Tag Archives: Halo 3

The Spartan I Project Crew

Last night ContactTango invited me to play some Halo 3 with his fellow staff members at the Spartan I Project. Despite being a loud bunch, they were all really nice and I had a blast playing with them. Everyone seemed to be very teamwork oriented which is a nice change from the usual random people we run into. The teamwork was almost organic and communication was hardly necessary at times.

If you’ve never heard of the Spartan I Project, you should head over to their site and see what they have to offer. They’re famous for their fast and successful Vidmaster Annual runs which was the first I had heard of them. If you need any help with achievements (especially Vidmaster achievements) or are just looking for great teammates, I suggest you check them out.

Halo 3 ODST Audio Log Nightmare


Last Friday Co-Optimus hosted a “Halo Collectible Night” as part of our monthly co-op night with Halo Waypoint. We planned on helping people find skulls, terminals, and audio logs from Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST and hopefully pick up some achievements. I already have everything so I sat around waiting for someone to ask for help. I ended up hooking up with L1GHT3NSTRIKE to pick up all the audio logs in ODST. We hit all 29 from the streets in about an hour, but couldn’t find the entrance to Data Hive where the 30th is hidden. Google told me the entrance to Data Hive isn’t accessible until you play through all the flashback levels. What a pain! We both already finished the game and started the game with the Mombosa Streets, so why block us from Data Hive?

I was wary of exiting and starting up Data Hive because I had a suspicion that we’d lose the audio logs we collected. On the other hand, we weren’t about to play straight through the game just to get the last one, so we took the risk. Well, I was right. We fired up Data Hive and lost all our precious audio logs! Why Bungie? WHY?

Bungie is one of my favorite developers, and has rarely wronged me in the past, so this really surprised me. I know ODST was a small project but it seems like too many corners were cut. The one that really hurts is the lack of matchmaking in Firefight. The excuse was that Firefight was built on top of the campaign engine, which doesn’t have matchmaking capabilities. That’s such a shame. Firefight could have been huge with matchmaking. I also wish Bungie would crank out some new maps for Firefight. The existing ones are cool but some new maps would really spice it up. ODST could have used multiplayer as well. Just think of playing the current Halo 3 game types in ODST, and all the new game types that could have evolved from ODST. That would have been a blast.

In the end, ODST is a great game and I’m sure I’ll be firing it up for years to come. One thing is for sure, I’ll never try helping anyone with audio logs ever again! Do it solo. Here’s some help:


Audio Logs 1-29 video walk-through on YouTube
Audio Log 30 (in Data Hive) video walk-through on YouTube

Can I Has Reconz?

There’s a ViDoc for that.

Bungie was nice enough to let everyone earn their recon armor with the addition of Halo 3: ODST. I’m not quite there yet (still need classic and deja vu) but I’ll be there soon. If you’re having trouble with the Road to Recon or are in the mood for some good ol’ Bungie developer humor, check out the latest ViDoc.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead! Watch at your own risk. You’ve been warned!

Vidmaster Challenge: Annual

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

  • 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]