The Ark

The armada appears and they seem to have emerge from a clear blue sky. As the camera pulls away, it is apparent that it is not a sky but a strange, massive space object that looks like a bloomed flower with land covering each petal. It seems like something they would put on a Pink Floyd shirt.

The Brute cruisers approach the Elite’s ships and they ready for a huge space attack. Johnson and a fleet of Pelicans un dock en route to one of the petal surfaces. The Pelicans get shot and then entering the atmosphere of the flower thing. The objective is to land and clear out a landing zone for Key’s battle ship.

Installation 00

The Brutes have setup a base on this planet/ring/installation/forerunner thing and Master Chief must clean it out. The land is sandy blonde in color and stretches out for miles. It looks a lot like Utah.

Follow the other troops around the ridge until you find the Covenant’s encampment. It is heavily patrolled by Brutes as well as Jackals and Grunts.

• Snipe at the Brutes, ignoring the jackals and Grunts
• When the base is clear of Brutes, jump down to clear out the smaller combatants.

Continue on after fighting through the prior camp. Head through the automatic footlight tunnel until you come across a carrier piecing together an anti-aircraft battery that is hued a lovely tomato red.

• Snipe the Brutes again. I just went down the line knocking out their armor so my allies could shoot their flesh bits
• Snipe the Jackal above and run down to kill the rest up close.
• Find some Brute Spikers for use on the approaching Hunters
• The ship drops two Hunters. Lure them back to your troops on the ridge and flank them. Aim for the soft underbelly

Around the bend of this encampment is a small trail heading up the cliff side. Heading down the trail is a gold Brute lead by 7 tiny Grunts. I wonder if that Brute hates his assignment.

• Knock out the Grunts with a couple grenades and then focus on him.
• A Brute shot works wonders against the group.

Keys comes on and says the fleet is in brutal combat with the Brutes. She needs a place to land and she needs Master Chief’s squad to clear one. Head into the huge structure that is not Covenant. Rather, it is Forerunner. Once inside, the way out is through the front door. The two side doors lead to a terminal that displays an anonymous diary (t01). My favorite thing about all in-game diaries (be it Bioshock, Systemshock, Metroid or even Doom 3) is that the author, despite being in the middle of a dreadful blitzkrieg by a mysterious enemy, is able craft fully realized, well written, and correctly punctuated diary entries lamenting their current state.

Outside, fight your way around the sandy ridge until you find a downed Pelican and a couple of Mongooses. Forget the Mongooses. Your immediate goal is to salvage the wreckage for a missile launcher. Quickly, two Brute sleds bound over to kill you

• Use the missiles to blow up one of the sleds
• Use a sniper rifle to pick off the driver so you can have your own Brute sled.

Over the next hill you will engage in full on vehicle combat.

• Use the sled and a possible gunner to de-man a Brute Chopper. Then, board that Chopper because your allies are not good enough to help you through this fire fight.
• Now that you have a Chopper, lure the other Choppers away so you can have at them without being molested by the other ground forces .

Continue through the Lucas-ian desert and destroy all outposts until you reach the valley on the right. There should be two Grunts cruising around on Ghosts. Kill them both because there is a skull in this area.

The skull looks on as you grenade jump up to the krelbow

From the Grunt valley head up and around to the right to another valley of Brutes

• At the bottom of a small valley you will find two Brutes. You can’t circle strafe in a Chopper like you can in a Ghost. Instead, you should run at them like a joust. Just be sure not to collide, the Choppers are quite fragile when it comes to head-on collisions.
• At the top of the hill, blocking access to the bridge is a Brute blockade. From the Chopper hang far back and out of the range of the fuel rod firing Brutes.
• Work your way across the bridge to the Brute encampment. The Brutes have setup a station to shoot at those gold doors to try and breach them. Focus your attack on the red turret before killing the other Brutes.

When everything is destroyed, a Pelican descends. Johnson explains that this is the map room that will point to the control room (“The Cartographer” in Halo-talk). However, the gold doors there are keeping everyone so we will have to secure a landing zone so Keys can bring in the heavy equipment. Follow the Pelican across the valley.

En Route, you will encounter a small detachment of jackals and Grunts in a shadowy base. They should be easy to subdue in a Chopper.

• The landing zone is through the cave. To clear it will mean taking out the surrounding Brutes and a Covenant Wraith. There is a land bridge and a pack of Brutes behind a purple barricade. Skip them for now.
• Instead, drive the Chopper down into the basin and up to the Wraith. Get out of the Chopper and fight it on foot. If you have fuel rods and or the shield sapping piece of equipment use it as it disables vehicles.
• Jump back into the Chopper and drive away to the entrance of this zone.
• The Brutes that were guarding the barricade to the land bridge will start crossing towards you, ignore them, they will be clustered too tightly together and will make short work of you.
• Instead, focus on the two ghosts that will come to meet you. The Chopper has better range then them so drive away and hit them from afar.
• Even better strategy is to try and get a ghost as they are much more maneuverable than the Choppers.
• When all the Brutes and assorted vehicles have been cleared of the basin you should get a checkpoint. Note, there maybe a Grunt manning a gun placement at the barricades or another Grunt hiding between the two rocks that are where the Wraith was. If they are alive you will not get a check point.

Continue further past the Wraith’s corpse to take on the anti aircraft weaponry. The rock structure is swarming with Brutes so carefully take them out. I recommend using the energy turrets. Use the last energy turret to take out the two anti-aircraft tanks. As soon as they are gone Miranda Keys’ ship lands and it is quite impressive.

Forward Unto Dawn

Miranda drops three tanks and a ton of support vehicles. Grab the tank and a bunch of guys will jump aboard the treads. They are basically canaries whose death indicates that you tank is being severely hit.

• The mission here is escort the Guilty Spark to the gold gates so he can open them. This part is really great. It actually feels like you are playing an RTS (which is how Halo was first conceived). Drive the tank through the level destroying everything in your path.
• When the Covenant drop ship floats above the canyon, fire at its glowing engines and it will explode.
• Pull the tank up to the bridge you navigated earlier making quick work of the Brutes.
• Master Chief’s Robot: 434 Guilty spark opens the door

Head on in to start battling in the installation. Hey the last time Master Chief and 434 Guilty Spark were together fighting it was through the library. Who knows, Bungie maybe giving the library another try.

• Follow the spark and click the button to expand a bridge for your team to cross
• Turn around to reach the second terminal (t02)
• Head outside and damn Bungie really got the light right for distant objects. Check out that atmospheric perspective.
• Climb aboard the Warthog and jump in the turret position to make this battle more fun.
• After clearing out all of the Wraiths/ghosts, in crawls the Scarab.

This part sucks big time. The setup is that you can shoot from the Warthog with this great Gauss rifle but your driver is so bad that you will be annihilated by the scarabs laser. If you switch it up and elect to be the driver you are watching as an NPC gets the glory of taking down the scarab.

• The most fun option is to commandeer one of the tanks.
• Park the tank right underneath the scarab and start shooting at those purple flappy things over its knees.
• Hopefully when you do shoot out its legs it lands in a place where you can jump aboard. There are gray lifts located in that nearby building which can help you get up onto it quickly.
• Find the power core and destroy it by shooting it.

The Elite commander reports that the Brute’s fleet has been crippled in the attack. The leader of the Brute army is on the top of the spire. Continue up there

• Drive the Brute Chopper up the ramp and use it against the beasts on the first few tiers of the spire.
• The first Brute and one of the Grunts should have an fuel rod gun, use it and a carbine in this next area.

Real Men Don’t Read Maps

I'm not sure if this level is a dig at the Master Chief who is primarily a cyborg thus not a real man. But the Arbiter and a few solders are dropped off at the top floor and the door is open. The Guilty Spark continues to open doors to a room full of sleeping Grunts.

• Do not shoot them. Instead hit them with your melee attack and you can kill each one without startling the rest of them.
• Terminal 3 (t03): As you head through the next rooms there will two hallways. Head underneath the staircase in this hallway and through the door to the third terminal.
  
• Follow the Arbiter through the next rooms.
• In the next expanse, target the large number of fuel cells in the room to kill more with fewer bullets. Continue to spiral through the rooms until you get to the horse-shoe shaped veranda.

At the press of the nearby switch the structure’s planetarium comes into full effect. The first image shown is the Milky Way Galaxy which Master Chief seems to narrowly recognize. Guilty Spark lectures that the space flower that we all find ourselves on is the Ark. The Profit Truth has hidden himself in the core of the Ark and is safely behind a protective shield.

Before much more plot can be advanced, a pack of Covenant Banshees attack. The Arbiter jacks one of the Banshees Master Chief heads back into the structure to hide from the attack and to get back to some more backtracking.

Near the bottom, you will emerge on a giant, round patio. A whole legion of Brutes are standing around a profit hologram.

• You should target the Brute chieftain here so you can get his hammer.
• When you hopefully obtain it, stand on the upper deck where you can shelter yourself from the heavy fire from the other Brutes.
• They will get curious and will approach your glass shelter. Quickly step out, knock them with the hammer and then return behind your glass wall.
• When the Brutes are gone, jackal snipers will take up position in the upper deck. Carefully climb up there to take them out.
• When the entire room is clear, the sergeant will come in with a Pelican.

The little centuries approach by the thousand and Johnson is about to open fire. The guilty sparks stops them saying that they have other priorities.

HR: 1:24 | Rating *******