First of all, great job on episode 3. That bit with the Mantis was just awesome, worthy of any Halo campaign. That got me thinking, the Halo campaigns have so many memorable moments, many of these were especially excellent in coop. For future series of Spops, could these moments be, for lack of a better word, remade. Here is a list of some of my favourite bits from previous campaigns, and how they could be implemented in spops. Obviously, locations will need to be changed to fit the story and the sequence of some missions will need to be altered, but that shouldn’t damage the awesomeness of these epic scenes.
Halo 1:
The Silent Cartographer beach landing. Obvious choice here, who wasn’t pumped up by this? The whole mission was pretty amazing, but if we combined the first and last bits, we would have a pretty good spops chapter. Start with being dropped on to a beach swarming with covies, then continue with a short warthog drive to a forerunner structure. Go inside, recover some artifact or whatever is needed for the story, then fight your way out through camo elites to the pelican. I really enjoyed fighting the hunters both outside and inside the structure, so include that.
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Halo 2:
Killing the heretic leader. If, at some point, we need to kill an important elite, this is the way to do it. The mission itself was pretty good, and I actually quite liked the boss fight at the end. Incubus MUST be included. Non negotiable.
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Halo 3:
The Ark, just after you activated the light bridge for the tanks. I loved this bit, and there were so many ways to go about it, blast through everything with a tank, or storm it down with a hog. All this was topped off with a scarab to kill. Brilliant.
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ODST:
I actually had a difficult time deciding this one. Now that I think about it, this campaign had so many good individual moments. I think I’m going to have to go with the bridge outside ONI. I liked how the firefights escalated until you had to retreat. And we got to blow up a bridge.
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Reach:
There hasn’t been much covie scenes in this campaign, so let’s change that! In Reach, my favourite mission was probably LNoS (TotS close second). A sabre fight is probably out of the question, so let’s go from when we boarded the covie cruiser. There was a great mix of pushing through the covies, and holding down for intense firefights. Really, anything that starts with you dropping from the ceiling is gold.
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Wars:
THAT cutscene. Yes you damn well know which one.
One final thought: I have, in general liked Spatran Ops. My favourite mission was probably Hacksaw, since it is the closest we got to firefight. I really liked the Mantis part from ep 3, but on the whole, the mission suffered from the same problem most of the do. Instead of holding down in a firefight, or pushing forward, we are just running around pushing buttons. The multiple backtracking just makes me feel like nothing is really being accomplished. Chapter 1 of ep 3, had a nice mix of attacking two covenant posts, then holding down to defend one. I actually admire the repeated use of missions, but the way individual chapters are structured could use some work. Just something to think about.