- gamertag: [none]
- user homepage:
I enjoy playing H2 with certain skulls active, it is the one thing that makes it very different than playing CE. I typically have never done much campaign play with Assassins going, not really sure why. I have done something that either qualifies as Madness or Stupidity, not sure which, feel free to weigh in on it:
Active Skulls-Assassins, Blind (that turned out to be a poor choice to have going, made it even harder but it was the only one I was playing with when I decided to keep picking them up), Envy, Catch, GBP, Sputnik
Level-Cairo Station (yes, you read that right, moron ain't I?)
Results/Info-Yeah, after picking up Assassins playing Regret and cutting my teeth on getting used to it battling the hordes protecting the Prophet Regret, I decided that I should try to do as much of campaign as possible with Assassins active, starting with Cairo Station. Stupid, right? Madness, right? Yes, 1000% correct on both counts. Given that making it through the level on Legendary usually requires that one use the noob combo I knew that this was going to be very frustrating. Having figured ahead of time, I made sure to get Sputnik, Catch and GBP before I started CS. I had just Blind and Envy when I picked up the Assassins skull and knew I was going to need as much of an offset to being on my own for the most part (marines only fire at what they can see), and not being able to noob combo the elites in the hangers.
I have made it past both hangers, took me darn near an entire day to make it that far, and am paused at the first battle with the jet pack elites. Some very interesting things have happened:
1-It turns out that my least favorite weapons (SMG and Plasma Rifle) are now two of my closest friends. Because I can dual wield them it gives me the ability to "light up" targets for the Marines. Granted the marines never survive long on CS legendary, but any help was welcome. If I dual wield with one of each, there is no rise to the SMG even on full auto, it appears to only do that when you wield SMG's in both hands. The dual PR combo has much better range than I ever imagined, and my hoarding of them for the second hanger saved my butt. You can create cover and angles with the crates to basically unload fire into Covie troops waiting down by the boarding craft from far enough away that they do not return withering and deadly fire unto my butt. Taking out enough Grunts, turding out their 2 plasma's as they drop, followed by a head shot with the BR to living or dead grunt and wah-lah....large amounts of secondary explosions sending bodies everywhere (very satisfying!). I died probably 30 times during that second hanger battle until I found the right combo of tactics. That trick only works 2 times, so the remaining elites have to be taken out mainly with plasma grenades. Until you whittle their numbers down to 1 or 2, it is just not safe to venture in with the sword. By swording the large crates into a blocking position it is possible to get close enough to get a simple short toss onto a hunkered down elite, so as to not waste the small amount of plasma grenades you can be left with on errant longer inaccurate throws. Most of the time I was dying it was due to staying exposed too long when trying to lure them closer for sure throws or my camo ran out while I was trying to find a few more plasmas laying on their side of the hanger. Those double PR wielding elites are straight from hell, camo'd or not.
2-The skull seems to have an effect on covies making them a bit less aware of what is going on around them. It seemed that at times the elite would just stand there even if I was right in front of him (that happened alot on Regret, but it might have been caused by my standing on the raised lip of the ramp into the "arena" rather than on the ramp itself, sword elites would just stand there, oh, and then growl when I planted a plasma on their gonads). One thing for sure that it does do is cut down on the dialogue, even after they killed me. I cannot tell you how nice it was to NOT hear how they had earned their journey and all that other crap with how often I was dying. The camo seemed to have duct taped their mouths to a certain extent. Probably in keeping with the "hidey and sneaky" aspects of being cloaked, doesn't do you much good to be invisible if you are jibber-jabbering away for all to hear (and aim at).
3)As much as the Blind Skull made this harder in many ways, not having anything to distract my vision of the whole screen actually gave me an edge in detecting enemies that I had let get too close. In the end, I figure that was a fair trade. I died quite a few times at the hands of sword elites or dual PR elites during Regret because I just was moving too much to catch sight of one working his way towards me. During CS, things move at a slower pace, and the un-obscured view given by blind allowed me to avoid death quite a few times in the hangers especially.
I expect I will finish it tonight, especially as the hardest part is over, the two hangers. I would be curious to know, do you think it is just stupidity or madness? I am sure you all will come up with some other creative ways to describe it. HAHA!
[Edited on 05.31.2011 10:59 AM PDT]