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Best Halo campaign level? The Ark.

That reference is in very bad taste.


Anyway its super vague, but my pick for best level in Halo is that level in Halo 3 where Spark sees alll of the satellites heading off into the distance, saying something like "they have a different priority task, to accomplish" and the cutscene ends off with Keys saying "until we stop truth nothing else matters"

I cant remember the life of me the name of the level, but it was my favorite one of all time.

Guess what level that is?

*hint, hint* the best one in Halo series.
 

PooBone

Member
What is the best Halo campaign level ever created?

IMO it is The Ark from Halo 3. The Ark takes everything that was near perfect from Halo 1 levels (Silent Cartographer) and Halo 2 levels (the Scarab fight) and mixes it into one perfect journey. Like any worth Halo level it has everything within it:

- open areas
- long range tank fights
- close quarters
- escape part
- boss fight (Scarab)
- the most beautiful vistas since Halo 1
- a desert setting which usually is quite boring but some games nail the fuck out of it (Uncharted 3 comes to mind). For some reason it works so well in this level.
- Hunters

If I were to sell the whole Halo universe with one level, if I have to force a person that doesn't know what Halo is to play one level it would had to be The Ark.

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20131103204931arkicre3.jpg


Note: finished H1, H2, H3, 30% H4 (boring levels). Did not play Reach or ODST. Are there any quality levels in Reach/ ODST? Better than H1 and H3 ones?
Hard to argue with anything you're saying here. Nothing in ODST or Reach are as good as anything in 1 or 3. ODST has some really cool and different atmosphere though.

My favorite level always has been and remains: Halo from Halo CE. When the game opens up, you had this freeform battle going on with dropships all around you, and THEN they give you a warthog and let you go tackle more groups of enemies in any order..... it seriously blew my mind the first time I played it, especially because I was playing co-op. That hog became a rolling death machine. It quickly cemented my love for the game.

EDIT: I forget which level from Halo 4 I'm thinking of, but the one with the Elephant is legitimately awesome.
 

McNei1y

Member
Halo, Truth and Reconciliation, Silent Cartographer, AotCR, 343 GS, Two Betrayals, The Maw... all fantastic maps on Halo CE.

Outskirts/Metropolis and Delta Halo are really the only ones I enjoyed in H2. The one where the covenant splits is kinda fun too.

The Ark and The Covenant are fantastic on H3.

Halo 4 was decent but nothing too memorable.

Halo Reach was pretty complete IMO. I really enjoyed that campaign. Halo ODST was very MEH aside from Rain which fit perfectly with that map setting.
 

Cyrus_Saren

Member
The Silent Cartographer has always been my favorite level in the series. Everything about it just signifies the perfect Halo level to me.
 
You not only said Halo 4, you said Shutdown of all things. That level makes Cortana look like The Silent Cartographer.

I feel like Shutdown is one of the only environments that actually justifies the Prometheans having a veritable fuckton of health. It's almost like they built a campaign level channeling New Alexandria with the concept "what if you could actually put a dent in Promethean Knights instead of wasting a good dozen or so Battle Rifles on them?"

SAW / Railgun combo is amazing, too, because you can usually rail Watchers without fail, mow down Crawler packs with the SAW, and then use a rail to down Promethean shields and mop up with the SAW again. It almost struck me as a Two Betrayals sort of environment where you could essentially cherry tap your way through the battles using only your Plasma Pistol and Shotgun.
 
Halo 4 campaign is such garbage.

Anyway, what are the worst Halo levels around?

Cortana comes to mind... what an unnecessary disaster. System Shock 2 did this level 10x better (The Rickenbacker). Halo 4 levels are so uninspired/ or cluttered that I cannot even call them "bad levels". They are just there. Soulless. Haloless.
 
Bad levels?

343 Guilty spark was a terrible level. The only redeeming factor was the flood intro, which was spectacular.

Almost all Arbiter levels in Halo 2 once you start fighting brutes. The combat is terrible with those bullet spongy bastards. I love the Arbiter as a character but he definitely got the shittiest levels in the game. Probably the reason why people disliked playing as him so much.

Cortana from Halo 3 is probably the worst of the bunch.

The space flying level from Reach was terrible too. I know people love this but it never jammed with me.

Halo 4 was mostly ok. No real spectacular levels but nothing offensive either.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
You might want to check the OP.
The level you're thinking of is The Ark :p

Guess what level that is?

*hint, hint* the best one in Halo series.

:p Yeah, thanks guys. I felt like an idiot going back to check, but yeah that's the one.


Also, I don't understand what you think he's referencing.

Its pretty obvious, and not very tactful in my opinion.
 

Gandalf

Member
All of the replies in this thread are wrong grrrrrr
:)

The actual answer is the Silent Cartographer.

A lot of the stuff in the aforementioned missions was either done better in other levels (e.g. AotCr did the sandbox thing better). The Ark has a very boring environment and the close quarters areas are nothing special in terms of combat.

Worse still, the vehicular combat is more bullshit than Jackal Snipers than Halo 2 on Legendary. A Ghost should not be able to kill a Scorpion easily.

----
Silent%2BCartographer.jpg


The Silent Cartographer combines a large arena with asymmetric objective design, as well as an interesting plot based objective that is reliant on player presence based triggers (as opposed to button pressing). It has a fair share of bright and sunny areas, large AI battles, vehicular exploration, as well as the creepy tunnels that will later become all too common in CE. The encounter design is great, and a certain degree of stealth can be used. And unlike the other Halo CE missions, a Silent Cartographer is the perfect length, not too long or short.

This right here. Trying to get a Warthog through most of the level is a lot of fun.
Grenades and/or rockets are needed at certain points.

The Silent Cartographer is by far the best level in Halo history in my opinion. One I've completed a lot of times, and will probably do so in the future too.
 

Edwardo

Member
343 Guilty Spark.

Because I shit my pants the first time the flood came out.

I also want to say The Library is the worst level ever.
 
i decided to boot up the library thanks to this thread and i must say i'm disappointed with the way they remastered this level. the atmosphere is completely gone. aside from the repetitive textures, the lighting and depth in the classic version looks more modern than the remastered one, which feels flat.
 
Just a heads up: ODST is going to be free for the owners of The Master Chief Collection (me).

Hell yeah, after Halo 4 mediocrity I need a quality single-player Halo game again!
 
The one-two punch that is The Ark and The Covenant is nothing short of amazing. God, I really should continue my MCC run!

Bleh. Sometimes I want to get an Xbone JUST to have a Halo machine because that's all that interests me on that console. But the rational part of my brain knows it isn't worth it.

Titanfall, Forza Horizon 2 and Sunset Overdrive are more than enough valid reasons to own an Xbox One, IMO. And I'm not even a huge racing fan!

No love for Halo 4 here at all? Just finished my play through and I thoroughly enjoyed each level except for the one with the pelican.
I really liked Composer, personally. And Midnight was cool, too. The opening was incredible, partially because of the soundtrack, and the finale was neat to (also largely because of the amazing soundtrack), despite the lack of a proper boss fight.
 
Bleh. Sometimes I want to get an Xbone JUST to have a Halo machine because that's all that interests me on that console. But the rational part of my brain knows it isn't worth it.

I have only 4 Xbone games: Diablo 3, GTA5, Halo: Collection and Dance Central. That's right, only 1 exclusive and it's a Kinect game.

It was worth it. Pity that I played H1 and H2 back in the day, ehh. Luckily there will be ODST in 2015 :hype
 

Kuroyume

Banned
Nothing in Halo 3 is "the best hing in Halo ever." Everything that appears in Halo 3 is some washed down crappy derivative of what appeared in the previous two games. In fact halo 3 is a crappy remake of Halo: CE. Whether its the campaign missions, level designs, maps or music. The only exception may be Avalanche as a remake but I never played the original map so I can't confirm.

Obviously, the best Halo campaign is Combat evolved. And the best levels appear at the end of the game. Such as Two Betrayals and Keyes which are classic. Night time open combat in the snow. Pure Halo bliss.
 
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