become literally saturated with grenades that no one
has picked up yet. That’s your chance. Throw a grenade in there and it will
often detonate all the other grenades in a chain reaction, usually
obliterating everything in the area.


-Take advantage of higher ground

     On those rare occasions when you’ve got higher ground, use it to your
advantage. Sometimes it means the difference between a part of a level
being easy or almost impossible to do. If you’re hiding out in a building,
you can retreat to recharge your shield and come out to continue firing.
And higher ground gives you the ability to throw grenades with a lot more
accuracy.


-Don’t experiment

     What I mean by this is, don’t try to experiment in any way. Say you’re
at the end of a hard level and try to rush into an area full of enemies to
see what happens. Just when you’re trapped and about to be slaughtered, a
checkpoint goes off. That’s a reason to restart the level, start ripping
your hair out, and banging your head against the wall. I actually learned
this the hard way, but the level wasn’t so hard. That saved me from the
latter two actions.


-Use any chance you get to reload

     Whenever you can reload, do it. It’s kind of perplexing, but you don’t
lose a single bullet by reloading. Ever. Plus it can save your neck- it’s
not very good to be forced to start reloading in the middle of a firefight.




______________________________[ 10. Walkthrough]_________________________


     A walkthrough is (as far as I know) not something other Legendary
difficulty guides contain. I’ll make this as complete as I can, but it
might still not be enough. I have to pass the game again on Legendary, but
some parts are just too hard to pass the second time. I’ll divide the guide
by level names, section titles, and what I consider major checkpoints.


I. The Pillar of Autumn

     You begin by seeing Halo and the Pillar of Autumn. Then will follow
Capt. Keys’s conversation with Cortana about how the Covenant followed them
all the way from Reach to Halo... blah, blah, blah. Then Keys will tell
Cortana to wake up Master Chief.


     Now you’ll see some military scenes with very military music in the
background. After the curiously ugly animation of some marines taking
position, the Sergeant (long for Sarge, which I’ll call him for the rest of
the game) will deliver increasingly nasty speeches (the level of nastiness
depends on the difficulty; Legendary breaks all limits) and then you’ll see
the Cryo chamber. Two techs will wake up the Master Chief.


-Reveille

     Here it is, the start of Halo. On Legendary you don’t have to do the
diagnostics waste-of-time that was necessary in the easier difficulties.
One of the few improvements in Legendary. So the tech that’s down with you
will run straight for the door and outside. Follow him (oh, and I’m
including the first part of this level for those who are using this guide
to pass Halo for the first time). The door in front of the tech will
explode, so stay away. Jump over the pipes to the left. It should be very
straightforward from now on. Pass through a couple of doors, turn on your
flashlight to see where you’re going, and crouch to get under the door.
Head right and go through the door. Follow a few hallways to the next
fight. Then go forward, jump over the marine that tells you that “the
Captain wants you on the Bridge ASAP” to save time and shield, and go
through the armory-like room with the injured marines in it. Continue
going. And don’t stop for anything. You don’t even have a melee attack, so
you can‘t do anything about it. Continue running. Eventually you’ll arrive
in the middle of another firefight. Turn left and run along the length of
the hall. Complete the grueling task of following the arrow on the floor
saying “Bridge” and meet the Captain.


-AI Constructs and Cyborgs First!

     Listen to the conversation. The good news is that the Captain will
give you a Pistol. The bad news is that it’s not loaded. Now go out of the
Bridge. The Master Chief will pick up some ammo for the Pistol in the third
doorway you pass. There are three Grunts in the next room. Kill the Grunts
and lose a piece of your shield in the process. Let it recharge and go
through the next doorway. Master Chief will pick up an Assault Rifle. Fire
what you have into the Elites in front and take cover behind the metal
shield thing to reload and recharge. If one of the Grunts throws a Plasma
Grenade at your cover, run. Otherwise, come out and finish off the Elites
and Grunts. Now swap the Assault Rifle for a Plasma Rifle. Some Covenant
reinforcements will arrive, so take them out. That won’t be easy, so take
cover more often and throw grenades whenever possible (if you have them).
It’s even acceptable to lose some health. Then take the only route out of
the room, which is behind those Covenant reinforcements. I think there’s a
Med pack outside, hanging on a wall near to the next door. Now it’s going
to be pretty much the same. You’ll hear the sounds of weapons, grenades,
and dying Grunts, then you’ll usually get a chance to flank the enemies,
throw in a couple of grenades, and proceed to mop up the rest. So I won’t
include the boring details, just the vital parts. At one point you’ll see a
couple of marines standing in front of an airlock, then an explosion of a
Plasma Grenade will kill them. Take cover behind the metal shield and throw
a grenade at the airlock’s entrance. Hopefully the grenade will kill some
of the Covenant. Finish off the leftovers. Now go into the boarding craft
the Covenant just came out of. There will be a treat inside in the form of
an Over Shield. Two treats, actually. That should last for some time. Take
one and go on. Once you lose the first, backtrack to the second one if you
can and take it.


     After a second boarding craft you should arrive at a staircase. That
should prove that you shouldn’t be economical about taking Over Shields,
because a door will close right behind you once you arrive at the stairs.
Hopefully, you have at least a bit of an Over Shield left that can get you
through this particular part without losing health. It’s not a very good
idea to even try to clear the stairs and the ledge above of the Covenant,
so run up the stairs and through the blast door. Now be very careful once
you pass the staircase because the checkpoint will not trigger if you don’t
kill all the enemies. Now pin a Plasma Grenade to an Elite in front if you
can and crouch behind the metal shield. Wait for the Covenant to stop
firing their guns at you, and then come out form behind the shield. Do as
much damage as possible and take cover again. Rinse and repeat until you’re
the only person alive within shooting range. Now proceed to the lifeboat
that you’ll ride in the end. Eventually you’ll arrive at a weapon stand
with a few Frag Grenades on it. Bombard the Covenant with the grenades.
Once the bad guys are dead, get into a maintenance passage for the nth time
and use it to go to the other side of the stand. Get close to the last
lifeboat and trigger the cut scene. It’s rather impressive, but short.


     II. Halo

-Flawless Cowboy

     The lifeboat crashes and everyone aboard (except the Master Chief, of
course) is killed. So run out of the lifeboat, turn left and collect ammo
for the Pistol and two Frag Grenades. Run across the bridge (that’s kind of
deep down there. Explains why no sentient life has evolved on Halo- the
sentient life had too far to fall). Now you have two choices. You can
either go right or kill all opposition or you can use that big rock to the
left to destroy all the patrol Banshees and kill the Covenant that will
inevitably flank you if you go right. I prefer the latter and will give
instructions for it. Go behind the rock and wait for a Banshee to fly at
you. Dodge its Plasma Cannons until it’s within the Assault Rifle’s range,
and when it is, just fire at the Banshee and do as much damage as possible.
It’s possible to kill it on its first flyby, but it’s very hard. If it
takes some health, restart. Anyway. When you destroy the Banshee and the
other Banshee if necessary, go out from behind the rock just far enough to
see the Covenant that came out of the dropship. Wait for one Elite to stand
on the bridge and, if you’re lucky, start crossing it. Then fire at it with
your Pistol until it dodges off the bridge or dies. Pick off the Grunts and
head uphill. When you reach a pass between two boulders, stop. There should
be some Grunts and an Elite. Kill all the Grunts with the Pistol first and
then do some damage to the Elite’s shield with the same gun. While it’s
crouching behind some cover, run over and surprise it with sixty or so
bullets from the Assault Rifle. Then pick up its Plasma Rifle. It’s okay to
lose some health in the process of killing the Elite because of the Med
pack next to the lifeboat. Go back in the direction of the lifeboat. Right
next to the point where the waterfall starts there are some small rocks.
Drop onto those. Now flank the Elites near the lifeboat and kill them. It
doesn’t matter how much health you lose as long as the health indicator
doesn’t get too far below two health bars. Pick up a Needler from one of
the Grunts and fill it up with another Needler. Pick up ammo for the Pistol
and a Med pack, then go across the bridge all the way to the place where
you acquired your first Plasma Rifle. Go further into the hills and through
the canyon. The first drop is reversible by jumping on the small rock next
to the big one and then jumping onto the part of the big rock that’s
closest to the wall. When you’ve gotten everything you could, go forward
and snipe the Grunts under the dropship. Now drop down and use the Pistol
to snipe the leftover Grunts. Proceed to kill the Elites with the Needler.
When there’s nothing left to kill except the marines, fill up the Needler
and go up on that big structure. Wait for another dropship to arrive. Then
snipe the Jackals and Grunts with the Pistol and wait for the Elites to
start visiting your hideout. Hopefully they’ll come individually and let
you stick a clip of the Needler into them. It’s all right to lose some
health if you have to because of the three Med packs nearby. Now just snipe
the Jackals and Grunts. When they’re all killed, come out a bit and throw
Plasma Grenades at, or needle, the Elites. Some more dropships will come
and dispatch more troops. When all the Covenant is dead, you’ll hear
Foehammer’s transmission.


     Come down, refill with ammo and Med packs if necessary, and take
Foehammer’s Warthog. A gunner will already be in there, so just get in
behind the wheel and go down into the deep depression in the ground further
up the valley, and then go into the tunnel. An active checkpoint should be
near the entrance, so be careful when passing through it with bad health or
low ammo because you’ll lose the chance to replay and correct that. Now
just go through the tunnel until you arrive at a drop off and beyond it, a
ramp. Drive off onto the ramp and get enough momentum to jump across the
gap. Continue through the tunnel and drive into the next room. Drive over
the Grunt in front, or kill it in some other way, to stop it from throwing
a Plasma Grenade at your Warthog. Go back into the tunnel and recharge your
shield. Drive into the room again. Get the gunner out of the gunner seat
and take the position yourself. Clean up the Jackals on the right and the
Grunts on the left. Then drive the Warthog along the ramp and leave it in
the section that has walls on both sides. Your trip there should have lured
the Elites out of their cover, so they should now be exposed. Get the
gunner out again and use the Machine gun to kill the Elites. If they hide
but you feel that you’ve done enough damage to their shields, come out and
snipe them with the Pistol. Once the Elites are dead, snipe the Grunts on
the same side. Go back through the passage all the way to the valley where
the large structure was and use the active checkpoint to save your
progress. Go back. Now look at the wall the Elites were guarding. There’s a
passage going into the wall. Park the Warthog so that the front blocks the
entrance and the wall blocks the gunner. Jump over the Warthog and go in
there. Have a Plasma Grenade ready to throw and the Needler reloaded. When
you get too close to the bend in the passage, a Red Elite will come out.
Throw the Plasma Grenade and if it misses stick half the clip into the
Elite. Then throw another grenade at the second Elite. If the first grenade
hits, retreat back down the passage so that the Elite doesn’t charge at
you. Then get ready for the second Elite and throw a Plasma Grenade at it.
If it misses, use the Needler. Anyway, when the Elites are dead, go the
rest of the way up the passage and activate the panel. A bridge to the
other side of the chasm will appear. Go back to the valley with the
structure to refill with ammo and health if necessary (you can actually go
all the way back to the beginning of the level by parking the Warthog in
front of the ledge that’s blocking your path, jumping on top of the
vehicle, and using it to get on top of the ledge). Otherwise, go across the
bridge and through the tunnels that follow.


-Reunion Tour

     Once you come out of the tunnels, drive forward and cross the stream.
Find the lifeboat and take the Sniper Rifle. Retreat a bit along the same
side and at the top of a small rise will be an entrance to one of the three
lifeboat crash sites. Leave the Warthog as soon as enemy building come into
view. Snipe the Elites on the buildings and then go near the boulders near
the edge of the drop off. There should be some Jackals nearby. Use the
boulders as cover and snipe the Jackals. When there are only Grunts in
sight, go back to the lifeboat and retrieve the Pistol. Snipe the Grunts
with the Pistol, then go towards the small structure near the place where
the Jackals had been. Look at one of the sides and you’ll see an entrance
to the bunker. Have a Plasma Grenade ready as you go down the ramp. A Red
Elite will come out. Throw the grenade at it and pray it hits. Assuming it
does, get rid of the Grunt with the Pistol if it comes after you. Now go
into the room below. Throw a grenade at the Jackals and they’re probably
dead. If not, finish them off with the Pistol. The bunker has two
entrances, but I would recommend using the one you came in through. If you
use the other, you’ll come out smack in the middle of a number of enemies,
who will probably kill you. When you come out, get on top of the middle
structure (the biggest one) and use it to snipe Grunts and Jackals from.
It’s also usable for throwing grenades at Elites. After the marines are
killed, the Grunts, Jackals, and Elites will come after you. Hopefully you
still have a Pistol and a Needler on your person. While the Jackals and
Grunts are still on the ground, snipe them. The Jackals have a weakness for
that, which is that they don’t realize that bringing the shield up helps.
Anyway, dispose of the enemies the same way you did around the first
structure. When they’re all dead, Cortana will start talking to Foehammer
about something or another, and then you’re free to pick up the ammo from
the dead marines and leave that place. Go to the Warthog and go through the
entrance to this valley that you haven’t used yet.


     Go through, go to the lifeboat, take the Sniper Rifle, and go back to
the valley’s entrance. Drive across the river and the entrance to the next
crash site should be behind a stone wall. It should be pretty obvious. Go
through the passage. Here the view should consist of another large
structure and some enemies. Snipe the Elites and Jackals. Drive along the
rock wall on the right toward the second entrance. Drive along the next
wall and up the hill. There should be some marines there. Reload the Sniper
Rifle from the one next to a dead marine and put the Warthog into position
to repel a ground assault from over the hill. Now get into the gunner seat
and wait for the Covenant to come. Kill all the Covenant that dares
challenge thee. Now fill up at the lifeboat and go out the unused entrance.


     There will be some Covenant on the hill across the river. Kill them
and proceed through the rock arch. Drive till you see the entrance to the
third and last crash site on your left. Go through the entrance. Snipe the
Covenant (it’s all right to waste ammo on Grunts- you won’t need the Sniper
Rifle anymore). Drive down to the lifeboat and take a Pistol. Then get the
Warthog to the wall opposite from where the lifeboat is facing and park the
vehicle with its back to the wall. Get into the gunner seat yet again and
wait for the Covenant dropship to arrive. Use the M41 LAAG to kill off the
Covenant. Wait for the next dropship and kill off the Covenant again. Now
the Pelican should come. Get inside.


     III. The Truth and Reconciliation

     Captain Keyes is now a POW and is held on a Covenant cruiser which
gave the level its name. The cruiser is in the air, but there’s a gravity
lift that you will use to get inside. In my opinion, this is by far the
hardest level in the game.


     When the Pelican throws you out, go forward and toward the passage in
front. Stay on the higher ground on the right. Use your Sniper Rifle to
pick off the Grunt in the Shade (if it’s there) and the Jackals and Elites
that will be walking around. Be very patient, and if some Covenant starts
firing at you before you’re done with the bigger enemies, restart. When
you’re done with anything Jackal-sized or bigger, go to the next opening on
the rock barrier in front and kill the gunner in the next Shade. There
should be an Elite somewhere there, but I’ve never killed it with a Sniper
Rifle because it doesn’t seem to like leaving the rock cover. Anyway, when
you’re done with anything that’s worth a bullet from the Sniper Rifle, drop
down and kill anything that’s not worth a bullet from the Sniper Rifle
(i.e. Grunts). Use a Shade to help the marines kill the Elite and mop up
the Grunts. Some enemies should come from the path along the next drop off,
so use a grenade once they come into view. When you’ve taken care of them,
go along the path they once walked upon, and go to the next valley. Snipe
anything you can snipe. Note that there’s a Blue Elite further up the path.
Once you’ve killed it and the Jackals up on the hill in front if possible,
go forward and turn right. There should be an Elite with a Needler there.
One very well-aimed clip from the Assault Rifle at very close range and a
melee attack should kill it. Now proceed up the path. Essentially, kill
everything in your way. It shouldn’t be that hard. Once you’ve cleared the
area, collect the ammo from one of the dead marines and go up the next
path.


     Continue going until you reach the place where a fork leading upward
comes out of the path. Wait for an Elite to come up the hill in front and
use a Plasma Grenade to kill it. If it notices you or the grenade misses,
restart. Once the Elite is dead, shoot the Blue Jackal further down the
path if you can. Otherwise, go further down the path. Kill the Yellow
Jackal and the Blue Jackal if you haven’t already and snipe the Elite to
the right. Now get rid of the gunner in the Shade directly above and run
toward the Shade concealed behind the rocks in front. Kill the gunner and
get into the Shade. Foehammer will bring reinforcements and in the
meantime, you can snipe the Covenant as long as you don’t let them get too
close. If one of them does get too close, get into the Shade and kill them.
A Covenant dropship will arrive. It should position itself very
conveniently for you to shoot the Covenant while they’re still inside. Now
proceed to clear up the Covenant. There’s an Active Camo in the trees
nearby, make sure that you do not take it yet. Stay near the Shade and
snipe the Covenant.


     When Cortana eventually says something, you know that the area is
probably clear. Look at the Active Camo and past it. That’s where you
should go. There should be a Shade above a passage in the rocks. Melee the
Shade down into the passage and put it so that in case enemies come for
you, you’ll be able to use it on them. Go through. Now kill everything you
see, including Grunts, using the Sniper Rifle. Make sure that you’ve killed
everything, then go take the Active Camo. Walk back through the tunnel,
then toward the grav lift. Snipe the Shade gunners, then go get into the
middle Shade of the ones guarding the lift. Now you’re on your own. The
next part will consist of just gunning down the opposition. With the help
from the marines that Foehammer will bring, use the Shade to kill all the
Covenant you see. But eventually two Hunters will come down from the lift.
 Get out of the Shade and kill the Hunters using an Assault Rifle. When the
Hunters are dead, collect the ammo lying near the foot of the grav lift.
Take a Plasma Rifle or Assault Rifle (I recommend the Assault Rifle because
it can carry 3.3 times more ammo than the Plasma Rifle), plus a Needler for
Elites, but I strongly recommend leaving the Sniper Rifle on the ground.
Anyway, when you’re all set, go into the gravity lift and wait for the cut
scene.


-Into the Belly of the Beast

     From now on, the walkthrough for the inside of the Truth and
Reconciliation will be slightly unclear because I finished the game on
Legendary a couple of weeks ago and had to pass it again to write the
walkthrough. I tried, but couldn’t pass the level a second time. Hopefully
you followed my advice and taken a Needler and one of the rifles because
this is a part that I remember with awe and respect and consider it
suicidal even to try to pass it unless you absolutely have to in order to
pass the level. When you arrive in the grav lift’s bay, it will be empty.
For now. In a few seconds a checkpoint will go off and an Invisible Elite
will arrive through one of the four smaller doors. Kill it the instant you
see it. When it’s dead, things will get hairy. With a long beard. There are
only a few tips for this that I was able to squeeze out of my experience in
this mess. First: kill the Gold Elites with the Plasma Swords the moment
they come out. Second: when you see that the marines are almost dead, move
toward one of the two entrances the Covenant are using that doesn’t have
obviously closed (red) doors behind it. When some Covenant come out, get
in. That gives you some cover from the Covenant and a place to recharge
your shields. You can open the doors from inside, but not from the outside,
so don’t come out unless you know that you’re not going to go back in. The
two doors are connected by a passageway, so you can stage ambushes on
enemies while they’re not looking. Third: near one of the exits of that
passageway are some Com Boxes and behind one is an Active Camo. Don’t be in
a hurry to use it because you’ll need it for later. Now just start a
guerilla war out of the passage. When the Covenant’s not looking and when
they stop coming out of the doors, get out and grab the Active Camo. Wait
behind the Com Boxes for the camouflage to completely turn on. Time for
some backstabbing. Melee everything you can in the back starting with the
Elites first and continuing to kill the Grunts and Jackals. I’m making this
sound easy, I know, but it’s really not. It took me a full hour and a half
to get this right. I restarted I don’t know how many times, but finally was
rewarded with a successfully achieved checkpoint. But since I completed all
the other difficulties, I knew of the peril ahead... in the form of two
Hunters.


     Once the checkpoint is triggered, one of those big blast doors will
open. The Hunters will come out and the fight may be one of the hardest
fights with Hunters in the game because of all that clutter in the grav
lift’s bay. To level the odds a bit, grab an Assault Rifle and a Needler
and lure the Hunters away from the opening they came through. Then go in
there yourself. Hopefully only one Hunter will come in. But if both do,
it’s all right too. Now evade its melee attacks and shoot it in the back
with the Assault Rifle and the Needler if you can. Do the same to the other
one. When you’ve disposed of both Hunters, take the Med pack near the place
where the Active Camo was, and go up the newly opened passage. Go up that
passage and turn right. Go forward until you reach a left turn. Don’t go
around that turn, though, due to the particularly painful Elite there. Kill
it with a Plasma Grenade. If this fails, needle it to death. Proceed to
start the “Grunt cleanup routine”. Once the Covenant are dead (although
some will regularly appear behind you), go down the corridor and look
through the door on the right. There should be a hard to see Elite next to
one of those columns near the edge of the ledge. Throw a Plasma Grenade and
hope it hits. Otherwise kill the Elite some other way. Once it’s dead, kill
everything else on the ledge one way or another. You can use the columns
for cover. When everything’s dead, go through the next door. Now go down
the passages, kill anything that moves, and go to the storage bay you
already saw from above. There should be some Comm Boxes directly in front
as you enter the room and to your right should be some ammo and a Med pack.
Don’t come out of the passage unless you’re really low on ammo; it can
provide a good place to recharge your shield and to take on the enemies one
by one. Now lure some enemies into the tunnel and deal with them. When
they’re all dead, don’t come out yet because some reinforcements will
arrive. Deal with them in a similar fashion, or you can go back upstairs
and use the advantage of higher ground. Anyway, when the enemies are safely
disposed of, go into the storage bay and I think a nav point should point
out that you have to open the door at the end of the corridor those
long-dead Hunters arrived through. When it’s open (assuming you have to
open it- I ventured to pass the level again on Easy to save time, which is
why some details might be a bit off), go through the doors the Covenant
reinforcements came through. Go left and continue down the passages until
you emerge into a shuttle bay.


     This will be a really tight spot. But for now you have the element of
surprise, so execute the Jackal and Grunt in front. There’s an Elite on
that platform in the middle, so don’t come out into the open. Instead, go
to the furthest exit (the rectangular hole in the wall covered by a shield)
and camp out in the corner (oh, and for those who are used to Cortana
bringing extra marines at this point, she won’t). That should prevent the
Elite on the platform from firing at you and the separator between the two
shuttle bay exits should block the rest of the enemies’ fire. Now leave the
cover temporarily to shoot at the enemies and retreat. But at some point,
those enemies will get onto the ledges around the room and your cover will
be fried. Now it’s time to get another cover. There are some Com Boxes on
the side of the platform in the middle of the room on the side where you
entered. The closest ones to the exit should form a stack and that will
provide you with sufficient cover.  Now temporarily come out of that cover
again to damage the enemy before retreating. Do this until Covenant
reinforcements arrive. Now go all the way to the door on the opposite end
of the room from the one you arrived through. There will be some more Com
Boxes in front of it. They can form a very effective barrier against
enemies on the other side. When you get a transmission from Cortana telling
you something about that door, hide behind those Com Boxes. Wait.
Eventually some Covenant should come for you. Use guerilla tactics to kill
them. When they’re all dead, I think that two Hunters will come out. Now be
careful because if those Hunters kill you, you’ll have to start from the
last checkpoint. And that won’t be fun. Use your Assault Rifle (if you
still have it, although you can pick one up in the shuttle bay) to kill the
Hunters, preferably one at a time. Once they’re dealt with, Cortana will
open a door.


     Go through the door. Carefully look down the passage. You should see a
Grunt. Wait for it to arrive and kill it. Now go down the passage yourself.
I’m not sure, but I think there should be a couple of Grunts at the end.
Kill them. Now there should be an Elite in the passage on the left. Lure it
out. Use your Needler and Plasma Grenades to kill it. Now it should just be
a task of getting rid of the Grunts follow the same routine as you go down
the passages until you arrive on the second level of the shuttle bay. It’s
no use running in there and killing everything that moves, so you need to
hide. There’s that alcove in the wall with pipes in it. Hide in its corner.
This will keep the door to the ledge open and block most firepower that the
enemy chooses to use. Now bombard the Covenant on the ledge with plasma
and/or bullets until they’re roasted enough for you to come out. Finish
them off. If you’re low on ammo or health, it’s safe to drop down to the
first level of the shuttle bay to collect that ammo and health. There will
be a couple more waves of Covenant, so be ready. When the way to the next
door (to get there, walk along the part of the ledge that’s perpendicular
to the shielded shuttle bay entrances) is clear, walk toward it. It will
probably open when you get too close, and Covenant will come out. Throw a
grenade at the door and use the alcoves in the walls as cover. Not all you
have to do is kill the enemy. When you can safely go through the door, do
so. Suffer your way through the subsequent passages until you reach the
third and last level. When you come out of the passage, you should be able
to see an open door to your right. The fact that it’s open suggests that
there are enemies in front of it, the fact that they’re not running at you
suggests that they don’t know that you’re there, and the listed facts both
suggest that a grenade should do the job. So lob a grenade into the
doorway. There will probably be some survivors, so clean up ASAP before the
Elite there has time to recharge its shield. Run the rest of the way down
the platform. Before a turn you’ll see some Com Boxes. Stop before you
reach them. Look past them and you should see some Covenant. Kill them off
and proceed through the door there.


     Navigate the passages until you arrive in front of a door and hear a
weird ambient sound. That’s a sign that you’re next to the entrance to the
control room. Go through. Just don’t charge in with guns blazing because
the element of surprise can make the task much easier. Walk in and punch
the sleeping Grunts. But don’t go too far away from the door- you’ll need
to quickly run away when the Elites see you. When they do, run out the
door. There’s a Med pack and Frag Grenades on the left (assuming you’re
facing the door to the control room). Use those if desperately needed,
otherwise save them for later. Use guerrilla tactics to slowly kill the
enemy one alien at a time. You can also use the brilliant stratagem called
flanking. Still facing the door, turn 90 degrees to the right and go down
that passage. Then go left and there should be another entrance to the
control room. Switch your position between the two doors a few times. The
enemy AI is not as bright as it seems, and appears to expect you to use
only the door that they last saw you use. When the enemy’s not in any
condition to fight, don’t run into the control room- enemy reinforcements
will hit you from all sides. Wait for them in the corridor and use the same
tactics you used to clean up the original Covenant in the control room.


     A nav point will point you to the door you should go through next when
the enemy is neutralized. Go through. Turn left and down the passage. When
you reach the left turn, throw a grenade around the turn. Clean up the
Grunts and Jackals and go down the passages that follow. Do the same thing
until you reach the place where there’s an open door to the left and a
sloping corridor to the right. Go through the door into the detention
station and collect the Active Camo behind the control platform in the end
of the room. Go out and down the sloping passage as fast as possible. Turn
left and go down the passage, killing the Jackals there with a melee attack
in the back. Turn right into the detention station. Go along the right wall
and pause for a second. There will be an Invisible Elite in front of you.
Carefully go around it and melee it in the back. Then go onto the control
platform and kill the Gold Elite with the Plasma Sword. Go along the wall
opposite from the one where you killed the first Invisible Elite. There’s
another Invisible Elite there. Kill it with a melee attack if you can. Then
kill the sleeping Grunts. Turn off the shields guarding the cells using the
holographic panel on the control platform. Watch the cut scene.


-Shut Up and Get Behind Me... Sir

     Keyes, armed with a Needler, and other marines, armed with Plasma
Rifles, will be very useful when you have to move out, but Keyes will
provide you with another pain, namely keeping him alive. When the cut scene
ends, go to the middle of the room (pick up a Plasma Rifle if you haven’t
already) and get ready to throw a Plasma Grenade through the door. When it
starts shimmering, throw the grenade. Two Invisible Elites will come
through. If it doesn’t hit one of them, restart. Otherwise kill the
remaining Elite. Fill up at the cell that’s closest to the door (the one on
your left). Now look at the faces of the marines. They all have the same
skin! Go out the door. There should be Jackal in front of the door kill it
and then the one on the right. Turn around. Throw a grenade down the
passage in front. Wait for the marines to start firing at the enemy and
just camp out in an adjacent passage, helping with grenades when necessary.
Now continue to go the way you came. You can also refill at the first
detention station, in one of the cells. Go till you reach the control room.
Get just close enough to the door to open it and be able to see inside. If
you don’t have a Plasma Rifle, get one. And it’s probably a good idea to
fill up with grenades if possible. Now throw a Plasma Grenade at the
Invisible Elites in front. If it doesn’t stick, throw another one. Use your
Plasma Rifle to kill the Elites from far away. When it’s safe to proceed,
stay where you are. Reinforcements will arrive (Covenant reinforcements, of
course) and you’ll have to fight them off. Then go to the door on the
opposite side of the control room and through it. Continue down the
passages and to the third level of the shuttle bay. When the door to the
ledge opens, throw a Plasma Grenade at the Elite walking around there. If
it’s not killed, use a Needler. Clean up. Then go to the holographic panel
nearest to the door. Activate it and sit back with the knowledge that you
just completed one of the most challenging levels in the game. Oh, and if
you know where the marine's voice in this cut scene came from, tell me.


     IV. The Silent Cartographer

     Apparently, now you need to find Halo’s Control Room. To do it, you
need to find a treasure map that will lead you to the place. So you need to
find that. Fortunately, Cortana knows that there’s something called the
Silent Cartographer, which is the treasure map I mentioned. And you have to
take it by force.


     The Silent Cartographer is on an island. What I like about the island
is that it’s filled with active checkpoints. This makes most mistakes you
make reversible without losing too much progress.


     The mission starts in a Pelican, where you have very few means of...
well, everything. All you can do is look around, and that’s limited to the
180 degrees in front of you. When you get out, you have two options. One,
fight. Two, run away to get some heavy guns. Number one is too suicidal, so
I prefer some drastic means of combat. Of course, this will kill all your
marines, who will stay behind to fight. To get the better guns, turn around
and run around the island. Eventually you’ll get to a place where there’s
an overturned Warthog with ammo and health around it near the water, plus
some Covenant on the hill to the right. For fast cleanup, stop next to one
of the big rocks near the wall so that you’re just within sight of the
Jackals there. They’re so closely packed that a single Frag Grenade should
take care of the entire formation, so throw a Frag Grenade into the middle
of the Jackals. If it doesn’t land where it should, restart and try again.
When the Jackals are done with, run in a wide arc to the Warthog to avoid
enemy fire. Flip it and get into the gunner seat. Clean up (you might have
to go up the hill and kill that Elite manually). When the enemies on the
hill are dead, Cortana should announce that the area is clear (something
she usually reserves for the time when you clear the landing zone) and
Foehammer will deliver a Warthog (to the LZ).


     Go there and, from some distance, use the Machine gun to clean up the
Elites and Jackals. There are some Grunts and one or two Elites on the
other side of that structure. Mop them up and go to that hill near which
you got the first Warthog. I think that Foehammer’s Warthog will come with
two marines, so position the vehicle so that they will provide backup
firepower for you and then go toward the tree barrier. Snipe the Grunts so
they don’t throw grenades at the Warthog and then an Elite will come out.
Snipe it too and when its shield is down as much as possible, come over and
finish it off with a weapon of choice (rapid fire, probably). Snipe the
Grunts further up the path and when you think they’re all dead, proceed. Do
it carefully because there’s an Elite at the end of that path. Kill it and
go further and into the small valley beyond. There will be Hunters down
there, but as long as you stay covered by the trees, killing them will be
pretty easy. Get out your Pistol and when one of them is not looking, shoot
it in the back. When they’re dead, go to the opposite end of the valley and
close enough to the passage there to trigger some Jackals to come out.
Quickly run back and hide behind the structure in the middle of the area.
Snipe the Jackals with your Pistol. Proceed into the passage. Keep far away
from the next valley and take shots at the enemy. Kill off the Grunts and
Jackals, and then the Elite. To get rid of the latter, weaken its shield
with the Pistol and finish it off from close range. Go down the next path.
Kill the Grunts there (it would be easier to snipe them from long range-
even Grunts can be dangerous in large numbers). Then refill the Pistol from
the ammo stock in the valley where you killed the Hunters, take an Over
Shield, and then go into the structure where you killed the most recent
Grunts. Go down into the hall with the Com Boxes and hide in the nearest of
those areas in the walls (to the right). Peek around the corner and snipe
the Hunters there with the Pistol. It shouldn’t be that hard. If you don’t
manage to get one of the Hunters on the first try, you can always restart.
When it’s safe, proceed. There won’t be any more enemies, so run down the
passage that follows and deactivate the security system using the
holographic panel.


-It’s Quiet...

     Don’t know what the title of the section is about, but it probably has
something to do with it being quiet due to the absence of enemies... But in
this case the title’s not going to be true for long. Go the way you came
and you’ll come to the end of the passage and stop in front of the engraved
wall. Go slightly around the wall and when you hear an Elite, withdraw to
the passage and hide behind one of the parts of the wall that are jutting
out. Wait there for an Elite to come out and use the Pistol to kill it.
Rinse and repeat until they’re all dead. Then proceed up and into the open
air. Now use the Pistol to snipe the bad guys down on the ground. Don’t
forget the Grunts on the mesa. Now technically you’re supposed to go
exactly the way you came (all the way to the valley where you killed the
first Hunters), but there’s a shortcut. Take an Over Shield next to the Com
Box and go to the nearest place where you can jump down on the ground.
Notice that the slope is kind of less steep and that there’s a rock down
there. Drop down and use the angled part of the slope to slow your fall.
Try to land on top of the rock or at least use it to soften your fall too.
When dirtside, go over to the downed dropship and trade your Pistol (and
no, it’s not a mistake) for a Rocket Launcher.


     Take the Warthog and drive to the place where you left the Warthog
with the marines. If you need to refill anything except, probably, a
Needler and the leftover space for a rocket that you should have, go to the
place where you found the first Warthog and do so. If worst comes to worst
(no ammo for whatever you need to refill), go past the tree barrier, up the
path, and sneak past the enemies to the ammo cache in front. Then go back
to the Warthog and drive in a counterclockwise direction around the island.
When you arrive at a big area with Jackals blocking your way and a ramp
leading upward in the distance, park your Warthog so that it’s more or less
facing the enemy (a respectable distance away) and get into the gunner
seat. Kill the Jackals. When the Jackals are dead, go toward the ramp and
get into the same position as the one you used to clean up the Jackals.
There should be some Covenant near the ramp, but they’re no match for the
Machine gun. When you’re sure they’re dead, proceed up the ramp. There will
be some Jackals there. Run over them or shoot them with the Machine gun.
Now leave the Warthog and go toward the platform further up the path. There
will be Hunters there, which are disposable of with one or two rockets
each. Go back to the Warthog and drive it onto the platform so that it has
a clear view inside the structure and room for a gunner to get out without
getting killed by falling off the platform. Get into the gunner seat and
gun down the Covenant inside the structure. When it’s safe to go inside,
drive the Warthog into the structure. It will be a tight fit, but it’s
possible. You can go all the way to the door you saw open when you
deactivated the security system. Now leave the Warthog and go inside.


-Shafted

     (And where’s that Elite that you saw come out of there?..). Anyway,
you have the choice of whether to go right and watch a completely pointless
cut scene or go left and jump headfirst into the action and plasma. When
the passage on the left ends, you’ll see an Elite standing in front of a
Com Box. Melee it in the back for one easy kill and go up the ramp on the
right. Kill the sleeping Grunt on the ledge there and ambush the next one.
Now get out your Rocket Launcher and use it on the Elite on the ground.
Then dispose of the smaller infantry. There’s a shortcut to the next level
of the place, which is when you go up that ramp, drop off the opposite side
of the ledge the ramp ends with, and go left along the wall. On you right
there will be an alcove in the wall. There will be a hole in the floor that
will lead to the next level. But I prefer the normal way of going there,
namely going through the door in the opposite wall and down a series of
ramps. Either way, go to one of the “windows” through which you can see the
inner part of the room. Shoot the Hunter there with a rocket. Some Jackals
or even the other Hunter might come for you, so be ready. Now look at the
wall of the inner section of the room that’s facing the chasm. There should
be an alcove there. That’s one of the many examples of the fact that this
place is literally saturated with secret tunnels and shortcuts. Use that
and the more obvious ways of getting into the area to kill the Jackals and
the remaining Hunter.


     Now if your Rocket Launcher ammo’s not depleted, trade your second
weapon (not the Rocket Launcher) for a Pistol from the ammo and health
cache next to the chasm. Go into the inner section of the room and go to
the far end. There will be a ramp leading down in a very obvious part of
the wall. Go down and kill the Jackals that will almost certainly be there.
Then when you reach the ramp leading down onto a ledge, drop off the right
side and turn left. You’ll see a wall with two doors in it. Facing the
wall, the right door will take you to the next level and the left will take
you to a small room with an Active Camo. Go there, take the camouflage,
come out, and go through the right door. Run and jump down the following
ramps and go through the passage. Melee the Grunts there fast and jump off
the left side of the walkway. Run toward the edge of the chasm there and
kill that Elite. Now dispose of the awakened Grunts and when the Camo
fades, kill the sleeping ones. Go toward the chasm and down the ramp. Turn
right and throw a Plasma Grenade at the Elites there. Aim it carefully
because there will be some issues with your health if those Elites survive
and start fighting. Kill them off and activate the Silent Cartographer.


     Pick up the Over Shield next to the Com Box outside the map room. Go
to the previous room and up onto the walkway. Walk along it and use your
Rocket Launcher, grenades, and Pistol to clear the ramps of Jackals. Be
careful to take cover whenever possible because a single overcharge can
take down your entire Over Shield. When the way’s clear, go up the ramps
and just close enough to open the next door. When a Jackal comes into view,
use the Pistol to kill it. Continue to use the door as cover and sniping
the Jackals until your way’s reasonably clear (you don’t have to kill all
the opposition). Now simply proceed the way you came until you reach the
place where you meleed the first Elite in the back after the Shafted
section began. Go back into the dark passage and carefully look around the
corner of the intersection. Hopefully you had a gunner in the Warthog, who
will kill the gold Elite there (ah, so there it is). If not, use the fact
that that particular Elite will not see you until it’s too late to award it
with a Plasma Grenade for “superior spotting skills”. One grenade will be
enough. Drive your Warthog back up to the structure you originally entered
the complex through and park your ‘Hog so that the gunner has a clear view
of the final passage. Get into the gunner seat. A Covenant dropship will
dispatch some Invisible Elites (that’s why you had to get into the gunner
seat- the marines are AI, so they won’t see or fire at the Elites, which
will be a complete waste of the big firepower that the Machine gun
provides). Gun down the Elites and get onto the Pelican that will arrive
shortly. Watch as the Pelican descends into yet another chasm through the
structure in the valley where you killed the first Hunters, which also
doubles as a door.


     V. Assault on the Control Room

-I Would Have Been Your Daddy...

     Have a good long laugh at the Grunt in the cut scene. Then turn around
and get behind the structure you’ll see. In a couple of seconds some Elites
and Grunts will arrive through the door. Snipe a Grunt or two with your
Pistol and reload. Then aim at the Blue Elite that will probably be
charging at you and empty a clip into it. That should be enough to put it
down. Snipe the rest of the Grunts so that they don’t use the Shades. Then
turn your attention on the Red Elite. If you can, use the Pistol to weaken
its shields and then use the Assault Rifle to kill it. Frag Grenades won’t
work very well because any Elite will be able to dodge in time to put
enough distance between itself and the grenade. When the Elite is killed,
go through the door. Notice the arrow pointing toward it on the floor.
Bungie has been nice enough to almost lead you by the hand to the Control
Room using arrows pointing at each door you need to go through. Plus you
can use this to tell if you’re going forward or backward (it’s phenomenally
easy to get lost in some places). Now I won’t get into the specifics of the
kind room you’re about to enter because most of the time it follows one
routine: get into that room, kill everything in there, and go through the
next door to another room. Level tips? One: be careful to look in all parts
of a room because there may be some pre-dead marines there, like in the
first or second room, can’t remember. Note that these don’t stay around
forever. Once I went forward about two or three rooms and came back for
some ammo, and it was gone. True story. Two: carry a Rocket Launcher for
Elites and a Pistol for everything else at all times (unless you’re using
the Sniper Rifle for some long-range jobs). Three: save ammo if possible.
You’re going to need it. Four: look through doors first instead of running
through them to a standard 21-gun salute, which is almost guaranteed to get
you killed on Legendary. Besides, it might save you from getting the
attention of that absent-mindedly walking Elite, which you will be able to
melee in the back once it passes. Five: always completely clean up rooms
that you pass. Say you’re severely hurt in one room and are running to the
previous one to get some health. Just as you’re about to get it, a nasty
Elite you didn’t notice runs by, whacks you, and then finishes you off with
its gun. That won’t be fun, believe me.


     The first change will be when you pass through a room and onto a
bridge. Don’t open fire because that’ll wake up the Grunts. Melee them
until something spots you and then use that wall you saw when you came onto
the bridge as cover. Man one of the Shades and mow down the Covenant
infantry and the Banshee when it comes close. Then manually kill off the
rest. Be careful not to step onto the glass because it’s the first and last
bridge where there’s breakable glass. The fall won’t hurt you, but it won’t
feel very good to land in the middle of even a couple of Grunts. Clean up
the two levels, constantly going downstairs and back upstairs to make sure
that no one managed to flank you. When you get within about 30 meters of
the exit, it will open. Now throw a grenade into the door, retreat as fast
as possible to the furthest point of the bridge where you have a clear view
of the bad guys, and snipe the smaller Covenant. Then I would recommend
taking a Needler because there’s a Gold Elite with a Plasma Sword next to
the exit. Lure it out and use the Needler to finish it. A clip will do.
Then dispose of the smaller Covenant and move on.


     You’ll pass through another room (if you go clockwise about 150
degrees around the room you’ll find supplies) and then into an elevator.
Use the control panel (if you can’t realize from the instructions on the
screen that you need to press X, then probably can’t read this guide,
either. That’s why I never include instructions for what to do in front of
holographic panels). You can come up again using the panel, but only to
refill. Leave the shaft and you’ll emerge in a room different from all the
rooms you’ve been to so far. Look around and melee the Grunts nearby. Then
go down the hall and I think there should be a Grunt on the left. Kill that
and go right. When you see a very small passage going through a wall in
front of you and a bigger standard-sized passage on its right, inch around
the wall and look into the bigger passage. There will be an Elite there and
hopefully you can retreat fast enough for it not to notice you. It should
be walking in your direction, so retreat into the smaller passage and wait
until it reaches your position and turns around. Then wait a few more
seconds for it to pass, and then run around the corner. Melee it in the
back and go further counterclockwise around the room. You’ll meet some
Grunts and Jackals on the way, so use grenades and the Pistol to clear the
way. You’ll eventually reach a door. I recommend cleaning up the center of
the room, so it would be safe to go back. To do it more or less safely,
look at those large alcoves that tend to appear on your right. On both
sides of each of them is a ramp leading to the inner section of the room.
Some are blocked, but most are passable. Use them to get the advantage of
higher ground. When the room is clean of anything that would open fire the
moment it sees you, go through the door.


     After going through a passage, you’ll arrive in a very large open
area. Immediately go right and execute the Grunt sitting in the Shade. Then
go past it and to the Warthog. Flip it and use the Machine gun to mow down
the infantry until a Ghost arrives. Kill the driver (but if you have to,
you can also destroy the vehicle) so that a marine could board the Ghost
and provide an awesome distraction for the Wraith in the distance. Mop up
the remaining Covenant behind the trees and use your Pistol to take out the
Shade gunner on the cliff. Go back to the Warthog and trade the Pistol for
a Sniper Rifle. Use that to pick off the small Covenant near the Wraith.
Then get up close (not for point blank range, but close enough not to miss
with the rockets and far enough not to get killed by the tank) and take
down the Wraith with the Rocket Launcher. Then use the Sniper Rifle to get
rid of the Jackals further down the valley. Go back to the cliff where you
killed the second Shade gunner and somewhere in the area you’ll find a
Ghost. There will be some Rocket Launcher ammo behind a small rock near it.
Then go down the valley and off the small drop off (keep the Sniper Rifle,
by the way). You can still get back up by jamming your Ghost between the
nearby tree and the wall, pushing it against that drop off, and holding the
A button. The Ghost will eventually heave itself up onto the higher level.
Anyway. There will be a battle going on and in the center of it all will be
a completely unused Scorpion. Get in as fast as possible and blow the
Covenant where they deserve to be. Wait for the marines to get on (four’s
the limit) and drive into the canyon that should be clearly visible. And
I’m not talking about the hole in the wall. That will get you to the next
area, but that will allow a lot of Covenant to jump on top of you en masse.
So go through the canyon. A Ghost or two will come out of the canyon, so
hold both triggers to pour out the biggest amount of firepower possible on
the Ghosts, which should be your first priority. Then take care of the
Grunts and Elites in the canyon and move on. You’ll arrive in a large
valley. Try to take out the Wraith or one of the Shades near it with the
Cannon before a Ghost will arrive. Destroy it and kill any Jackal that
dares come near the tank. They’re dangerous with their overcharges, so use
any opportunity you get to get rid of them. They’re an even higher priority
than the Wraith. There will be a Banshee flying around, so kill it on
sight. And you have to kill the Wraith. The Banshee will come pretty late,
so don’t concentrate on the skies while the Wraith is bombing you freely.
When the way’s clear, go toward the underground entrance on the other side
of the valley. There will be a couple of Hunters down in there, which can
be killed with a couple of shells. Get rid of any enemies in the area
(including a Wraith above the entrance) and go underground. When you get
near the entrance you might see some Com Boxes to your right. Near one of
them will be an Active Camouflage. You won’t need it, though, because when
you get to the next place where you do need it, it’ll be long gone. When
you get to the bottom of the entrance, there will be a big blast door. Use
the panel on the left to open it. Go in your tank through the passages
until you reach a room. Kill the Elites in front of you and turn right. Use
the Cannon to take down the Shade on the edge of the chasm and then kill
the Grunt nearby. Go to the bridge crossing the chasm and use the Cannon to
wipe it clear of Jackals. Then clean up any resistance there may be on your
side of the chasm and get out of the tank. Use your Sniper Rifle to kill
the Hunters on the other side. If you can’t kill both, then kill at least
one because when you get there they’ll be a pain. Go across and kill off
the remaining Covenant. Then open the next door and go through.


-Rolling Thunder

     You’ll eventually reach a place with some Ghosts, Elites, and a bunch
of Grunts. A couple of shells should be enough to wipe out most of the
Covenant there and it’s even possible to do the job just with those two
shells. Then move around the turn and use the Cannon’s very long range to
kill the Jackals up in the rock tunnel. When you get up through the tunnel,
some Ghosts will come at you. Get rid of them, wait for the dropship to
leave, and take down the infantry it deposited. The go counterclockwise
around the massive tower in the middle of the area and take down the Shade
on the “hill” near the tower. Then turn to the door in the tower and when
it opens, put a Cannon shell into it. Jam the left trigger for a constant
downpour of bullets and fire the Cannon the moment it reloads. Once the way
is clear, notice the supplies near the Shade. Take a Pistol and go further
counterclockwise around the tower. There will be a Ghost on your left
shortly after you clear the hill where the Shade was, so destroy that. Then
focus on the Wraith. A couple of shells and it’s down. Easy. Now go closer
to the canyon that the Wraith was guarding. Two Hunters will come out (if
they haven’t already), so take them down as carefully as possible because
some more Covenant will come out later and it will be very easy for them to
kill you in that Scorpion. Get rid of them and go counterclockwise around
the tower again. A Banshee will come at you sooner of later, so be
prepared. Kill any resistance (including a Shade on top of another hill
opposite the second door) and when you get to the actual door, it will open
and let loose some more Covenant. You know what to do. Then go through the
door and stop when you reach the entrance to a room. Get out your Rocket
Launcher and aim to the right of that column. When you see an Invisible
Elite come out (assuming it’s not already out), shoot it. Then get your
other gun out, which is probably still the Sniper Rifle, and if the second
Elite survived your rocket, use the gun to kill the Elite. Then go behind
the column and take the Active Camo. This is the place where I first
discovered a certain glitch with the camouflage, read more about it in the
Secrets section. So when you take it, go up the ramp leading up and
outside. Satisfy the desire to kill you must have by now by meleeing the
Elite that should be there in the back. Then go back to the Scorpion and
drive it through the canyon the two Hunters came through.


     Mow down the small infantry when you get through the canyon (be
careful to kill the Shade on the rock wall on the opposite side of the
area) and go down the twisting ramp. Pick up some marines and go around the
ramp. You’ll meet two Hunters, so get rid of them. Then get out (and this
is the last place in the campaign that you’ll be allowed to use the
Scorpion, so enjoy) and take the Active Camouflage next to the ammo, refill
your Rocket Launcher, and go through the tunnel. Melee the Invisible Elite
near the end of the passage in the back, then go the rest of the way, wait
for the marines to come, and get out of the way. You see, in this case the
theory “you can’t hit what you can’t see” turns precisely the wrong way.
The marines can’t see you, so they can’t avoid you, either. It’s okay to
open fire because the marines will blow your cover anyway. Go to the ramp
leading upward, put your back against the wall, and turn around. There will
be a Shade on top of the rock wall above the tunnel you came through, so
take that down with your Rocket Launcher. Then go up the ramp and open fire
on the Covenant there. Once the way is reasonably clear, go out and wait
for some Ghosts to come. Then retreat back down the ramp. If you don’t have
a Pistol yet, go back to the nearest place where there is one and take it.
I think that there’s even one to the left of the tunnel you came through.
When you have it, go back up the ramp and peek out. The Ghosts should be
calm enough by now, so aim at one and take a shot with the Rocket Launcher.
Do the same with the other one. One time they decided to park literally
side by side, so the rocket took out both. Go past and take down the
Shades. I’ll point out that there are a couple of Elites in that
trench-like construction, but those are probably there only to startle
anyone curious enough to go down there. Then go toward the door. I
recommend going back to the place with the massive tower in the middle and
taking a Ghost (if there wasn’t one in this area) because two Elites will
be waiting on the other side of that door. Do what you want. Just get rid
of those Elites. Whatever you do, however many marines you have left will
stay there, so continue you lonely trip into the next room. No comment for
this one. When you get to the next door, go through (oh, and you can’t
bring a contraband Ghost with you past this point because the door’s too
narrow for a Ghost). Take a ride on the elevator.


     There will be a Jackal waiting for you, so kill it. Melee it fast
enough and you won’t even have to use any ammo. In the next room there will
be two more Jackals. You can use a grenade, but be careful not to throw it
too close to the ammo there. Don’t want to lose those Frag Grenades. At
least one will probably survive the explosion, so kill it with the Pistol
or something. Then just toss grenades through the entrance to the next room
to get rid of the Grunts and Jackals. Not that it’s bad to kill Grunts that
get in the way, but I recommend focusing on the Jackals first- they have a
tendency of firing overcharges, which often prove to force me to restart
because of the loss of health. After three or four grenades, it should be
safe to venture out. Again, if there are any Jackals left, kill the them
first. Then kill the Grunts. There’s a Gold Elite in this room somewhere
and hopefully it’s not in sight yet because you’ll probably need to
recharge your shield. If it is, find some cover you could jump behind in
case of an emergency. Then get its attention if it happened not to notice
you and fire a rocket at it. If the rocket hits, you can finish it off with
the Pistol. If it doesn’t, use another rocket and then use the Pistol. And
if the Elite wasn’t within sight in the first place, go around the inner
section of the room and find it. Then go through the same process to kill
the alien. It’s another place where it’s all right to lose some health
because the Elite is hard to kill without losing some health if things
start going against what you planned. Anyway, don’t get the Med pack in the
room with the ammo, because there will be some more Elites which could take
some more health. Then go into the center section of the room and snipe the
smaller Covenant. Then dispose of the Elites in the area. Go through the
door and onto the bridge (again???).


     Go along the bridge to the first block-like thing standing
perpendicular to the bridge. There will be a couple of Elites on the other
side. A couple of rockets and grenades later, go further along the bridge
(use the blocks parallel to the bridge as cover from the Grunts on the
other bridge) and snipe any Grunt and Jackal you see with the Pistol. Use
the Rocket Launcher on the Elites. If the Grunts on the other bridge get
too annoying, use the Pistol to take them down. It’s easy, really, mainly
because the bridge’s border is just low enough to expose their heads...
that felt good! Now, you have a chance to skip a few rooms and get onto the
other bridge directly. To do it, notice the glass screens on both ends of
the bridge. Run up to either end. Then you’ll see that where the glass ends
there will be lumpy stone things on the edge of the bridge just a bit
further along the bridge. Jump onto the very low barrier that runs along
the entire length of the bridge. Then jump onto the lumpy thing and then
onto the glass. It might take a few tries, but it’s not that hard. Then
jump across to the other bridge’s glass screen and down onto the floor. But
if you choose to remain innocent, get to the end of the bridge, pass the
next room and you’ll see a relatively long corridor with a bunch of Grunts
and Jackals in it. Snipe the Grunts and use grenades on the Jackals only if
necessary. The next room might be a bit tough to pass, because the center
area contains an observatory or something, which will give a couple of very
annoying Elites the advantage of higher ground, which they use very
effectively. Use rockets to weaken them and when they’re dead, use the
Pistol to snipe the Jackals and Grunts on the other side of the room. If
you want, you can climb into the observatory and get the advantage of
higher ground yourself. When the room is clear, go through the next door
and onto a bridge. The catch of this one is that there are two Hunters on
the opposite bridge. To kill them, I’ll point out that there’s a glitch you
can exploit. I will leave it in the Secrets section, but I’ll just say that
it makes the enemies forget that you’re there in some places. Snipe the
Hunters while they don’t know that you’re there. When they do, use the
glitch and continue sniping until they’re dead. Or you have the option of
killing them with the Rocket Launcher. Then go across the bridge. I’m doing
this part from memory, so I won’t give any details on the next room. In the
end you should reach a hallway identical to the one where you saw the
Grunts and Jackals. There will be a couple of Invisible Elites in it. Use
the Pistol the moment you see a ripple in the air- no point in wasting the
element of surprise by waiting for them to notice you first. So kill the
Elites. Then look into the half of the corridor that’s slightly recessed
into the floor. Look at the lamps on the wall and you’ll probably notice
that near one of them will be an Active Camouflage. Take the Camo and run
into the next room as fast as possible. Once in the room, quickly turn
right and run into the central section of the room. There will be two
Hunters there. Shoot one in the back with the Pistol, then wait for your
Camouflage recharges, and shoot the other. Finish off the remains of the
Covenant in the room, fill up where you killed the Hunters (there’s some
ammo near the square tower-thingy and some more on top of the
useless-looking ridge-like thing), and go through the next door. There will
be some bad guys on the other side, so throw a grenade through the door as
soon as it opens. Finish them off.


-If I Had a Super Weapon...

     Here you have two options: try running toward the Banshees and jacking
one of them or stay in the tunnel and take shots at the Covenant outside.
The first is easy and enjoyable, but somewhat insane and suicidal. If
you’re moderately (un)lucky, you won’t even make it to the Banshee. So on
later difficulties I prefer the second option. Don’t move until the section
title disappears (you kind of need the reticle) and open the door.
Immediately fire a rocket at the Elite. If it wasn’t quite killed, use the
Pistol to finish it off. If you missed, restart. Then use the Pistol to
pick off the Grunts and Jackals. If you get a chance, fire a rocket at any
Elite that tries to get into a Banshee. Stay in the tunnel and take shots
at the infantry. When the Banshees come after you, then (assuming you have
more than one rocket) use the Rocket Launcher to take them down. Watch your
stock of rockets because you’ll need to have at least one when you finish
with everything on the bridge. When you’re out of rockets and the Banshees
are still there, you can use Plasma Pistols. When the Banshees are down,
pick up the Rocket Launcher and go across the bridge. When you get close
enough, the door at the opposite end of the bridge will open. Fire a rocket
in there as soon as it does. Then run behind the nearest rock. Get out from
behind the rock and use the Pistol and rockets if you have them to finish
off the Hunter(s) that survived. Then refill in the last room you visited
if there’s anything left to refill with and get back onto the bridge. Look
down and you should see a Wraith down there. Assuming you still have
rockets, use them on the Wraith. Otherwise, bomb it with Plasma Grenades.
Be careful because they have a bit of a drop on them. Go through the door
at the opposite end of the bridge.


     Fight your way through the next room and down an elevator. Then go
through the next room. Be careful to go into the center because there will
be some supplies up in the observatory thing. Go though the next door. Now
you have to scale that large pyramidal structure and get to the Control
Room. It’s not going to be that easy, though. You’ll have to use the
walkways on the surface of the structure to go up, and that’s going to
include four more Hunters, hordes of Grunts, and a Gold Elite with a Plasma
Sword. Back to the present, when you get back out into the open air, grab
the Ghost that should be to your left. Use it to kill all the bad things
nearby. Now look at that thing resembling a very large support strut in the
middle of the valley floor. It goes all the way into the ground and there’s
a hole around it. Go down there and refill on almost every human weapon you
could imagine. If you tossed your Rocket Launcher, get one. Swap your
Pistol for a Sniper Rifle and get out. Use the Sniper Rifle to kill the
Hunters on the first steps of the pyramid if possible, otherwise you can
use a certain trick with the Rocket Launcher: use the Sniper Rifle to zoom
in on a Hunter, then fire with the Rocket Launcher. That allows you to kill
a Hunter without it even being aware that you’re there. When the Hunters
are dead, swap the Sniper Rifle for a Pistol and go up onto the Pyramid.
Now it’s just the simple matter of killing everything in your way. Use the
Pistol to kill Grunts and the Rocket Launcher to kill Elites. When you
reach a second Shade, things might get nasty because sooner or later a
Hunter will get onto the thing sticking out of the middle of the middle of
the platform above you and is going to make your life a lot tougher. Hide
behind something (other than the Shade) and when it stops firing, shoot
rockets at it. Eventually it’ll have to go down, and when that happens, run
through the tunnel under it and use the Pistol to kill off the Grunts. If
the other Hunter happens to be in the way, use the Rocket Launcher on it
too. Then go down onto the valley floor and refill in that hole in the
ground. Get on top of the pyramid. Notice the three ledges with a ramp
leading up opposite the blast door. Then open the blast door with the
holographic panel next to it- and run up the ramp. Go up as high as
possible and hug the wall when you’re on the blast door’s side of the
ledges. When you reach the top ledge, use the Pistol on the Grunts and the
Rocket Launcher on the Gold Elite there. Clean up the Covenant below, but
don’t be in a hurry to run through the door because there will be a couple
of Elites there. Go back down to the ground and take a Ghost. Climb up the
pyramid in it. It may be tough as Ghosts usually get stuck in places where
it’s very hard to get stuck, but it’s certainly possible. When on top, use
the Ghost to kill the Elites. Open the next couple of doors- and there’s
the Control Room.


     VI. 343 Guilty Spark

-Well Enough Alone

     Keyes disappeared. Again. So it’s up to you to find him. This swamp is
not my favorite level, but it’s not the hardest (except for its very end),
so it’s bearable. There’s a cheat at the very beginning... look in the
Secrets section. When the dropship dumps you out, go toward the downed
Pelican. On Easy, you’ll get a Shotgun right there, but on Legendary you’ll
get one 75 percent of the level later. And it’s kind of annoying- three Med
packs that no one will ever use. So go past the Pelican and past the
Covenant corpses. This is one of the emptiest levels too. Use the radar to
tell if there are Covenant coming at you before you actually see them. Then
use the Pistol to snipe the Grunts with headshots and Jackals wherever you
can. Always have cover because Jackals really like to fire overcharges,
which could hurt. When you get to a place with a few Jackals and a large
root going up onto a ridge, kill the Jackals and jump onto the end of the
root. It may take a few tries, but it’s possible. Then go along the root
and, though it doesn’t seem possible, run up the ridge and to the Shade.
Jump into the Shade and do as much damage to the Covenant below as
possible. Don’t stay in the Shade too long- if a Grunt throws a Plasma
Grenade at it, it’s done for. And you don’t want that. Don’t get out and
start sniping with the Pistol, either. You’ll need the ammo and there’ll be
a shortage of it. Instead, go back down to the root and wait for the bad
guys to calm down. Then get back into the Shade and smoke the leftovers.
Rinse and repeat until done. Then go through that large doorway and ride
the elevator downstairs. You’ll see a barrier blocking your view of the
exit. Edge around that and throw a grenade behind it, preferably a Frag
Grenade. Mop up the survivors with the Assault Rifle. Then go through the
door. Use the Assault Rifle again to kill the Jackals. Then take a Plasma
Pistol and use overcharges on the Grunts and Jackals below your ledge. They
should home in from where you are. There will be enough Plasma Pistols for
probably 50 overcharges. You can use grenades if necessary, but they don’t
work very well from this distance. When you’re out of Plasma Pistols, don’t
panic. Just jump down and use the Assault Rifle to mop up the leftovers-
there shouldn’t be too many left. Ever watched the Resident Evil movie?
This place gives me the identical feeling. Go through a square tunnel.
You’ll arrive in a room with several Jackals in it. Kill them with the
Assault Rifle or Plasma Pistol. Go through another tunnel and you’ll emerge
in another one of those rooms with a ditch running along the entire center.
Go right and stand near the ditch. You’ll see a ledge above the ditch with
a Com Box on it (and there’s the Needler ammo below the ledge- the only
Needler ammo in the game. Completely unnecessary, but at least I know that
ammo for the gun actually exists). Walk through the door and you’ll be into
a tunnel with Jackal and Grunt blood covering a good part of it. Oh, that’s
sooo satisfying... Then go forward a bit more and you’ll see a green-lit
room... with a marine sitting against a wall and shooting at you. You can
take some cover and listen to his raving, or you can melee him and take the
ammo from his Pistol. Or both. Then jump onto the collapsed ledge on the
other side of the room and go through the door above the one you entered
through. Activate the “light bridge” with the holo panel and go across.
Then go through the door, run around the big barrier in the center of the
room, go down the ramp inside the barrier. Gather the rest of your guts and
go toward the door.


-The Flood

     Watch the very long and eerie cut scene that has “maintain a safe
distance” written all over it. It’ll be peaceful at first, but in a couple
of seconds you should hear a wrenching sound and one of the doors in the
walls will fly open. While you can, refill from the guns in the pool of
blood near you and get an Assault Rifle if you’ve thrown it away. Then go
toward the door. If Spores haven’t come out already, they will once you get
close. They’ll start massing up in the doorway, which is when you should
open fire. Hopefully that will set off a chain reaction and make your life
a lot easier. They will pour out by the hundred, so once you finish with
one wave, have a full clip of the Assault Rifle to deal with the next one.
Don’t use the Pistol, though. The ammo’s way too valuable for Spores. When
you hear a somewhat unsettling music, be even more careful: Converted Flood
will start arriving. Once you see one, it will become your first priority
because even one can be a much bigger pain than a hundred Spores. So when
you see a Flood human/Elite, use the Pistol to kill it no matter how many
Spores are in the area. Just run and jump to avoid getting hit by Spores
while firing at the big and bad things. And yes, I mean running away. Get
the eerie feeling that music gives you? When I passed this particular part
for the fifth time, even doing it on Easy left me shaking. When the Flood
is dead, collect more ammo if you can from the guns lying around and go
toward the entrance to the room. Now that you know about the Flood, there’s
not much you can do except just get out of there.


     The door will be broken out, which will be your ticket outside.
Carefully take a few steps outside just far enough to let the Flood know
that you’re there, maybe take a shot or two at one, and retreat. Kill the
ones that follow you. Do this until you’re done. Then go outside and refill
the Assault Rifle from the ones outside. Go back out into the next room.
Kill the Flood on your ledge. Now you have the advantage of higher ground.
It’s going to be your primary goal, though, to keep the Flood off the
ledge- they can jump onto it. There will be a door to your right. Go
though. Clean up the Flood, drop down, and go through another door to your
right. Go through the square tunnel and use the Pistol to kill as many
Flood as possible. Then run across the room and jump up the stacked Com
Boxes. Now you can use the light bridge to go across to the original
elevator you entered through. When you kill the Flood and are triumphantly
press the button on the holo panel... Oops! The elevator’s down. So you
have to find another way out. When you go up those stacked Com Boxes,
you’ll have to go through a door in the center of the ledge you’re on.
You’ll arrive in a room with a barrier in the middle and a door on the
left. On all the other difficulties, you could get a Shotgun in front of
the door. Now you can’t. so proceed till you reach an elevator room. Clear
the area of Flood and go down in the elevator.


     Reload everything because yet another bunch of Flood is waiting below.
Kill those and make sure you killed them. Then climb the Com Boxes blocking
one side of the exit and take the Over Shield. Then exit the elevator room
through the door. Now you’ll be in another one of those ditch rooms. The
light bridge will be broken, so you can’t cross to the other side. Kill as
many Flood from above with the Pistol and drop down. There will be a door
on the far left. Go through that, but be careful when you go through the
square tunnel. Unlike others, the doors on the sides will be open and the
rooms will contain Flood. Clean up those and go toward the next door, but
stop in the entrance to the next room. Snipe as many Flood as you can.
They’ll eventually come after you. Hopefully by now you swapped your
Assault Rifle for a Shotgun from one of the dead Flood. When it’s more or
less safe, run to the other side of the room and climb onto another
collapsed ledge. Go around the ledge and exit through the door above the
one you entered through. Pass through another square tunnel and onto the
ledge on the other side of the broken light bridge. Get rid of the Flood
there and go through the door on the other side of the ledge. Kill the
Flood in the next room and move on. The next square tunnel will have open
doors on its sides again, so be careful. The next room will have Flood in
it as well, so snipe them with the Pistol and kill the ones that come after
you with the Shotgun. Now you might notice that there will be an open door
on your left above the ditch. It’ll lead you to a square tunnel with three
door opening into those small square rooms with Flood in them. If you feel
like wasting ammo and health, you can go in there, otherwise go through the
door opposite the one you entered through. You’ll come out in a room with
some Flood in it and, to your right, a block with some corpses on it,
complete with some ammo and health. Clear the way so it’s more or less safe
to go toward the block. By now you should be low on Shotgun and Pistol
ammo, so jump on top of the block (it might take a few tries) and take the
ammo and health if necessary. Now look around. You should see one of those
ledges leading to the center of the room that’s slightly belt down. Jump on
it and kill all the Flood on the ledge. Then go across the room and through
the door. All you have to do now is to kill the Flood in the area. Activate
the light bridge and go across. The next door will lead to the last
elevator room. Kill off the Flood around the elevator and go up. Take all
you need from the ammo and health cache near the exit. Then run. Just run.
Don’t stay in one place for any amount of time because the Flood here seem
to get spawned into the battle indefinitely. Don’t try to protect the
marines because they’re a good distraction for the bad guys. Your health
doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t get below two health bars. You’ll
eventually arrive near a big and pointless-looking structure, where
Sentinels will take over, or at least provide some support. Avoid getting
meleed by the Flood because if you don’t have more than half of your
shield, a melee attack will take down at least half of your shield and
leave you open to Spores. A second melee attack will kill you. In the end a
cut scene will start.


    VII. The Library

     You’re teleported to a facility called the Library (without a single
book in it) and you have to fight through hundreds of Flood to in the end
retrieve the Index. No explanation on what the Halo the Index is or why you
so desperately need it. No specifics on this level because I could as well
copy “kill those Flood, go onto that elevator and wait for it to go up” a
hundred times. It’s very straightforward, but some aspects deserve an
explanation. At one point you’ll go through a partially opened door and
walk up to another closed door. The Monitor will say something like “I will
go and deactivate the security lock. Wait here” and fly away. Now the Flood
will start pouring out of pipes in the walls and kill you. I fought this
battle to the point of exhaustion and I finally realized that I don’t have
to fight them at all. And yes, it’s possible. Go back to the entrance. See
that alcove between the entry door and the closest pipe? Wedge yourself in
there. Now the Flood won’t know that you’re there. Yes, Spores will find
you, but they never get the Converted Flood’s attention, so as long as you
don’t fire your guns and melee the Spores only, you’ll be all right. In a
couple of minutes, the door will open and Sentinels will take care of the
situation. That’s why you have to hide in the alcove next to the entrance
door- if you hide in the one closest to the exit door, then when the exit
opens, all the Flood will run past you and it’s easier just to leave them
to the Sentinels. Another thing, if you’ve reached a dead end, look for a
ramp that goes down into the floor. That may be a tunnel to the next part
of the level. Lastly, when you reach a door with another elevator behind
it, but this one with a glistening column on it, use Frag Grenades to take
care of most of the Flood that will come out. Get behind one of those
things coming out of the wall. Wait for Flood to come after you and mop
them up. Then use the Pistol to take care of the sentries on either side of
the door. Run through and don’t shoot unless you’re being shot at. Run onto
the elevator platform and take the Index. Hooray!


     VIII. Two Betrayals

     Now you’re teleported back to the Control Room. Just as you’re about
to put the Index into the holo panel, Cortana leaps up out of it and the
Monitor will for some reason fall out of the air. There will be a heated
argument where Cortana informs Master Chief that he almost killed all
humanity and Covenant, including himself. The Monitor will call up some
Sentinels to kill Master Chief and retrieve Cortana, who Master Chief will
continue to carry. So there it is. Once the cut scene ends, you’ll have to
duck behind one of the transparent screens around the walkway to recharge
your shield. Then use overcharges from your Plasma Pistol to take down the
Sentinels. One overcharge per Sentinel and you’re good. If even one misses,
I recommend restarting because you’ll need the ammo. Once the Sentinels are
down, go toward the door.


-The Gun Pointed at the Head of the Universe

     Open the door. Now use overcharges and grenades to hurt the Covenant.
Save some Plasma Pistol ammo for medium-range fighting the Shotgun is
useless for. Then wait for the Covenant to deal with the Sentinels and run
in. Use one of the alcoves in the walls as cover (they work very well if
you crouch) and dispatch of the closest Jackals and Grunts with the Shotgun
first. Follow them up with the Elites. Replace the Plasma Pistol with a gun
of choice. Then open the next door. The room after that will be empty, but
when you go outside there’ll be some very painful Grunts, Jackals, and
Elites. Open the door and hide behind one of the stationary shields. Use
grenades to clean up the first Covenant you see. Then, they’ll probably
start shooting at you, so the shield will go down fairly quick. When it
looks like it’s about off, duck into an alcove in the wall, preferably one
that you can’t see from the outside. Use Plasma Grenades on the Elites.
When it’s safe, go outside. Use a Plasma Rifle or something that’s good for
the job to kill the Covenant below. If you need some more ammo for the
Shotgun, go up onto the series of ramps and ledges you used to take care of
the ambush when you first came here on Assault on the Control Room. There
will be some ammo at the top, including a Pistol and a Sniper Rifle. Don’t
take those because if you drop them again, they’ll disappear soon. Go down
the pyramid. Use the Shotgun on any Covenant you see and the other gun
on... well, it depends on the gun. When you go down from the level of the
pyramid that contains the door to the Control Room, went across the lower
level, went down to the level lower than that, and went to its opposite end
(staying with me so far?), you’ll have a ramp in front of you going down
again. To avoid confusion, if you face directly away from the door leading
to the Control Room, it will be going down and right. There will be a
couple of Elites and Jackals there. Throw a Plasma Grenade at one of the
Elites and another one at the second Elite if possible. If it comes up or
you, kill it with the Shotgun. Proceed down the pyramid. When you reach the
lowest level, go across. There will be a Rocket Launcher near a pile of
Flood corpses. Take that and the ammo. Go back across the level and use the
Rocket Launcher on the Wraith. Then go back to the place where you found
the gun. The piece of rock or metal there that’s sticking up out of the
ground will make an excellent cover from the Covenant down on the ground,
especially because they include a Gold Elite. Focus on him first, then use
rockets on the other Elites. If you have any to spare, you can even fire
them at Jackals and Grunts. Swap the gun other than the Shotgun for
something plasma-firing, probably the Plasma Rifle would be better. Then
take the Banshee near where the Wraith was. Fly up to the nav point. If
you’re low on ammo, go up to the ammo cache near the Control Room entrance.
When you see the nav point start pointing down a bit, keep going up to get
some altitude over the Covenant that will be on the generator’s platform.
Clear the landing zone with the Banshee’s guns. Land and go through the
door. There won’t be any enemies there, so don’t worry. When you get to the
room, go into the central section, and jump into the column of light in the
middle. It will explode, but just with enough power to drain your shields
(according to Cortana, the shields were used to make the generator explode,
but I can’t see how you could survive this without taking damage without
them). Don’t rush out the door because of the Sentinels that just happened
to come by in time to catch you off guard. Use the gun you got down on the
ground to kill the Sentinels.


-Breaking Things to Look Tough

     For some strange reason, there will be a brand new and sparkling
Banshee on the platform. Use it to go to the ammo cache and take the Sniper
Rifle. Now, look up and you’ll see that far above the Control Room entrance
there are kind of half-rings protruding out of the wall. Fly up onto one
and land the Banshee carefully on it. Hop out and use the Sniper Rifle to
snipe the Covenant on the bridge in the middle of the valley below. It’s
almost too far away, but the Rifle should be able to reach. Go down to the
ammo cache and take the Pistol. Keeping track: you’re supposed to have a
Pistol and a Shotgun right now. Fly up to the right side of the bridge
(facing away from the pyramid), not too far but just close enough to fly up
and land on it very fast. Do it and go through the door. Then you’ll have
to fight in closed rooms again. I won’t give any details on this part as
it’ll be remarkably monotonous. When you reach the next bridge, use the
Pistol to kill the Flood from a distance and the Shotgun to do it from
close up. Be careful not to let any Flood jump across to your bridge and
catch you off guard with a smack in the back. When you reach the next
bridge, things will get rough and bumpy. There will be a number of Rocket
Launcher-wielding Flood. They’re a pain, but if you take them out you’ll be
able to use the Rocket Launcher against a bigger pain you’ll see later.
Then there’s a rather nasty Banshee flying around. Take it down first if
possible. Kill off the Flood (focus on the ones with Rocket Launchers) and
clean up the Spores with melee attacks. Then you’ll arrive in a room with a
bunch of Spores eating and Elite that I can guess from the armor was once
Invisible. This is the only place in the game where it’s completely safe to
use Plasma Grenades on Spores. Enjoy. Make your progress through the room.
When you get 45 degrees around it, you’ll hear an explosion from the center
of the room. Turn around and run at top speed back toward the entrance.
Kill some Flood from a distance if you can, otherwise do it with the
Shotgun.  Then go into the elevator and ride it down. While you’re going, a
lot of Spores will drop onto the elevator, so once it gets to the bottom,
quickly use the holo panel to go up again. Some of the Spores will get to
you, but some will get trapped in the elevator floor (very glitchy). Kill
them off and go down again. Go through the tunnel. When you get to the
brightly lit hallway after that, go just far enough to trigger some Flood
that were about to ambush you. Kill them off one by one with the Shotgun.
Proceed through the room. You can use the ramps in those alcoves in the
walls to stage ambushes on the center of the room. When you exit through
the next door you’ll be outside.


     Quickly kill the Covenant in front of you and retreat all the way to
the last bridge you visited. Take one of the Rocket Launchers and aim for
the Wraith (you had to go down to the ground to actually trigger the
appearance of the Wraith- if you noticed, it wasn’t there when you cleaned
up the bridge). Watch it for a few seconds to learn its moving patterns,
then fire. Hopefully you took out the Banshee before, otherwise you’ll have
to waste a few precious rockets. When the Wraith is down, go back to the
ground and use the Ghost in front of the entrance to get rid of the other
Ghost. Then go down into that trench with pipes above it. Look in the doors
on either side of it and you’ll see some health and a Rocket Launcher. Take
the latter and fire it at the Shades near the place where the Wraith was.
Try to shoot at the legs so they’ll turn over. Then take the first Ghost
you used and use its Plasma Cannons to take care of the resistance. Just
circle them and fire incessantly. After that, go toward the other side of
the valley and down into the hole in the ground. Then go through the tunnel
and kill the Jackals on the other side. Go up the twisting ramp and dispose
of the Grunts on the top. Then go back to the trench and take the undamaged
Ghost. If you haven’t already, take a Pistol. Go back to the foot of the
twisting ramp and take the Warthog there. Use it to go up the ramp and
through the canyon. See those Hunters in the distance to the right? Go
toward them slowly and watch the sky all the time.  When a Banshee starts
coming at you, run back to the Warthog and man the Machine gun. The Banshee
will go down very fast. Then go back to the place where you took the
Warthog, take the Ghost, and get back up the ramp. Go through the canyon
again and quickly fly across the ice field to the Banshees. Take one and
fly away. Go up to the generator platform and take out the Covenant there
with the Fuel Rod Cannon. Try to land on the platform without being blown
out of the sky by the Grunts with the Fuel Rod Cannons (who are very
accurate in this particular place for a change). The Banshee’s health
doesn’t really matter as long as you get there in one piece. Oh, and make
sure that your Shotgun and Pistol are completely reloaded and that the
Shotgun is carrying at least its full clip and 10 to 20 rounds in reserve.
Hopefully the Pistol is completely full. A couple of grenades would be
nice. Go through the tunnel and into the generator room. There will be a
battle going on there, so use the Pistol to even the odds a bit between the
Sentinels and the Flood. The Sentinels are inevitably going to go down, so
when it happens clean up the leftover Flood. Don’t stick around too long
because some Spores will come at you if you do. Make sure you have at least
one grenade (pray it’s a Frag Grenade) and jump into the generator. What
happens next won’t be pretty. Run toward the barrier separating the
interior of the room from the exterior part and get just close enough that
you have a clear view of the doorway. Toss the grenade through the doorway,
wait for your shield to recharge a bit, and run through the doorway. Now
just run through the Flood there (be careful; one of them has a Rocket
Launcher) and onto the platform.


-The Tunnels Below

     Take the new Banshee and fly down. It would be easier to take out the
Wraith first, but it’s not going to be easy. Fly over it a few times and
fire constantly. It will take a while, but eventually it’s going to
explode. Fly back to one of the ammo and health caches. Refill on
everything. Go into the tunnel near the Wraith. There’s going to be a
battle between the Covenant and the Flood going on there. Use the Banshee’s
guns to kill them. Oh, so that’s what they mean by “fire in the hole”. I
see... So. Where was I? Right. The winning side varies, so it’s not certain
what you’ll have to do once the winner notices you. It’s probably better to
have the Covenant win because I think there’s a very nasty Converted Flood
there with a Rocket Launcher. Proceed through the tunnel and kill
everything that stands in your way. When you’re within a Rocket Launcher’s
shooting distance from the metal part of the tunnel, get out of the
Banshee. Proceed on foot and kill the Flood with the Rocket Launcher from a
distance. Don’t have your back against anything because if the rocket hits
that object you’ll still take damage. There will be several Flood there, so
don’t relax if you’ve killed the first one. When the Flood are dead, take
the nearby Ghost and ride it to the next door. Open the door and get back
on the Ghost. Looks like you won’t be able to take your ghost any further.
A few Flood Bombs will probably waddle at you through the door, so mow them
down with the Plasma Cannons. Clean up the Spores and run through the door.
Kill the rest of the Flood on the other side. Go onto the bridge. Get a
grenade ready because when you pass about a quarter of the bridge Spores
will start pouring out from behind two of those barriers on either side of
the bridge. Throw the grenade and run away. Some Converted Flood will come
after you in a couple of seconds. Take most of them down with the Pistol
from a distance and then with the Shotgun. Try to save the Pistol ammo
because by the time you get past this place there won’t be much left. Go
across the bridge. There will be converted Flood running around on the
other side. Pick them off with the Pistol. There will be some with Rocket
Launchers, so swap the Pistol for one and head through the next door. I
noticed that this is the only door you can open and close. You’ll
eventually reach the exit from the tunnel. When you get halfway up the ramp
you’ll be greeted by a mournful music and the next section.


-Final Run

     Get up onto the left wall and run back so that you’re above the ramp
but about ten meters from the cliff the entrance to the tunnel goes into.
Fire a rocket at one of the Shades in the battle going on further up the
valley. A Banshee should come after you. Try to shoot it down with a
rocket. By now some Flood may have noticed you, so dispose of them is
possible. If your health is in the red, go back to the previous room and
take a Med pack from behind one of those rectangular prisms to your left.
For some reason the door keeps closing behind you. Is it a magic door or
what? Go back outside. If you haven’t already done it, try to kill the
Banshee again. Go toward the battle. There may be some resistance on the
way, so kill it. Now the tough part. There should be a whopping two Gold
Elites there. Now, if you can’t kill one from a distance with the Rocket
Launcher, there should be a Shade on the other side of the battlefield. It
may be tough, but you can use it to kill both Elites. When you’re done,
take one of the Ghosts on the small hill nearby (you’ll probably need
health, so you might need to return to the last Med pack you passed). Then
go through the canyon on the farthest end of the valley. There’ll be a
battle in progress between the Covenant and the Flood. All you have to do
is circle the enemies and fire at them with the Plasma Cannons. Beware of
the Flood with the Rocket Launchers. When those are killed, look for a
caved-in cave entrance that used to lead to the previous valley. There will
be some ammo, guns, and health near it. Take the Rocket Launchers from the
Flood and take them to the cave entrance. How do you do it? Well, as you
might have noticed, when you swap for a gun, Master Chief will throw the
one you throw away a meter or so forward. So that’s a good way to move
guns. Just run at a gun in the direction you want to carry it and
continuously press the A button every half second or so. That way you can
say that it’s possible to carry two and a half guns. Ha-ha. When you have
the Rocket Launchers all in one place (or it would be wiser just to take
one Launcher and take the ammo from the others), take one and keep your
Shotgun. Take your Ghost and return to the cave entrance. Turn right and go
along the wall. You’ll see the entrance to the next valley. The problem is
getting the Ghost up there. Look at the left side of the entrance. There
will be a lowered part of the barrier and a tree. Squeeze the Ghost in
between the tree and the wall and push against the barrier while holding
the A button. The Ghost will heave itself onto the barrier. Go a bit
further and stop just at the edge of the ice.


     Some Flood will come out ahead of you. Wait where you are until the
Flood get killed- one of them has a Rocket Launcher and might destroy or
damage one of the Wraiths. Then go right and hide behind the big rock near
the wall. From there, snipe the closest Wraith with the Rocket Launcher.
Keep it up until the Wraith is down. Then go around the other side of the
rock and aim for the Shade (I’m not sure, but I think there’s only one). It
would be better to aim for the legs, as that’s more likely to turn it over.
Then take out the other Wraith. It won’t be as easy because this one will
be far away. But you have a very large supply of rockets, so it’s not too
bad. Try to keep your Ghost close because occasionally an Invisible Elite
will sneak up on you and there’s not much point in wasting ammo when you
can fire constantly at anything with the Plasma Cannons without having to
use your own guns. Besides, if your shield is too far down, you can use the
Ghost’s maneuverability to stay out of reach while the shield recharges.
When the second Wraith is out of the picture, go back to the cave and swap
the Rocket Launcher for the Sniper Rifle, and get health if necessary (it
probably will be). Then go back to your favorite spot behind the rock and
look through the scope at the two Banshees that you suffered so much for.
There will be a rock by it and by the rock there should be a couple of
Hunters. Take them down first. Then concentrate on the Gold Elite(s). I’m
not sure how many there are, but I think there’s more than one. After that,
if the ammo allows it, kill the smaller Elites. When you can’t see any more
Elites and still have ammo, you can use it up on the Jackals. The toss your
Sniper Rifle, replace it with a Pistol or a gun of your choice, and get
back on your Ghost. Ride out onto the field that you’ve been busily
cleaning up for the last half hour. Again, use the Ghost stratagem of
circling the enemies and firing at them with the Plasma Cannons. When it’s
safe, get out of the Ghost. Swap both your guns for something
plasma-related (Plasma Pistol and Plasma Rifle, to be precise) and get onto
a Banshee. Fly up to the Nav point, but don’t get too close. Instead, fly
higher up and then above the generator platform. Drop down and quickly get
inside- you don’t have a chance against those Sentinels. There will
probably be a Sentinel in the corridor too, so kill that. Go into the
generator room and kill the Sentinels there. Jump into the generator.


     VIII. Keyes

-Under New Management

     You’re searching for Keyes again. Apparently this place is soaked with
Flood, so the Covenant sent in a strike team to fix that. The strike team
consists mainly of Grunts. I don’t know what they were thinking, but that’s
just what happened. The Master Chief is yet again teleported to some far
away place, in this case the horrible and dreaded Truth and Reconciliation.
If you return to the last saved checkpoint (in this case to the beginning
of the level) and go along the tunnel, you’ll see an Assault Rifle in the
doorway to the left, balanced and apparently ammoless. Go a bit further and
you’ll hear Keyes. A few more steps and a Grunt will run out, followed by a
Flood Elite that apparently had its arms shot off- the Grunt doesn’t seem
to realize that, though. Although it seems that it’s a good idea to go
right, go left instead. Go through the door and you should see a piece of
an Active Camouflage behind a Grunt corpse. Or you might not- some people
don’t and they tell others to skip this place altogether. But now you know
that it’s there. If you somehow manage not to notice the Camo in a few
seconds, it’s in the far right corner. Go toward the Active Camo. On the
way you’ll probably pick up the three Plasma Grenades that are lying around
the place. Then, when you’ve picked up the Camo, run the way the Grunt and
Flood Elite went. Turn left at the turn and left again. Jump over the
enemies there, being careful not to touch any of them. Then turn right as
soon as possible. There’s no point in wasting the perfectly good, not to
mention very rare, Active Camouflage, so jump directly into the hole
directly in front of you. A cut scene will show the Chief landing in the
leaking coolant (the green goo).


Double, double
toil and trouble.
Fire burn and
cauldron bubble...

     Never mind. But the witches in Macbeth have a point, though. Back to
Halo, don’t do anything for the moment. You should have a considerable part
of the Camo left, so wade forward just far enough to see above the coolant,
and wait. Toss in s few grenades if you want to. When both sides are KIA
(not talking about your side) the Camouflage should be gone. Then there’s
going to be another wave of Flood. You can stay in the goo, but it’s going
to limit your vision but won’t help in any other way, for example slow down
the Flood. Using the Assault Rifle on the Converted Flood will be tough,
especially as you don’t have much ammo. If you happen to find a Shotgun
from one of the dead Flood, take it instead of the Plasma Pistol. At least
now you have two guns that are more or less good against the Flood. If not,
then there’s not much I can help with. And if you got this and come across
a Pistol later, swap it for the Assault Rifle. Anyway, throw away the
Plasma Pistol first and then the Assault Rifle. There will be a passage to
the next area in the left wall. There should be a few Flood in that
passage. Clean those up and proceed. Once you make too much noise or
proceed too far, I’m not sure which, infinite Flood Spores will drop down
from the walls, but in very small doses. They won’t be a big nuisance, but
they may well stop your nearly-down shield from recharging back. It’s hard
to describe exactly where to go now, so I won’t. Main things you have to
know: when you arrive in an area, use your most long-range guns to kill the
Flood on ledges and then rush through unless you can clearly kill the Flood
there. I wouldn’t recommend trying to kill them because they seem to be
present in infinite quantities wherever I go. A couple of areas later
you’ll come to a drop off and a Sniper Rifle. There will be a couple of
Hunters some distance in front of the drop off, but they’ll be slightly too
busy to notice you. Eventually they’ll die from “Spore-ism”, but you can
skip the fun and finish them off quickly with the Sniper Rifle. There will
be a couple on Elites some way further away. You can kill those too, or
again, you can watch them die. There will be a rather annoying Flood on top
of the bridge, so if you can, get rid of it with the Pistol. There will
also be Flood Bombs wading out of the coolant each time you kill the ones
that are above the surface.


     Jump down and run in an arc around the things to avoid accidental
detonation. Once you’re past them, they will stop reappearing. Then go
further and through the tunnel. By the way, there’s another Med pack near
one of those shallow pools of coolant. Once at the end of the canyon, the
first thing you’ll see is a Shade. Now just wait for the occupant of the
Shade to get killed. Don’t do anything except, maybe, a couple of grenades.
Try not to get the Shade turned over because you’ll need it later. When the
immediate threat’s dead, get into the Shade and turn toward the exit ramp
(about 90 degrees to the right from the hole in the wall you came through).
Some Flood should be coming out, so the Shade will make quick work on them.
Then you’ll have to go up that ramp, pass some more Flood (it would be a
good idea to return to the Shade to save ammo- there will be a severe
shortage of that in this level). When you clear the ramp of Converted Flood
and reach the end, some Spores will come out.  Then proceed through the
next tunnel. Drop down from the drop off and go further up the tunnel. Then
you’ll reach another Shade guarded by a few minor Covenant. Take care not
to turn that over or at least not to get it too far away from its original
position. Note that there will be some Flood on the ledges in the walls, so
get rid of those and proceed to the gravity lift. There will be a messy
battle going on between the Covenant and the Flood. Run along the right
side of that pillar/tower-like thing and take the Over Shield. Then run
through the hole to your left and once through, take the right. You’ll
arrive at the beginning of the ramp. Run up and kill all the enemies on the
grav lift with a couple of grenades and a few well-placed shots from the
Shotgun. Then run up onto the lift and stand there until it reactivates.


-Upstairs, Downstairs...

     You get to go back into the ship. You’ll emerge in the cargo bay you
arrived in during the Truth and Reconciliation level. Now there won’t be
hordes of Covenant pouring out, but a few pathetic Spores scurrying around.
Get rid of those and go through the only open one of those smaller doors
that has proper lighting behind it. Run through the next few hallways
without pausing because there will be infinite Flood Bombs dropping in for
a visit. Kill the ones near the Converted Flood for maximum damage to the
enemy. A couple of turns later you’ll come out in a cargo hold. Cortana
will inform you in a shocked voice that “the Flood are gathering bodies
here”. Go toward the door on the opposite end of the room. Kill the Flood
guarding it and walk through. Two choices now: go through the door, kill
the Flood there, and descend down to the lower level of the cargo hold; or
you can clear the lower level of any Flood that are already there and jump
down to kill off the new arrivals. I prefer the second choice as running
through the tunnel verges on being suicidal. Use the Pistol to kill off the
Flood at the bottom of the room and hopefully one of the blast door will
open (according to my experience, I think this will happen if you stand on
the top level too long or kill all the Flood on the bottom level. I’m not
sure which), letting some Flood out that you would have had to deal with
manually. If it does, kill those Flood too, otherwise you don’t have much
choice but to jump. Then you’ll have to kill a number of Flood while down
on the ground. After that, collect the Over Shield near the door the Flood
came through. You can go through that door, but there will be only a few
Spores to greet you. Go through the open door (I think the one you have to
go through is permanently open). Now you’ll have to go through a series of
hallways and hordes of Flood. Important to know: don’t stop for anything
unless it’s clear that you’re not being followed; if you’re not followed,
stop in those alcoves in the walls with pipes in them to recharge your
shield; and if you run into a part of a tunnel and some Flood appear, you
clear them, run into the same place, and the same Flood reappear in the
same place, it’s a good sign of one of those places where the Flood
reappear indefinitely. Run through those at full speed and keep the ones
that pose any immediate threat off with the Shotgun. Don’t despair if you
die too soon- this is a matter of luck as much as skill. A Flood noticing
you a second too late might mean the difference between you being
slaughtered and making it through without a scratch. Soon after you leave
the cargo bay you’ll come to a fork. Take the right exit (the closest) and
run through. Sometime after that you’ll reach a hole in the ground. Jump
down and kill the Bombs nearby. Soon after that you’ll get to the shuttle
bay. Camp out behind one of the pillars on the edge of the ledge to hide
from the Elites in the center of the room. Some enemies will come out the
door at the end of the ledge. Wait for them to get to the center of the
shuttle bay and while they’re busy, run past to the other end of the room.
Go through the door there. There will be a lot of enemies there, so be
careful. Use grenades as needed, usually to clean up a full passageway.
When you suffer through the passageways, you’ll come out on the third level
of the shuttle bay. Look right and toss a grenade at the wall above the
door there. It should get rid of many of the Flood there. If they still
haven’t noticed you, use the Pistol to snipe them. Now they’re guaranteed
to notice you. Mop up the Flood running at you. Go through the door. When
you pass through a second door, reload your guns and get ready to meet
Keyes.


-The Captain

     One more door later, you’ll find out that there’s a battle between the
Covenant and the Flood, and Cortana will hysterically beg you to hurry up.
Use grenades to kill the Covenant and then get rid of the Flood with
grenades and the Shotgun. Run through at first chance- there will be
infinite Flood coming out of the control room and you’ll need the ammo
anyway. When in the control room, run up onto the control platform and meet
the thing that was once the captain. Now that’s a warm welcome... Master
Chief will have to rip the neural interface chips out of the captain in
order to blow the Pillar of Autumn. That will be pretty ugly (guess Bungie
didn’t use good graphics on this to avoid a higher age restriction). Now
you have to get out of there. Problem is, there’s a Covenant ambush behind
the only exit. On the Easy and Normal difficulties you could run straight
through the Covenant behind the door without taking too much damage. On
Heroic and Legendary you can’t do this- it’ll be a miracle if you survive
more than five seconds. Instead, run just close enough to the door to open
it, and then run left and into a far corner of the room. Wait for the Flood
to come out and kill off the Covenant. Level the playground a bit with
grenades and then kill the Flood (who will probably win) with you guns.
Then you just have to go the way you came. Not a big problem. There will be
a Med pack near the control room entrance if you need it, and another one
in one of the passages branching off of the passage outside of the control
room (the one with the burning piece of a wall in it- you started the level
on the other side of it). At one point you’ll see a cut scene showing a
convoy coming into the shuttle bay. Complete with escort Banshees. When
you’re on the third level of the shuttle bay, jump down onto the second
level and onto the first level. Get into the nearest Banshee to end the
level.


     X. The Maw

-... And the Horse You Rode In On

     The last level. This is going to be tough and it’ll certainly make you
apply most of the skills you learned throughout the game. After the
spectacular view on the Pillar of Autumn, Master Chief’s Banshee will crash
at exactly the right moment to land in one of the lifeboat openings. The
first time you start it (if you restart, it won’t work), turn around and
inch toward the edge. Directly below there will be the burning remains of
the Banshee. Turn around and head inside. Turn left and go along the
hallway. Eventually you’ll reach what looks like a dead end, but look right
and you’ll see a maintenance hallway entrance. Or you can stay behind and
fight the Sentinels that will arrive shortly. In the maintenance hallway,
turn left twice and you’ll reach a hole in the floor. Some Spores will come
out, so mow them down with the Assault Rifle or just melee attacks. Drop
down. Detonate the nearby Bombs (there always have to be Bombs around
whenever I drop through a hole in the floor- nasty things) and run toward
the support strut-like thing further down the hallway. Hide behind it and
kill the Sentinels on the other side with the Plasma Rifle. Then run past
and get rid of the Flood in the way until you reach a door. It’ll be
closed, but the Flood will break it out. Toss a grenade into the door and
wait for them to come after you. When they’re still some distance away, use
the Plasma Rifle, and when up close, use the Assault Rifle. Get a Shotgun
as soon as you can. Once the passageway behind the door is more or less
clear, run through and the Flood will stop coming. Open the door at the end
of the passage and go through. There may or may not be Flood there, but
there should be at least one Hunter. Kill that and look around for a
Pistol. There should be one. If not, look again because it’s very, very bad
if you don’t find it. Swap your Pistol for the gun other than the Shotgun
and look through one of the two doors leading into the mess hall. Hey, I’ve
been here! Run forward and take cover in one of the corners formed by the
walls in front of the doors. Now take shots at the Grunts. Try to save
ammo. If you’re short, you can run back to the passageway and see if
there’s ammo there. Continue sniping. When there are only the Black Elites
left, take cover and slowly approach them. Use the Shotgun from short range
for some easy kills. Then some reinforcements will arrive. This will be
trickier. Retreat back to the safest place possible and start sniping the
Grunts. Take care to have some enemies around the Fuel Rod-wielding Grunts
when the Fuel Rods detonate. Then concentrate on the Elites. Swap the
Shotgun for a Plasma Pistol and go back to the mess hall. Use overcharges
in the Elites and then finish them off with the Pistol. Both are more or
less long-range and can slowly do the job. When possible, sneak up to the
metal shield on the other side of the room and use it as cover against the
Elites that should be running around on the other side of the exit door.
Take back the Shotgun. Then go through and pass the arrow marked “Bridge”.
Just as you’re about to reach the bridge (the place where you have to turn
right to get to the Bridge) you’ll have a useless-looking room in front of
you, complete with an Elite. A couple of point blank Shotgun shots will
kill it. Now kill off the Grunts in the Bridge. Some will have Fuel Rod
cannons, so concentrate on them first. Now take some kind of Plasma weapon
and approach the glass sheet at the front of the room.


     A cut scene will show Cortana rigging the ship to blow, but the
Monitor will stop the detonation. Then the thing will call up some
Sentinels to kill you. They’ll shatter the glass, but the almighty Master
Chief will duck behind the control panel. Then you’ll have to use the
Covenant gun you picked up to kill the Sentinels. Take the human weapon you
threw away and go outside. When you reach the hallway outside the Bridge
(the one where you have the mess hall door just across the hallway), go
left. A door will be open there. Toss a grenade through the door and wait
for the Flood to start pouring out. Then take a few shots, a grenade maybe,
and retreat into the Bridge’s hallway. They should come after you, so
bottleneck them in the narrow entrance and win. Go through the door they
came out of. Sweep the armory for stray Flood, because you’ll have to make
a stronghold out of it and it’s not very pleasant to have Flood sneaking up
on you from behind. There will be a battle in progress on the other side of
the exit door, including a couple of Hunters. Don’t wait for the battle to
end, but snipe the Hunters with the Pistol if possible. Then, when the
battle is over, kill the leftover Hunter(s). Don’t run through yet- just
behind those Hunters should be a Black Elite. Try to sneak up on it, or at
least weaken it with grenades and then finish it off from a distance. Go
through the next door. There will be some Sentinels and a lot of Spores.
Kill the Sentinels and crawl under the half-closed blast door. There will
be some more Sentinels in the passage leading to the Cryo chamber, probably
guarding it. Take those out and go into the passage outside the Cryo
chamber. See those burning pipes on the left? Jump over them and go left to
eventually arrive at a partially broken out door and a Med pack if you need
one. Go back to the passage outside the Cryo and wait for the enemies on
the other side of the door to calm down a bit. Then go inside and take care
of the enemies. Take the ammo from them and use a ladder to get up onto one
of the two ledges running along the walls. Once the weird music starts
playing, another wave of Flood will come. Kill those (which was rather hard
for me- that music seems to affect my fighting ability). Then go along the
ledge and to the Cryo chamber’s observatory. There will be some Sentinels
on the other side of the glass. To save ammo, I would recommend going in
just a bit to trigger some Flood to arrive. They will kill the Sentinels
and it’ll be safer for you to proceed. Well, not that it’ll make a big
difference, considering how dangerous this place will be. Kill off the
immediate Flood and run to the left. This is one of the ugliest parts in
the game, so I recommend stocking with ammo from the floor of the Cryo
chamber. Don’t stop for anything, just run. It helps to blow the Bombs when
you can. Run through the passage and the Flood will eventually stop coming.
If you run through far enough, you’ll reach a dead end and an Over Shield.
Take that and proceed. You’ll eventually reach a maintenance tunnel. Follow
the tunnel till you reach an exit. There are actually multiple exits, but
if you face one and go right, you’ll arrive at a blocked exit with a couple
of Frag Grenades and a Med pack. If you go left, you’ll arrive in a room
with a couple of bodies of evidence suggesting that a massacre took place
there, and a very good opportunity to bottleneck the enemies that decide to
come after you in the maintenance passage entrance. Once it’s more or less
quiet, I recommend just running through the exit closest to the Med pack
and Frag Grenades. When you do, run to the right and keep on running. Use
the Pistol to pick off any Flood that followed you. Somewhere in that
general area should be the Armory. Go inside. There they are, the only
Invisible Flood. Get rid of them and any other Flood that venture into the
Armory. Then take ammo for the Shotgun and swap your Pistol for a Rocket
Launcher. Go outside and find the door marked “Engineering”. Go through.


-Light Fuse, Run Away

     At the fork, I recommend turning right. Now that the Monitor’s stopped
the detonation, you have to blow the ship manually. To do so, you have to
destroy the ship’s fusion reactor’s shielding, which will overload the
reactor and make you happy. And to destroy the reactor, you’ll have to draw
back the manifold that covers the shielding. Then you’ll have to fire a
rocket or throw a grenade at the shielding. When you arrive in the
Engineering room, go up the ramp on your right and then go left along the
ledge. Notice the Med packs hanging on the control panels on your left.
Whenever your health is in the red, come here. Go through the door at the
end of the ledge. Walk up the ramp and along the narrower walkway. When you
reach the end, you’ll probably see some Flood. Clear those with the Shotgun
and if they’re bunched up, with the Rocket Launcher. Run past and onto the
platform. Run through the next door before you do anything else because if
you stay and kill the Spores, a Flood will arrive through the next door.
Run through and onto the next platform with the manifold control panels on
it. Run up to one of the panels, activate it, and jump onto the retracting
manifold. Then turn around and look into the shielding the manifold was
covering. If it hasn’t already, it should open to reveal a red glow just
behind the shielding. Use the Rocket Launcher’s scope to target the red
glow and fire. One rocket should be enough. Repeat this four times. If it’s
too confusing where the control panels are, use the nav points, which, if
you didn’t force any glitches, should point to each panel. The armory will
be open for you to take ammo, but it will close once you destroy all four
reactor shields. When this happens, go back to the top where the manifold
control panels are. There will be a door that you haven’t tried yet
somewhere on that level. Go though and you’ll go though a couple of rooms
and lots, lots of doors. At some point you’ll reach a closed door, which
will quickly get broken out. Be careful not to stand close to it. Then you
will see an elevator shaft and an elevator coming up. Throw a grenade onto
the elevator and fire a rocket at the Covenant. Then kill off the rest and
swap your Rocket Launcher for pretty much any gun. Get onto the elevator.
While you’re riding down, Cortana and Foehammer will start talking about
pulling you out of the Pillar of Autumn.


-Warning: Hitchhikers May Be Escaping Convicts

     Once the elevator stops, run forward, turn right and run thorough the
circular gate. Ah, Warthogs. Many Warthogs. Get behind the stick of the
much used and abused LRV and drive out the gate on the other side of the
room. Turn right and ride straight through the fight there. If the Warthog
gets flipped by a grenade or Fuel Rod cannon, I suggest restarting. This
part won’t be much different on different difficulties. The Warthog moves
too fast for most weapons to hit it, so your Legendary shield won’t make
much difference. Another change is that the ship is scheduled to go boom in
five minutes instead of six. But you’ll just have to drive. Drive through
the tunnel, staying at about the center if possible. In the next room,
you’ll just have to go into the tunnel entrance straight in front of you.
About when you reach the end of the tunnel, turn in any direction and if
done right, you’ll jump out of the tunnel and drive around the pillar in
front of you. When you’ve passed it, go back to the center of the room and
drive onto the ramp below the bridge. Drive through the tunnel and into the
next room. Keep the Warthog straight and don’t stop. If you have enough
speed, you should be able to jump over the gaps in the bridge in the center
of the room. Drive through the following tunnel. The next room will be
tricky. There will be some annoying Sentinels there and obstacles stopping
you from going through the center of the room. Drive around the perimeter
of the room until you get to one of the sides. There will be a narrow ledge
that you should follow. Continue on to a bridge where Foehammer was
supposed to get you. Don’t stop there, or you may not make it on time. But
if you want to witness a bit of the story, stop in the middle of the bridge
and wait till you see Foehammer’s Pelican crashing into a wall on the
right. Ride on through some more tunnels. Some time later you’ll get to a
point where Cortana will tell you that there’s a jump ahead and if you have
enough speed you should be able to make it. Just as she said, gather as
much speed as possible and drive though the door at the end of the hallway.
Depending on the speed of the Warthog and the angle at which you crossed
the doorway, sometimes you’ll survive and sometimes you won’t. It’s really
hard to miss the place you’re supposed to land in, but problem is, the
Warthog will probably turn over if something is done wrong. Anyway, if you
make it in one piece (ouch- that must have been really hard on the
suspension), drive on and past another jump. When you near the Longsword
bay, you’ll meet some barrels that are blocking the way. Get out of the
Warthog and run. If some Elite or Flood stumbles into you path of
destruction, gun it down with the Shotgun. Sprint in a straight line and up
the ramp toward the Longsword interceptor.


     Congrats! You’ve just beat Halo, one of the hardest games I’ve ever
come across. If this is the first time you’ve passed Halo at all, enjoy the
cut scene. If this is the first time you’ve passed Legendary, enjoy it too
(I won’t spoil it for you). Anyway, enjoy!




______________________________[ 11. Secrets]______________________________


     This is not necessarily Easter Eggs and intended secrets, but every
cool and sometimes slightly cheat-related thing I could find.


-New ending

     After literally weeks of hard toil, trouble, and suffering in
Legendary I get this: a new ending. It’s not actually a new ending, but the
cut scene that served as the ending to every other difficulty, only
slightly lengthened to fit a rather humorous segment out of Sarge’s life on
Halo. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.


-Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a Ghost?

     There’s a cool trick you can do in a Ghost. All you need is a wall and
a Ghost. As Master Chief gets out of the right side of the Ghost when X is
pressed, turn your right side to the wall and drive the side of the Ghost
straight into said wall. Just as you’re about to hit the wall, press X and
if timed right, the Ghost will push the Chief through the wall. I’ve never
tried it with anything other than a door, but I suppose it’ll work with any
wall. The best of this particular secret is hidden on the Assault on the
Control Room level, where you have to climb the pyramid. Take one of the
Ghosts from the ground and ride up the pyramid all the way to the door
leading to the Covenant ambush. Use this trick to go through the door...
and the Covenant will be frozen. In other words, they'll be acting as
though you're wearing an Active Camo- they won't notice you whatever you
do.


-Stay in the Pelican

     Some missions begin with a Pelican flying to some place, dump you
there, and fly away. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could stay in it when it
takes off? In two of the levels, you can. The first is Assault on the
Control Room. When you can move, turn around so that you’re facing the
interior of the dropship. Just when you jump out of the Pelican, you’ll see
the notice saying something like “Press X to get into the side seat of
Pelican”. Or something like that. Just when it appears, press X... and
you’re inside. The short flight will end in your inevitable death, seeing
that the Pelican will be going for too fast for you to survive. The second
place where you can stay in the Pelican is the next level, 343 Guilty
Spark. Just as you’re able to move, start pressing the left trigger. It
doesn’t matter if you run out of grenades, just keep pressing it and you’ll
stay in the Pelican. When the dropship crashes, you’ll be able to have some
fun around the props at the top of the level. Somewhere in that general
area will be a weird marine who won’t move or react unless you shoot him.
But otherwise, it’s boring.


-Homemade fireworks

     As you probably noticed before, a Plasma Grenade can be moved by
another Plasma Grenade detonating near it. If you throw a Plasma Grenade
and then, without moving, throw another one at exactly the same spot, the
first grenade will explode and send the other one high in the air. If you
threw the second grenade as soon as possible, it will detonate at the
highest point of the flight. Cool.


-Up, up, and away!

     For this you need a Rocket Launcher, a Frag Grenade, some more
grenades in your pocket, and some flat ground outside. Throw the Frag
Grenade directly at you feet and fire the Rocket Launcher at it. If done
right, the rocket will kill you and the grenade will detonate all the other
grenades that fell out of the Chief. That launch will be as high as you’ll
ever go without a Banshee.


-Get into chasms

     Ever wanted to go down to the floor of the Control Room or another
chasm? Now you can. There’s the everyday way of jumping down there and
watching Master Chief flying down, but there’s a method that doesn’t
involve dying. There are two places where you can do this: the Control Room
in Two Betrayals and the chasm you pass just before hitting the Final Run
checkpoint (on the same level). It’s simple, really, just grab a Banshee
and fly there. It’s just that there are only two places where there’s a
pilotable Banshee and a chasm. You get the Banshee necessary to get to the
Control Room floor just after you get off the pyramid. When you pass that
Final Run checkpoint, fight your way through until you reach the Banshees
you’re supposed to use to fly up to the third and final generator. That’s
the ones you should use to fly back to the chasm.


-Magic door

     Two Betrayals. When you enter the cavern with the chasm in it (the one
I talked about in the previous entry) and fight through to the other side,
you’ll be expected to go through the next door. Do so and walk to the holo
panel outside the door. You’ll be able to use that panel to open and close
the door, as well as the one on the other side of the door. If that wasn’t
enough, that particular door closes automatically once you walk into the
cavern through it and not the other way.


-Three guns on the Pillar of Autumn

     This is the only place where you can really have three guns at a time.
When you finish talking to Keyes on the first level, turn around and run
out of the Bridge as fast as possible. If you sprinted fast enough, you
won’t take the Pistol ammo. Go through to the mess hall, pick up the
Assault Rifle, kill the enemies there to get another gun, and return for
the Pistol. You’ll take it and have three guns you can swap and pick up
ammo for them as usual. This effect lasts only on this level, though.


-Immortal computer operator on the Pillar of Autumn

      When you enter the Bridge, turn right and look at the computer
operator guy there. Shoot him, punch him, and grenade him as much as you
want, he won’t react. And Cortana won’t raise the alarm. Strange- there was
a lot of blood around the guy last time I tried this.


-Immortal marines on the Pillar of Autumn

     Kill someone on the Bridge and Cortana will raise an alarm. Some
marines will arrive, and as you’ll probably see, they’re immortal.


-Carry two and a half guns

     Sometimes it’s very inconvenient to go back half a level just to get
more guns. So I’ve devised a solution. First I noticed that when the Chief
picks up a gun, he throws the other one forward. So you can run at a gun,
pressing the X button every half second or so, and you’ll repeatedly swap
the guns while moving. Very effective way to move weapons.


-Active Camo glitch

     I don’t know if this is possible to do only on my Xbox, but I guess
it’s possible to do every else. And it’s probably possible to do everywhere
you have a Active Camo, but I’ve done it during the Assault on the Control
Room level, so this is where I’ll describe it. When you start the Rolling
Thunder section, you’ll have to go up through the tunnel and into a valley.
Proceed as normal until you have unrestricted access into the tower in the
middle of the valley. Go inside. There will be some Invisible Elites there,
so kill them. Now go around the pillar in the room and take the Active
Camouflage. Before it completely activates, run straight into a wall. I
think you should be able to kind of go about a foot into the wall. After
that, you’ll be able to go into walls the same way once you take an Active
Camo, but you will also reflect everything around you. this is permanent
and I wouldn’t recommend trying it unless you really want to do this.




______________________________[ 12. How to contact me]_____________________


     Send me a message to [email protected]. I’d prefer no hate mail
about how bad this guide is, how you wish you never read it, etc.




______________________________[ 13. Legal]_______________________________


     Some FYI’s about how I don’t like plagiarism for those who have never
read a game guide before:


     This guide may not be reproduced in any shape or form, whether
physical (magazine, book, printed on a printer) or electronic (website,
some other way of electronically storing data) without my consent. To get
my consent, send me an e-mail to [email protected]. If you get it, you
may publish this guide on a website (which should be stated in the e-mail),
but with full credit given to me. Exceptions to these guidelines are the
following websites, where you may publish the guide without my consent, but
with full credit given to me:


GameFAQs-   www.gamefaqs.com
Gamefly-   www.gamefly.com



______________________________[ 14. Final word]___________________________


     Well, I hope you enjoy Halo. I’ll be writing a guide for Halo 2, so
hope you read that too. Have fun!




Copyright 2006 Anton Bovin

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