Leveling Down

Firefight may seem daunting at first - especially the achievements that require you to get 200,000 points on every map. The first time I played Firefight with some friends, we ended up with only 60,000 points and 200K seemed impossible. Yet two weeks later, I realize that getting 200K on each map can be relatively straightforward, provided you go in with a gameplan and follow some basic strategies. I decided to put together a short guide, first with general strategies and then map specific tips. I’ve also included a strategy for getting the Vidmaster: Endure achievement. These tips are by no means exhaustive, but should give you a head start on conquering Firefight! Since this is a relatively long post for our blog, you can find everything after the jump.

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I love achievements. Even though my wife says the greatest achievement I have ever unlocked is “most hours spent in front of glowing screens” (that was for Vidmaster: Endure in Halo 3: ODST), I still really enjoy trying to “achieve” these meaningless rewards. It makes me wonder though, have achievements changed how I play games, or was it me who changed?

An example: in Left 4 Dead, once I finished the Expert campaigns, the game began to be less fun. It was okay to run through a campaign, but with no sound effect at the end of the tunnel, I found it less exciting. Same with ODST and the Firefight maps: will I ever go back and play them after I’ve unlocked the achievements? Firefight is a mode I could potentially have seen myself playing endlessly, but I know that thanks to the achievements, I’m not really gonna want to go back after I finish the 200Ks. If those achievements didn’t exist though, I might just keep playing to keep trying to beat my top score. But since achievements arbitrarily define these “top scores” in a lot of games, it takes away my inner desire to beat myself because I know what mark I have to get to to prove to the world my skill.

When I was a younger gamer, I just use to play games over and over because I loved them. I must have beaten Super Mario Bros. 3 like 6 or 7 times, and gotten to the last stage a bunch of other times as well. I used to race against the computer in Mario Kart 64 just for fun (though some of the shenaningans the computer pulled in 150cc drove me nuts), and I even played through the original Halo multiple times just for fun. Nowadays I can’t see myself doing that anymore. It’s partly because I don’t have the time, but it’s also because once I get all the achievements I want, I don’t have the motivation to play anymore. The only exception is multiplayer games I love: Halo 3 and Modern Warfare took up hours and hours of my life and I never really wanted to stop.

I guess in a way achievements made it easier to fit my gaming habits into my changing life habits. Now that I have goals in games to strive for, I can budget out the amount of time I’ll need to play, and that way I can balance my time better. It’s not as “pure” as when I was a kid, but let’s face it: I’m not a kid anymore, and I have responsibilities that are much more important than beating games 50 times. Instead, I can just focus on the achievement for beating a game twice and then go to bed!

I’ve spent most of my time on the 360 the last couple of weeks playing Halo 3: ODST, but what I’m starting to notice is that unlike on the Halo 3: ODST release day when practically everyone online on my friends list was playing it, like no one is playing it now.

The game sold very well, but does it have legs? It’s looking like perhaps not. Almost none of my friends are playing Halo 3 multiplayer either – even with ODST containing all the multiplayer maps. It just goes to show you, maybe people are just playing through the campaign and that’s it. If you were interested in Halo 3 multiplayer, you were already playing it – seems like ODST is not going to be the catalyst.

I tried getting back into Halo 3 after playing through ODST, but it just feels different after playing ODST. Several thoughts popped through my head as I played Halo 3 online: “Battle rifle? Where’s my magnum?” “Why am I jumping so high?” “Why do my grenades have a terrible throwing arc?” “Why can I only hold 2 of each grenade type?” And finally, “Why does this guy keep tea-bagging me?” Those were all the questions I asked myself as I played Halo 3 online, and decided, it’s not worth getting back into. I’d rather get back into Call of Duty 4 to prepare for Modern Warfare 2.

I think Halo 3: ODST would really have legs if there was matchmaking for it or even simple rooms that people hosted and others could join. It’s ridiculous how we have to go through friends lists and custom gaming groups just to find players that not only want to play Firefight, but are looking to play the same Firefight maps we do. Now there’s a bunch of people on these “Firefight” friends lists I have that may want to play Firefight, but are instead playing other games because they don’t want to sit at the Halo 3 ODST menu and wait for invites all day. It’s truly annoying that I have to deal with messaging them in other games to see if they want to switch to play Firefight.

Stat tracking for Firefight matches is awesome on bungie.net, but Bungie, why did you put all this effort into stats and totally botch the multiplayer implementation of Firefight? One player drops and the match is over? I played on a level for over 3 hours and was about to get the Endure Achievement before one player dropped and it all was for nothing. And why not allow for friends to join a Firefight match that’s already started because there’s already a limited number of lives? And of course, the biggest question to boggle my mind is that even without matchmaking, why not at least provide us a way to play online by creating rooms so the public can join?! Was it that difficult to add Firefight as a selectable matchmaking mode in Halo 3’s multiplayer, but only joinable for owners of ODST? These types of questions really irked me and make me wonder how a company like Bungie can do such an awesome job with the multiplayer of Halo 3 but do such a terrible one with ODST. And maybe because of it, that’s why the game just doesn’t have legs.

Bungie has long been famous for being able to create and recreate “30 seconds of fun” and has made that mantra the basis of all of the Halo games thus far. Firefight Mode, unique to the new release ODST, takes that mantra and applies it to a cooperative survival mode. It presents so many gameplay options that we decided to give it its own post. How does it stack up to previous survival modes found in Gears of War (Horde), Call of Duty (Nazi Zombies), and Left 4 Dead (Survival)?

Firefight definitely isn’t a perfect experience, but I prefer it to all 3 of the above. The basic premise: 1-4 players hold out against waves of Covenant troops until they are all dead. The major difference between Firefight and other survival modes is that everyone has a shared pool of lives and ammunition. You can’t “buy” weapons, ammo drops are relatively few and far between, and if you have a weak link, it will bring the whole team down by using up all of your lives.

Yet this is precisely why I love Firefight: you have to work together or die. That’s true for Left 4 Dead as well, but in Survival mode, things got so insane so quickly that it was tough to really have a plan. But Firefight rewards methodical teams (though aggressive teams can be successful as well). You also earn extra points by chaining kills and for kill streaks, so it pays to stay alive as long as possible and to be efficient. Sharing ammo also works very well too, it encourages a lot of team play and communication since you need to let the carbine expert know where they can pick up ammo etc.

I also like how Firefight handles progressive difficulties. Most people are familiar with the “skulls” from Halo 3 that introduce extra levels of difficulty. Firefight is broken up into three divisions: Sets, Rounds, and Waves. Each Round consists of 5 Waves and 3 Rounds make up a Set. Even though the game never ends, as far as I’m concerned every team’s goal should be to finish the 4th Set.

There is a logical progression to the addition of difficulty skulls in the game. Each Set has the same number of rounds, and each round is associated with a certain skull. Round 1 always has “Tough Luck” activated, Round 2 adds “Catch!”, and Round 3 adds the gameplay changing “Black Eye”. Round skulls reset at the beginning of each set, but after the first set, new skulls are permanently added: “Tilt” in Set 2, “Famine” in Set 3, and “Mythic” in Set 4. So by the time you reach the 3rd round of the 4th set, you will be playing with all 6 of the main Firefight skulls on: Double health enemies with bullet deflecting shields will be throwing extra grenades and dodging yours while you need to punch them to regain health as they drop weapons with limited ammo! (This is why I consider Firefight “complete” after the 4th set, plus you’ll get an achievement on heroic difficulty or above).

I find the 3rd round of any set the most fun, because “Black Eye” forces you to melee enemies to regain health. That really changes the way you have to play the game, and forces you to get your hands dirty instead of sitting back in relative safety, which I find to be a huge adrenaline rush. There are 8 different maps to play on, each with their own unique chokepoints and advantages/disadvantages for your team, and they all are pretty fun in their own right (some involve fighting Wraiths/Banshees to up the difficulty).

The biggest drawback to Firefight is that it can get pretty draining, it can take upwards of 2 hours (or more) to complete 4 sets, or you can do it in an hour if you’re efficient. I haven’t even gotten around to all 8 of the maps yet, and I’ve already put 6-7 hours into Firefight. It’s draining in a bad way - by the time you get to the 3rd or 4th set, you are exhausted and that makes you careless. I guess that makes it even more like a true survival game…but I might just be getting too old for that kind of stuff. Also, if you don’t have good teammates, the game can be a real drag, so make sure you play with people who you work well together with. Lucky for me I have a solid team!

I’ve already played this more than I played Horde and Survival combined, and in an hour or two I will knock Nazi Zombies off the list as well. We’ll talk about the single player campaign tomorrow, but as far as I’m concerned, if you like Halo gameplay in general, Firefight mode by itself will warrant purchase consideration. When your whole team is out of lives and is depending on you to take down 5 brutes by yourself to complete a set, you’ll feel like a real Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.