Firstly let me say that I love Reach’s overall campaign. It’s got everything from small concentrated firefights to larger then life battlefields featuring land to air to space combat. It’s an amazing step up from all other Halo games. With this particular campaign though, as all others before it too, there is a few flaws that I think should be addressed and I’m posting to shed some light on two I’ve found:
We all know the mission Tip of the Spear by now. On that mission is a section that is labeled as a research facility turned covenant outpost. I just jumped into matchmaking co-op campaign and got this mission. Everything was going ok till we hit that section and had just killed the two jackals/moving up the facility to go blow up the canister when three players were simultaneously killed by banshee bombs. Two bombs to be exact. The final player had been hanging back selecting new weapons, walked around said corner and when he saw we were all dead, started backing up. I was content with this till he was banshee bombed just before getting around the corner to the med kits/weapon cache’s there. First time, shame on you. Second time, shame on me.
So an entire four person co-op got killed by the #1 most hated vehicle in all of Halo: Reach. Whatever, time to move on… we all respawn, one person walks out, lures the banshee in closer (thankfully only one showed up at first this time) and we all shot it till it disappeared heading south. figuring it wasn’t even damaged I waited and slowly approached while the next two went and started killing the shield jackals. Banshee came up from under the facility, bombed the two of them and started turning towards me. Now I was still 1-2 seconds away from the first corner and immediately backpedaled to it. I was around the corner and thought I was safe still moving back to the other player… banshee bomb= me dead. Once again, shame on me. Final player backed up all the way around the other corner and into the supply cache’s. The other two respawn near the railing/around the initial corner. I respawn… in mid-air next to the railing. I die five times due to spawns in mid-air/falling to my death. I died a total of 8 times in that mission playthrough and lost two players (quit out) because of that situation. If it is difficult to program and maintain respawn locations, please just put a respawn area behind that section on the first part of terra firma that we can walk.
I am not asking for this to be patched. I am asking that you please never use this tactic and if you must, allow more options to players to avoid situations in the campaign. Spartans were revered for combat training (put a blast barrier or something we can use to move up and not be blown to pieces, put a pipeline underneath so we can walk right under the blast, etc.) and all utilized speed unparalleled to avoid situations like this. Heck, MC outran a missile blast as part of a TEST and lived (books). A banshee bomb traveling slower then that should be able to be avoided by Spartan III’s imo. Fact is, its a situation that the best Bungie could do for the players was to put a hologram that might work 60% of the time and if it doesn’t? The player is now dead without sprint at least. It’s bad enough I take my time to build up and represent my commendations legitimately, but to have my possible Flawless Cowboy ruined and then to be respawning in mid-air because that’s the local player to me is enough to make me never want to play that campaign mission again.
Thanks for your time readers and administrators.