Halo 2 Tips, Tricks & Strategies for the Campaign
The first two missions of Halo 2 are cutscenes and tutorials; mission 1 is entirely a cutscene and in mission 2 you test Chief's shields, setup your aiming and follow Johnson around in Cairo Station. Instead of giving you a walkthrough for these two missions (which would be pointless) I am going to give you general advice for playing Halo 2 and provide you with links to various guides and pages I have made.
In my opinion the most important thing to teach you is the difference between all of the weapons and which ones are worth using. For this I am going to recommend you take a look at my Halo 2 Campaign Weapon Tier List; when it comes to Halo 2 the best gun is the Battle Rifle hands down no contest.
You can also dual wield in Halo 2 and Halo 3 which makes some of the crappier weapons (SMG, Plasma Rifle, Needler) a bit more powerful. In fact a double Needler combo can be so powerful that they don't let you dual wield them in Halo 3. Below are some general tips and tricks for playing different games in the Halo franchise. These tips and tricks will provide a lot of context and help for new players.
Halo Tips & Tricks:
- Covenant (Plasma) weapons deal more damage to shields than the UNSC weapons. UNSC weapons deal more damage to flesh than Plasma weapons. For this reason it is sometimes a good idea to use Plasma weapons to strip shields then finish them off with a humanoid weapons.
- You can shoot the "lid" off of a Wraith tank and then snipe the driver in the head. This will leave the vehicle mostly undamaged for you to take it from them.
- One of the most effective combos in Halo is the Plasma Pistol + a precision weapon. You can hit an enemy with an overcharged Plasma Pistol shot to rip off their shields then finish them off with a headshot. This combination is extremely effective when playing on Legendary.
- Learn how the various enemies work and what their weaknesses are. For example, Brutes normally charge when low on health to melee, Jackals can be thrown off balance by a shot to the hand and as mentioned earlier Grunts will go into disarray when their commander is killed. Different colored Brutes and Elites have different strategies too, some are more careful and some are careless depending on their health. If multiple Elites/Brutes are present their armor color tells you which one is the commanding officer as well.
- Shoot Hunters in their vulnerable spots to kill them. Hunters are vulnerable in the spine - you can see a gap in their armor where the fleshy orange part is at.
- Learn about the various vehicles and their weak spots. For example, Ghosts have a circular 'power core' on one side of the vehicle that you can shoot to quickly destroy it. Wraiths have a similar power core on the back of their vehicle which takes more damage if you shoot it.
- In Halo 2 you can perform a couple of tricks with the Battle Rifle that are extremely effective and make it the best weapon in the entire game. Check out this Mint Blitz video about the Halo 2 Battle Rifle Tricks for more information.
Those are all of the tips and tricks that come to mind to help you out with Halo 2. If you'd like to see some videos of me beating each and every mission in the game follow the links below. Alternatively, head over to my Halo 2 Videos List to see all of the video guides I have available for this game.
Links to All Mission Video Walkthroughs
(Youtube) Mission 1 The Heretic Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 1 The Heretic Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 2 The Armory Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 2 The Armory Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 3 Cairo Station Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 3 Cairo Station Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 4 Outskirts Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 4 Outskirts Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 5 Metropolis Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 5 Metropolis Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 6 The Arbiter Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 6 The Arbiter Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 7 The Oracle Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 7 The Oracle Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 8 Delta Halo Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 8 Delta Halo Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 9 Regret Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 9 Regret Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 10 The Sacred Icon Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 10 The Sacred Icon Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 11 Quarantine Zone Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 11 Quarantine Zone Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 12 Gravemind Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 12 Gravemind Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 13 Uprising Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 13 Uprising Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 14 High Charity Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 14 High Charity Walkthrough
(Youtube) Mission 15 The Great Journey Walkthrough
(Rumble) Mission 15 The Great Journey Walkthrough
Continue to Mission 2: The Armory Walkthrough
Return to Halo 2 Walkthrough Index