Halo Reach: LASO Exodus

This week's LASO is Exodus - thankfully, there are no roomfuls of Elites in this one like last time in Long Night of Solace. I've been playing Borderlands instead of Halo recently though, so I'm probably going to be wrestling with the controls a bit. (like throwing a punch when I meant to zoom in on the scope.)

I'm probably going to give this a go on Friday morning since it's a day off. I gave an open invite to the usual bunch, wonder if anyone is up for it. :D

Upsen.

Tyrant guide here...

[...] You'll be granted a nice break from Elites, and instead, you'll be fighting Brutes. While they're certainly more numerous, due to their lack of shields and field ranks, you'll find that neither the Tilt nor Thunderstorm skull has any real effect on them at all, and when it comes to super-combines with needle-based weaponry, the Minors are still just as vulnerable on Mythic as they are on Legendary.

Halo Reach: LASO Long Night of Solace Fail

I tried this LASO over the weekend with DZ and LD. It was absolutely brutal in the 3 player game. I'd looked up the appropriate Tyrant guide for how to do the Mythic run, but we were very solidly trounced by the enemy control room near the end of the map.

The first part wasn't too hard, we basically sprinted up the left beach skipping the fight, and we got a hold of a rocket launcher and the sword as the guides suggested. However, I really wish we picked up a few more missiles, we didn't bother sticking around to pick up reloads. The flight section was laughably easy as well with 3 of us who knew our way around arcade style flying games.

The first part that started getting to be a problem for us was the enemy ship boarding. We were usually able to take out the 2 elite rangers that leap out to the top to greet us. On one try, a third one actually made it up to join us too. The problem was that everything would be on high alert at the bottom by the time we went in, (thanks a lot, marine support) and I think there were about 6 or 8 rangers in total in the main area. We probably died 50 times trying various methods of getting through this sequence, cheering whenever we managed to get a checkpoint farther in. In the end, we had to do the main part of the work with the one sword I picked up - we would loop around, plasma-fire and sword the rangers that jetted up to the upper walkway we were on. I had to save the rocket for breaching the entry to the shuttle bay room, cause there was one ranger with a bunch of hero grunts supporting him.

Once inside the shuttle bay, that was a painful experience too - in the end after clearing as much as we could, it took a suicidal run from DZ for the activation switch to open the bay doors for Noble-5 to come in. Lucky that we weren't required to kill the last 2 sniper rangers, they were so hard to kill.

Getting into the control room was hard but doable. The control room is where we were absolutely stuck. In the Mythic SLASO guide, the player was doing the game solo, meaning there were a few less foes. He also seemed to be a little better off on weaponry too. For our 3 player game though, we couldn't do an assassination run, something would ALWAYS see us. One time we managed to get in far enough to assassinate 2 of the 3 elites at the far end, including the BOB, but that was a one time fluke, I think. Also seeing as it was like 2am, we were not at our best performance any more. In the end after a few different tries at assassinations and just shooting our way through, we gave up in disappointment.

The night after, I tried it solo, but I was too bummed to really persist in finishing it, so after I got to the shuttle bay, I gave up and played some Borderlands instead.

One thing about it though, is that I managed to up my assassination count from about 60 to 120. As another note, our death count was about that too - 120. >_<

Also I killed so many marines (cause they kept gumming up our strategies) that my total score was zero. :P

Service Record

Allen.

Halo Reach: LASO Tip of the Spear

I ended up doing this one solo - this was the one where you have to fight your way across a battlefield, hop into a rocket warthog, and blaze your way across the map and take out a bunch of anti air cannons + their defenses. After that, you have to take out some sort of tower's defenses and shut down an enemy shield.

Initially, E called me up to do this one on a weeknight, so I figured I'd read up on it first before I tried it, to save some time. I looked at the Tyrant guide for info (I love the guy's video-clip chatter) and found a bunch of really nice time saving tips. No obvious cheating, like the way it was in Nightfall.

However E was totally jetlagged out from a trip by the time we were supposed to start, so I did the mission myself. It took a few tries, and I got it in about 2 and a half hours.

Halo Reach: LASO Nightfall Cheapness

I completed the LASO Nightfall challenge after checking out some strategies online, to save some time. What I didn't realize was just how much time it saved - the whole run took about 10 minutes for me.

It's a really cheap and underhanded way to do it, and its definitely spoiler material, so here's your spoiler warning.

CHEAP SPOILERS AHEAD

The fast run requires you to sprint past the first guy without attracting his attention, and running/sprinting past the courtyard before it gets all full of activity. (legitimate) Stick to the right and leap to the ledge, and work your way around to the 2nd area.

Once in the 2nd area, from inside the building downstairs, you'll see a grunt across from you shooting a mounted plasma cannon at you. Take him out, and sprint along the left to the exit bend. Take out the grunt and jackal whatever way you can (or not) and get past to get to the 3rd area. (legitimate)

Now, what you do is you go to the bridge, and melee everything on it to death. This might be a little tricky, watch that the elite is facing away from you. You'll have to take him and about 4 grunts out while they are sleeping and not paying attention. Only the elite should be awake and looking around. Take out the 3 grunts on the platform above if they are giving you trouble. Or dont worry about them if they are not shooting you. (legitimate)

Hop into the forklift that is just past the bridge, and drive it to the gate. Press the left side of the forklift against the gate, and position your Spartan right at the crack where the 2 gate doors meet in the middle. When you hop out of the forklift, the animation will force you through the crack to the other side, area 4. It might take a few tries to line it up correctly. (This is the cheap part!)

Here's a link to a video of a guy doing this on youtube.

Cheap but effective exploit, a screenshot of the guy in the video

Area 4 is not active yet since the fight is still going on in area 3, so you just run/sprint through the empty area to the exit, and finish the run. Cheesy but hey, you get the 12k points in about 5-10 minutes.

Also, another bit of cheapness is - just after you die, and you're watching the player's death, you can hit start and save/quit the mission. This allows you to continue the mission as if you had not died. The save/quit/continue puts you at the last save point, much like if you didn't have the iron skull on, just takes a little time to wrap up the old game and start the continuation.

They really should fix this stuff.

Happy cheesin',
Upsen.

Halo Reach: LASO Nightfall

Doh! Daywokker's off travelling on vacation, and the Nightfall LASO is this week. Looks like we will probably not be able to do this one together.

Anyone want the satisfaction of beating Nightfall on the hardest possible setting with me?
(aka a super tough and frustrating game that is totally not worth the 12,000 point reward)

Upsen.

Halo Reach: Yes Sensei

I was thinking the Base Security set of armor looked rather cool, so I was trying to get this achievement this morning to unlock the UA/Base Security Chestplate from Halo Waypoint, but I'm not really into PvP. This achievement is for first strike in a game, so I'll probably ruin my record with a bunch of game quits if I dont get the first strike. I imagine it's a royal pain for the other player on my team, but I dont particularly care much about the PvP playlists.

I was trying in the 2 on 2 games to see if I could better the odds of getting the first strike, but apparently the 7am EST players are all really hardcore - In the span of about 7 games or so (and 7 quits) I was assassinated, sniped, and rocketed 10 seconds into a game where we all start with assault rifles. I generally acted the total noob. It only took about 20 minutes to lose 7 games. :P

Doh.

Upsen.

DC Universe Online

Gosok is up to his tricks again, trying to pull me back into the happy mire that online roleplaying is. The latest one is DC Universe Online, which is all right - the graphics are nice, the gameplay is pretty smooth, and the controls are pretty decent, except that its a little hard to choose your facing since you can't move backwards in the game, they just turn your character around if you move back.

Also I had a ton of trouble with their rudimentary chat interface, until they did an update late February. Can you believe that it was their "Valentines Day" events patch? It came like 2 weeks after Valentine's Day. It's what I'd expect from SOE I guess. :P

I'm playing a bit on the Last Laugh Server and I'm signed up for about the next 3 months since there was a nice promo rate.

Upsen.