How do you usually go about playing Campaign in the Halo games?
My difficulty is Heroic. Normal in Halo 2 Anniversary with the Anger Skull, because the AI just turn into aimbots with high damage output on Heroic. My first priority when playing Halo: play as realistically as possible. This is a huge immersion kind of thing for me. When playing, I do everything I can to avoid getting hit. This is because I think back to Forward Unto Dawn, seeing Master Chief against the Covenant with no shields, avoiding getting hit. I think: if Chief still didn’t have shields, with the way I’m playing now, just shrugging off shots, he’d be dead. So I take it slow, check corners, move from cover to cover, always shoot from behind chest-high pieces, always flank, use grenades to create openings, keeping my distance. Going rambo, running and gunning while jumping all over the place is a last resort.
To a Spartan, Shields are a safety net, for situations where you cannot avoid getting hit. Shields are not a crutch. I’ll allow myself to be hit a couple times, but never to have my shields depleted. If I get hit too much, I revert and try again, because I feel my gameplay is not living up to the standard of a Spartan. The way I play in ODST, however, get hit once by anything, I’m dead. Revert. Except when getting hit once or twice by Carbine because Brutes are just unrealistically accurate with it to where I let myself off a bit easier.
I do my best to preserve my allies. I’ll allow myself to take a few more hits if it means protecting them. However, in some ODST missions, the Marines are just impossibly stupid and weak to the point where it harms my immersion to try to save them, so I don’t. With the exception of Uplift Reserve, where massing an entire convoy of Warthogs and saving all the Marines is just awesome and so worthwhile.
I avoid fire when in a vehicle, but don’t worry too much if I get hit in them.
I almost always stick with the weapons of my faction, and try to keep the weapons I was deployed with. Or if I’m going into a different situation, I’ll take weapons to suit the environment. I’ll refrain from dropping UNSC weapons for Covenant weapons unless I NEED a long-range weapon, and a Beam Rifle is right there, or if I NEED an explosive weapon and a Fuel Rod is right there. But once I’m done using it, I’ll pick my UNSC weapon back up. On the other hand though, playing as the Arbiter in Halo 2, no UNSC weapons ever. It’s heresy. I could see using UNSC weapons as more acceptable in Uprising and Great Journey, but then it’s the same philosophy I pointed out previously with UNSC over Covenant, only reversed.
Something interesting though is that I’ll stick to the preferred weapon of the character I’m playing. If I’m Master Chief, I’ll stick with Assault Rifle + Magnum, or Dual SMGs + Battle Rifle. If I’m Rookie, Suppressed SMG + Suppressed Magnum. Dutch, Suppressed SMG + Spartan Laser. Mickey, Suppressed SMG + Rockets. Romeo, Sniper Rifle + Suppressed Magnum. Buck, Assault Rifle + Suppressed Magnum. Arbiter, Covenant Carbine + Energy Sword. And in Halo 5, I’ll stick with each character’s preferred loadout.
In Halo CE, I take out Grunts first to lessen incoming fire easily, but especially if I’m with Marines, take out Major Grunts first, as their grenades always tear Marines apart. Also, I skullfully stick Spec Ops Elites with they’re throwing grenades at me. If Flood Combat Forms are in close proximity to Carrier Forms, blow up the Carriers, and watch the beautiful chain reaction of grenades. Very effective. Same with Halo 2. In Halo 3 and ODST, taking out Brutes first is always a priority in almost all situations, specifically ones armed with Brute Shots, or even worse, Fuel Rods. It’s important to stop them from blowing everything up and making combat much more chaotic. In Halo 4, Watchers first, always. If a Knight is armed with a Binary Rifle or Incineration Cannon, take it out second, otherwise, crawlers are second.
Side note, using Assault Rifle in the Campaign is really effective if you know how to use it right. In CE, fire single shots in quick succession and your spread stays very low. Good finger exercise too. Halo 3 is a bit harder to single shot, but the spread is much lower anyway so burst firing works great. Halo 4’s AR is the best by far, even with fast bloom. Double shots with it makes it effective as far as medium-long range, as long as you can aim properly.
The biggest draw of Halo for me is the feeling of immersion and experiencing the battle against these very threatening and dangerous foes in a vast, mysterious world. But the great thing about Halo is that it allows you to play realistically, or go balls to the wall crazy space marine rambo dead aliens killing spree, if you want.
