Overview
Some useful tips for Halo
Campaign Tips
Tip 1: Precision weapons are your friends
- While playing the campaign you’ll always want to have a weapon that can take down the enemy with precision — try to make sure you always have a Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR), a Pistol, or a Needle Rifle with you at all times. Automatic weapons may do a decent job against weaker enemies like Grunts and Jackals, but for tougher foes like Brutes and Elites you’ll want to aim for the head.
Tip 2: Boom! Headshot!
- Halo is very much a skill-based game — you want to kill an enemy with as few shots as possible. Use the aforementioned DMR, Pistol and Needle Rifle to shoot enemies in the head. This kills the enemy faster and helps you conserve ammo — essential in the later levels of the campaign when I was playing through the game on Legendary difficulty.
- The Plasma Pistol — one of the most underrated weapons in the Halo games and is fairly weak in comparison to other weapons by itself.
- However, the Plasma Pistol becomes infinitely more useful when you hold down the trigger — this causes it to overcharge a shot that can destroy most shields in a single hit. Simply fire the overcharged plasma bolt and follow up with a headshot for a quick, clean kill — though this is a tactic that’s generally frowned upon in multiplayer matches.
Tip 4: Don’t be afraid to backtrack
- In Reach you no longer have regenerating health, which can prove to be a problem when you’ve only got one or two pips of health left — leaving you vulnerable to grenade explosions. If you find yourself in such a situation you should try to retrace your steps to try and find a spare health pack that you missed earlier.
Tip 5: Explore
- Exploration is generally rewarded in Halo by providing you with power weapons such as Shotguns, Sniper Rifles and Rocket Launchers. Look out for any side passages or take a look inside different buildings, and you might just find something that’ll give you an edge over your enemies.
Multiplayer tips
Tip 1: Familiarise yourself with the maps
- In Reach, people mostly start off with the same weapons. Power weapons such as Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Rocket Launchers and Lasers are scattered around the map for players to pick up. These power weapons are commonly placed in the center of maps and in or around bases, so be sure to take a look when you’re on a map you’ve never played before.
Tip 2: Keep an eye on your vehicle
- In previous Halo games the health of the vehicle that you’re in was the same as your player health. If you died, then generally your vehicle would go with you. In Reach this isn’t the case — vehicle health is separate to player health.
- Annoyingly this isn’t presented in a clear way — there’s no health bar for your vehicle on-screen, which can lead to some frustrating moments. A good indicator that your vehicle may be about to explode on you is the visual state of your vehicle — if it’s smoking heavily — or on fire — then it’s time to bail.
- When you earn credits from playing Halo: Reach you find that you can customise your Spartan with various helmets, shoulder pads, chest pieces and the like.
- It should be noted that these customisations are purely cosmetic — if you see a piece of armour that says it provides extra protection, or sensor upgrades you should note that this only applies to the Halo fiction — all players in-game will have the same health and deal the same damage regardless of their armour customisation.
Tip 4: Armour Abilities
- Armour Abilities have replaced the equipment that we had in Halo 3. Rather than having a single piece of equipment that you can only use once, in Reach you have a constant ability that you can use. In most matchmaking game variants you can pick which armour ability to start with. Below is a guide to Armour Abilities, stating their pros and cons, and how you should counter than if they’re used against you.
- Pros: Provides the user with a few seconds of invulnerability.
- Cons: Player is immobile while using it, glows bright blue and makes a lot of noise.
- Counter: Simply wait until the user exits Armour Lock — try to time a grenade so that it detonates as soon as the player comes out of it, and then finish them off with a few rounds from your gun. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t touch the player while they’re in Armour Lock, as this will temporarily stun you.
Sprint:
- Pros: Provides the user with a quick burst of speed.
- Cons: Player can’t use their weapon while sprinting.
- Counter: If possible, try to throw a grenade ahead of where the player is sprinting to — at the very least you’ll weaken them enough for another player on your team to finish them off. If someone sprints towards you then you should keep in mind that you have the advantage, as you can open fire on him or her before they do the same to you.
Drop Shield:
Pros: Provides anyone who’s stood inside of it with protection, and also replenishes health.
Cons: Easily noticeable, enemy players will know that you’re inside, enemy players can walk inside of it.
Counter: There are several options available to you here. Firstly, the shield can be destroyed with explosives, so if you’ve got a few grenades on hand then you can use them to destroy the shield and then take on the occupants. Secondly, you could walk in to the shield to try and kill the occupants up-close, or you could wait until the shield depletes itself after a certain period of time.
Hologram:
Pros: Creates a decoy of yourself to distract enemies.
Cons: Moves in a very artificial manner for a human player.
Counter: An easy way to tell a hologram from an actual player is to observe its movements — a Hologram will move directly in a straight line, which is an unusual movement pattern for human players, who will often be looking left or right as they move to seek out targets. Additionally, your crosshairs won’t turn red when you hover them over a hologram.
Active Camouflage:
Pros: Makes the player almost completely invisible, jams nearby enemy radars.
Cons: Jams your radar too, sound gets muffled, requires you to move slowly to fully utilise it.
Counter: If you notice that your radar has suddenly been jammed (you can tell when you get lots of red dots randomly moving on your radar), then you should keep your eyes peeled. A camouflaged player will be distorting the light around them, so be sure to look for distortions in the scenery.
Jet Pack:
Pros: Allows you to gain vertical height quickly, gives you a height advantage.
Cons: Noisy, makes you easy to spot, failing to land properly may cause damage.
Counter: The best way to counter a player using the jetpack is with precision weapons as they’ll be better suited at hitting an airborne target that’s likely to be far away.
Pros: Allows you to evade gunfire and explosions quickly, can also be used to provide a quick burst of speed.
Cons: You can’t use your weapon while using it.
Counter: Simply keep firing on the target as they’re using the evade ability, or throw a grenade in to the path that they’re evading in to.
Tip 5: Grenade + Headshot = Win
This handy equation should tell you all that you need to know. Drop a grenade at an enemy’s feet and follow up with a headshot for a quick, clean kill. It’s similar to using the overcharged Plasma Pistol tip I mentioned earlier.
Tip 6: Don’t die
There are alternatives to fighting. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way if you know that there’s no way of you surviving — your death means that the enemy has an extra point, or could have a clear path to the objective, or they could steal your weapons — you should keep this rule in mind particularly when you’ve got a power weapon.
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