Arguably one of the most difficult achievements Halo 3 has to offer is the Vidmaster Challenge: Annual. I’ve never had a big motivation to try it since its 0 points and I don’t really care about getting Recon armor, but a bunch of people at Co-Optimus have been looking for help. I figured I might as well give it a try, so Saturday night, Erika and I joined up with Bakken Hood and husky trooper and gave it a try. Actually our first attempt was with Bakken Hood and DSiJanCarlo but it was so embarrassing we won’t talk about it. We did take one thing from that failure though, do not try the grenade jump shortcut. Its a waste of time and extremely frustrating.
With husky trooper, we managed to get up to the top of the structure without too much trouble. It took two tries to kill the tin can but only because I got too close and he launched me off the bridge with his wind attack. On our way out our own deployable turrets took us out a few times (note to self: destroy turrets before going inside). Husky trooper informed us to clear the ice path before getting the ghosts, that probably saved us quite a bit of time. The part that took the longest was the final stretch where you’re racing to the ship while the Halo is falling apart. After a TON of respawns we finally made it to the ship. We probably would have had better luck if Erika and I hadn’t been lagging so much.
We had some pretty amusing moments. Being killed by our own turrets multiple times made us laugh every time. There were also a few jumps that we completely missed. The one that cracked me up the most was when I clipped the wall while going off a ledge because my ghost turned to auto-aim at a flood enemy. I rolled out of my ghost which stayed on the ledge while I flew off the ledge along with my team mates (note to self: turn off auto-aim).
At the end, it was a fun hour and 37 minutes. I’d do it again if anyone needs help. I must warn you though, the two of us aren’t the greatest on the ghosts!
- Vidmaster Challenge: Annual
- Date Earned: Sunday, September 20, 2009
- After 9/25/08, completed Halo on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.
Vidmaster Annual Success – [Bungie.net]
Eric is a software engineer and father of two, who's hobbies include video games, open source software, and just being a geek. Read more from this author
Hey smurph
ContactTango here. I’m an avid follower of your site, but this is my first comment. After reading your about your experience doing Annual, I thought I’d introduce myself.
I’m the Admin for a private Bungie.net group called The Spartan I Project. We are the largest B.net group with over 7500 members. Our specialty is the VM: Annual Achievement. I’ve done it successfully over 200 times and can assure you that the grenade jump works extremely well and is a huge time saver. That jump can also be done with fuel rods, rockets and the hammer.
Our best time is 12:40. A typical run, even with 2-3 rookies in tow takes less that 20 minutes.
I’m sure you’ll likely never want to do this achievement again, but if you have any friends or are interested, send me an email. I’ll gladly show you some tips. 🙂
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for commenting, I’m always happy to see comments from new people. I know from web stats that there are many people stopping in from time to time but not many leave comments. I’m glad you did!
As for the grenade jump trick, I didn’t say it doesn’t work, I just said it is time consuming and frustrating. Maybe I should have added “for players who are novices at trick jumps”. My wife and I play Halo 3 quite a bit but we’ve never delved into the trick jumps, etc. That’s not our thing. If a player is good at grenade jumping, have at it! From our first try for the achievement, we spent about 40 minutes and never got our team up to the first level of the building. For our second try, we skipped the jump and made it to the top after 25 minutes.
The times you quote are impressive, I would love to see a video or two. As for trying it again, I’d be willing to fill in if someone is having difficulty finding players but I’m no good at that grenade jump so don’t expect me to hit that.
Thanks again for commenting! Stick around!
Sounds good dude.
I’m usually on evenings after the kids are asleep. 🙂
You can check out the link to our 12:40 run here: http://www.bungie.net/Online/Halo3UserContentDetails.aspx?h3fileid=94172989
Hit me up sometime.
I queued it up. I’ll have a look tonight!