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 Home | Cairo Station | Outskirts | Metropolis | The Arbiter | Oracle | Delta Halo | Regret Delta HaloOverviewIn many ways, Delta Halo reminds me of AotCR. It's a semi-open level with a relatively fluid mixture of on-foot and vehicle-based combat, with each area offering a number of valid approaches for accomplishing the objectives (even if the objectives are often rather vague). The level begins with a building assault that soon turns into a building defense. Afterward, armed with a warthog, we assault yet another structure with the objective of crossing a chasm, and are presented with a number of additional vehicle choices (as well as a number of opportunities for shortcuts). After a long stretch of vehicle combat, we wind up back on foot, battling our way through a series of ruins, across a dark, sniper-filled river valley, and finally into the structures out on the lake. Unlike some of the previous levels, we're given a nice amount of freedom to explore and exercise tactical creativity without running into invisible walls or insta-death zones. Part 1: HelljumpersAh, it's good to be back. The Arbiter was ok, but I was really starting to miss the Chief, broken flashlight and all. As we rejoin our hero, he's about to perform yet another stunt of questionable wisdom, this time dropping out of orbit in a small, appropriately coffin-like pod to land in the middle of an unsurveyed combat zone. Good thing he didn't land about 20 feet farther back, or we wouldn't have to wonder about Halo 3. When you land, amazingly unscathed—though the same cannot be said for most of your squad—your objective will be to assault the ruins and eliminate the enemy presence. The next video shows how I usually begin. QuickTime (4.3 mb) | WMP9 (4.5 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Heading around to the side ramp allows you to avoid fire from most of the enemies and hit them from behind while they're bunched up inside. I used the SMG just for fun, but the wiser course is to swap it with one of your marines for a battle rifle, which lets you take out the turret grunts from afar and headshot the sniper. If you run out of rockets, you can find more up on the roof of the building; I would strongly recommend saving at least one so that you can hand the rocket launcher off to one of your marines after the battle. Note that you can avoid this battle entirely simply by ignoring the building and continuing up the trail to the right. However, this option will require you to face four snipers, as well as the subsequent open area before the chasm without a vehicle, marines, or a sword; it's certainly doable, but it can be challenging—perhaps more so than simply fighting the initial battle. Personally, I enjoy the assault at the beginning (no drones or flood, and only one sniper), so I'd recommend hanging around to fight. Once you clear out the last of the Covenant troops, you'll have a little while before the first of three phantoms shows up carrying reinforcements. Use the time to gather up some plasma grenades, refill your battle rifle, and temporarily exchange your rocket launcher for a plasma pistol. The building you just liberated may seem like the logical place to make your stand, but in my opinion it doesn't provide a very good field of fire, and there are so many entrances that it's easy to get surrounded. Instead, I've had much better luck taking the battle outside. So, when you're ready head over to the far side of the building next to the cliff, take cover until the phantom shows up, and hit the enemy troops (two elites, plus assorted grunts and jackals) as soon as they drop, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (2.3 mb) | WMP9 (2.5 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Note that the enemies will always drop just after you see the phantom turn its back to you, if you're looking for a visual cue. This position lets you fire on the entire group from decent cover with little obstruction, and provides good avenues of retreat, if necessary. However, you can start taking fire from the phantom if you hang around there too long. For that reason, I usually thin out the little guys first, deliberately catch the attention of the elites to lure them toward me, and then move around under the cover of the ridge to take them on at somewhat closer range. At least one of them has a carbine, so it's a bit risky to get into a long-distance shootout. The next phantom will show up shortly after you're finished, this time near your last position, so get ready to move over to the other side of the field. This group is similar to the last, and so I take a similar approach, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (3.1 mb) | WMP9 (3.2 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. As you can see, as soon as you're done with this group I'd recommend immediately heading up to exchange your battle rifle for the beam rifle in anticipation of the final group of enemies, this time three camo elites (2 plasma rifles and 1 sword). Set yourself up in the same position that you used for the first phantom and zoom in once on the area; they'll soon drop right into your crosshairs. I find the plasma rifle elites to be more of a threat so I'd suggest targeting them first, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (2.2 mb) | WMP9 (2.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. I suppose I should also note that if you find the positions shown in the previous three videos to be unworkable, you can potentially move even farther away. In that case, I'd suggest taking the sniper rifle and the battle rifle (and perhaps a plasma pistol, as well) and heading for the hills back around where you encountered the first three grunts at the very beginning. For each wave, you can just hide back there until the phantom leaves and then carefully pick off the enemies from long range. You won't have much sniper ammo, though, so you'll have to make it count (if you're having that much trouble, I'd definitely recommend saving enough for the last three elites, as the plasma overcharge won't lock onto them while cloaked). The area is officially secure once you finish off the last camo elite, and you can relax while you gather weapons and grenades at your leisure. First of all, I would strongly recommend retrieving a rocket launcher (either your original, or the one up on the roof) and giving it to one of your marines. If you lost any of your original team in the battle, you'll receive some reinforcements when the pelican shows up to drop off your warthog. As far as your own weapon selection, I'd suggest beam rifle/energy sword in order to give yourself as much flexibility as possible in the upcoming battle. When you're suitably armed, pile your team into the warthog (make sure rocket launcher guy is in the passenger seat) and head up the trail. As you near the corner that leads out to the open field with the tree in the middle, you should receive a checkpoint. At this point, I would recommend that you save and quit, as you'll be receiving a number of checkpoints throughout the next area and you may want the option of starting the battle over from the beginning. You'll discover four jackal snipers—two groups of two—as you round the corner, which for once is actually not as bad as it sounds. As we learned back in Outskirts and Metropolis, the snipers have trouble hitting you while you're in the warthog as long as you don't face the driver's side toward them. So, just drive right in, making sure to turn away from them toward the group on the left; meanwhile, your marines will tear them to pieces in no time. Head around the other side of the tree and do the same to the second two. If your beam rifle is running low, you may want to hop out and grab another one afterward. As you proceed a bit farther, you'll find yourself on a hill overlooking a stretch of open ground and a structure that houses the bridge controls. Of course, the sneaky Covenant infesting the area have raised the bridge on you. Your next objective will be to cross the chasm by any means necessary, which may or may not involve lowering the bridge, depending on how adventurous you're feeling. As you can see from the hilltop, there are a number of turrets scattered around the area, though they're no threat to you at this range. There's also a decent-sized group of Covenant troops (two elites and some assorted grunts outside, as well as another elite with some grunts and jackals inside guarding the control room) in and around the structure itself. In addition, if you remain at a distance you'll have to deal with several pairs of ghosts that emerge in waves from behind the bridge control structure. And then, of course, there are the two wraiths on the other side that will begin lobbing plasma rounds at you as soon as they're aware of your presence. Whew. Well, you'll have plenty of room to decide how you want to approach this next encounter, with the continuum of possibilities ranging from the extremely conservative to the extremely daring. I'll present a few examples to give you an idea of what some of these possibilities might involve. Your safest bet probably involves not even leaving the vicinity of the hill until the majority of the opposition outside the building (with the exception of the wraiths) has been eliminated. I'd suggest starting out by parking the warthog near the rock at the edge of the hillside, angled so that the passenger side faces somewhat downslope, while you get out to do a bit of sniping. Begin with the two elites outside the building and any grunts not occupying turrets in order to keep them out of the two ghosts parked down below. After that, you can occupy yourself by picking off the grunts manning the turrets until the ghosts start to show up. Meanwhile, your warthog should be positioned in a good spot to begin fending off the ghosts in case they catch up with you while you're still sniping. By occupying the high ground overlooking a point where the ghosts are usually awkwardly rounding a corner, your marines can often get in the first shots, which, with the rocket launcher, is usually enough to break up each attack without suffering much damage. However, if you just leave your warthog in place the ghosts will usually wear it down after a while, so I'd recommend hopping back in and driving around—without descending the hill—while your marines fire on the ghosts as they appear. Eventually, they should run out of ghosts before you run out of marines. After repelling the ghost attack, feel free to get back out of the warthog and snipe any grunts that may be remaining outside, in the turrets or otherwise. When you've thinned out the enemies to your satisfaction, drive down to the building and park next to the ramp to the right of the front door, where you should be protected from the wraiths. Your next job is to head inside and flip the switch to lower the bridge. As I mentioned earlier, an elite along with a few grunts and jackals occupy the control which you'll find if you head through the door and to the right. If you've been following my advice, you should be carrying a beam rifle and the energy sword, so I'd suggest tossing a few grenades into the room to soften them up and finishing them off with the sword. Activating the switch will lower the bridge, and also trigger the appearance of a pelican, who is thoughtful enough to bring along a tank and some reinforcements, if necessary. When you get the tank, I'd suggest trying to take out the wraiths as quickly as possible so that you don't have to deal with them and the banshees, who will show up shortly after the pelican flies off, at the same time. If you're deviously thinking about jacking one of the banshees, forget it: much like the second level back in Halo 1, the game won't let you fly them here even if you do manage to get your hands on one. You'll also have to face even more waves of ghosts that will appear from the tunnel on the far side of the chasm, but with tank it's largely irrelevant. Just point and shoot. After that, it's really just a slow, deliberate crawl all the way to part 2, methodically blasting anything that moves into alien bits. So, that's the conservative route; let it not be said that I neglected to describe it. If, like me, you find the glacial pace of the tank to be tiresome, another possibility is to take the warthog instead after lowering the bridge. The problem is that if you left your marines waiting back in the car, they have most likely already decided to go off joyriding, which usually results in them getting blown to bits by the wraiths. I think the best way to avoid this outcome is simply to take care of the switch as quickly as possible and get back out in time to catch them before they get too far. To this end, you should park right alongside the bottom of the ramp in order to impede their ability to reach the driver's seat. However you choose to work it out, once the bridge is down I'd recommend that you just drive onward without hanging around to fight until you make it to part two. Ok, that worked well enough, but it was also fairly tedious with all of the methodical sniping and waiting around for the ghosts to attack, and so you might be wondering if there are any shortcuts. As it turns out, there are quite a few. One possibility is to go around the chasm. For this method, you'll need a ghost, which is probably most easily obtained by boarding one, although you could also manage to steal one down by the building. Simply climb up the side of the hill using the boost, as shown in the next video, and you'll be able to ride freely around the top of the map. QuickTime (1.4 mb) | WMP9 (1.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. From this point, you'll actually be able to drive anywhere on the map (up the mountains, underneath the lakes, etc.) if you so choose, but for our purposes we just want to reach the other side of the chasm, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (2.3 mb) | WMP9 (2.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Some other possibilities involve exploiting the sword flying trick, of which you can find a description in the introduction if you're not already familiar with it. In this case, you probably want to begin by sniping the two elites on the building and clearing out one of the turrets, while leaving the other turret alone, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (2.4 mb) | WMP9 (2.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Next, use the turret grunt to fly down to the building. You could then either use the wraith to fly directly across the chasm: QuickTime (6.5 mb) | WMP9 (6.4 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. ...or lower the bridge and use one of the unoccupied ghosts to drive across normally: QuickTime (4.9 mb) | WMP9 (4.8 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Another interesting possibility lets you make it across the chasm quickly without losing your warthog or marines. For this method, instead of stopping to prep the area, just drive right down behind the building, where you should receive a convenient checkpoint, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (1.8 mb) | WMP9 (1.7 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Once you have the checkpoint, proceed as follows: QuickTime (5.3 mb) | WMP9 (5.1 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. You'll have to be quick about throwing, getting back in, and driving. I've found that I have an easier time jumping back in the warthog immediately if I angle it slightly to the left. Note that if you just continue onward after landing on the other side of the chasm, no enemies will spawn for the remainder of the level. However, the final cutscene won't activate when you reach the last room, leaving you stranded at the end of the level. For this reason it's necessary to backtrack a bit toward the entrance of the tunnel so that the enemies will spawn normally. Incidentally, just where the hell were all those ghosts coming from? I half-expected to find some sort of giant parking lot behind the bridge control building. Well, hopefully somewhere in there you found a route that suits your particular style of play. I've been pretty critical of Bungie—and rightly so, in my opinion—for some of the design decisions in Halo 2. In all fairness, though, I should also say that whatever complaints I have, battles like this make it all worthwhile and exemplify what is truly great about these games. In any case, all roads should lead to... Part 2: You Break it, You Buy ItIf you're in the warthog or ghost, just keep driving; if you're in the tank, just continue your rampage, destroying everything in your path. Whatever the case, after you cross the open area with the pool in the middle, you'll zig-zag through another tunnel and eventually emerge in a large outdoor ruin characterized by an elevated central structure surrounded by ground-level paths and raised walkways. Your destination is the doorway leading into the central area. Initially, you'll face a few scattered turrets, several waves of ghosts, as well as a sizable group of Covenant (2 elites, plus some grunts and jackals) entrenched behind what appears to be every remaining shield in their arsenal. If you're in the tank, problem solved. The ghost leaves you with the greatest challenge, as it's easy to get overwhelmed by the pairs of enemy ghosts. Of course, if you chose to come this far in a ghost, avoiding challenge is probably not your primary concern. Usually, I abandon the ghost at the start to take cover behind the columns up on the elevated walkway (i.e., where I end up in video 7a). From there, I take out the ghosts on foot with a combination of grenades and boarding, since they have a tendency to get hung up on the nearby walls and ramps. Once the ghosts are gone, I hop back into my original vehicle and spam the shielded enemy position with plasma fire until they're all dead. The warthog, in my opinion, is the most entertaining option, giving you a good balance between mobility and firepower. Typically, I just drive around the center area and let my marines cut loose on the ghosts and enemy emplacements with the rocket launcher and chain gun. In any case, once you take out the enemies behind the shields, additional Covenant troops (two elites and some grunts, followed by two elites and two jackals) will emerge from the doorway in the middle. Meanwhile the pelican will drop off some weapon resupply pods including a rocket launcher, battle rifle, and two sniper rifles, as well as some additional marine reinforments. With all of the weapons, allies, and vehicles at your disposal, the safest option is clearly to hang back near the drop zone until the enemies run out from cover and then pound them from a distance with your impressive array of firepower. It's also quite possible to drive a ghost up past the shields and hit them with sustained plasma fire before while they're still among the columns. As usual, it's also possible just to charge right in, as the next video shows. QuickTime (2 mb) | WMP9 (2 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. This is one area where it really pays to take some time to arm your marines with good weapons, if not before the previous battle than certainly before the next. I tend to give away all of the sniper rifles and rocket launchers, while I either go energy sword/battle rifle or plasma pistol/battle rifle. Properly armed, your marines can actually be quite an impressive sight in the next battle, and can often smash right through the enemy even without major support from you. In the next area you'll encounter several scattered groups of enemies, beginning with two elites and several grunts. If you're quick enough you can manage to flank the second group of elites and jackals before they even notice you, allowing you to attack them from behind, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (3.1 mb) | WMP9 (3.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Don't let up just yet, because one more group of a few assorted grunts and jackals will emerge from the left side up near the top of the next hill as you proceed a bit farther. Just throw a grenade or two up there, and finish them off with the battle rifle or carbine, with the assistance of your team. At this point, I should note that you also could have skipped virtually all of this chapter by proceeding as follows (thanks, Goatrope!): QuickTime (3 mb) | WMP9 (3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Part 3: Off the Rock, Through the Bush, Nothing But JackalNo good can come of any chapter that actually has the word "jackal" in the title. Indeed, the first time I played this level I found the next battle to be extremely frustrating. You'll face five jackal snipers in the valley ahead, not counting the hapless punching bag with his back to you at the beginning. A swarm of drones will also attack you at just about the worst possible moment, and if there's one certain ticket to the afterlife in this game, it's being surrounded by drones out in the open. As far as fighting goes, your options are pretty much limited either to staying at the entrance and trying to pick off everything from long range, or running like hell for one of the caves (both of which are already occupied by elites and jackals) and making your stand there. If you choose that route, you may want to retrieve a rocket launcher for your initial punch through the enemy. I say, why bother, when this area can be bypassed altogether. Unless you really have a thing for drones and jackal snipers, it's not like you'll be missing much. So, let's just get the hell out of here, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (5.2 mb) | WMP9 (5.3 mb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Although your weapon selection really doesn't matter for this route, you're going to be fighting some elites in a relatively room before too long, so you might give some thought your preference for that situation. Plasma pistol/battle rifle, as usual, is probably the safest bet. Restrain any impulses you might have to open fire before you reach the end, as you'll alert the enemy and bring the drones down on top of you. Your marines won't be so disciplined, but usually you can make it far enough that it won't matter, as long as you don't hesitate for too long. You'll know that you're in good shape when you receive a checkpoint as you're approaching the dark cave. Note that you may sometimes encounter two jackals in the open field near the exit in addition to the elite, so keep an eye out for them. As you can see, there's no need to shoot at anything in the next area, either (if you do start a fight, you'll often be ambushed by several drones from underneath the bridge), so just run right across and into the structure on the lake. One last little battle with two pairs of elites stands between you and the end of the level, as shown in the next video. QuickTime (1009 kb) | WMP9 (986 kb) Right-click (option-click on a Mac) and "Save As" to save to disk. Don't be intimidated by the honor guard elites; they're just regular old red elites with fancy hats, and they're no more difficult to kill. Note that you'll be able to carry your weapons here into the next level, and having an energy sword will be a big help at the start of Regret, so I'd suggest picking one up from the fallen honor guards. I'd also recommend saving at least one plasma grenade. The level ends shortly after you kill the fourth elite. Home | Cairo Station | Outskirts | Metropolis | The Arbiter | Oracle | Delta Halo | Regret |
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