Happy Bungie Day!

Last time around, we toured Crow's Nest and Sierra 117. Here, we tackle the Chief's 3-level tour of the region of the artefact.

Images link to larger images.

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Kicking off Tsavo Highway, I'm joined by ShadowOfTheVoid and dovber781.

And Nathon Fillion.

As we leave the garage under Crow's Nest, we head out into a beautiful cave, deep under the mountain.

The cave is quite large. Did you realize that it actually branches a little? I didn't, until I was taking these screenshots.

Heading into the open, we see some more of Halo 3's nice skyboxes. Crow's Nest is visible above us, and it turns out that the hangar is represented on the mountainside, complete with its two windows.

However, the sweetest thing in this sky is the Storm. Which actually happens to be a 3-dimensional object, allowing me to throw silly cross-eye 3d images at you.

The sightseeing only lasts so long, though. We have "more important" things to do.

Tsavo Highway introduces one of the vehicular favourites from Halo 3, the Chopper. And the brute driver really doesn't like warthogs.

Unfortunately, after fighting through this area, we have a conflict. The vehicles are all destroyed except for one warthog, and ShadowOfTheVoid wants to put a fuel rod marine in the side seat. dovber781 complains that this leaves him without a ride.

However, we have a perfect and not at all tacky solution.

dovber781: Are you sure about this?

It works out great. dovber781 quickly embraces the situation.

The fight along the highway is populated with several intense battles...

...but with ShadowOfTheVoid's fuel rod-happy tactics, the most dangerous part is navigating the remains of the enemy dropships.

dovber781: I miss the jump height in Halo 3.

And with that, we've made our way to Voi, and the end of Tsavo Highway.

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In a phenomenal Halo 3 write-up called Hindsight Halo 3, Cocopjojo of Ascendant Justice noted that Crow's Nest is still visible at the start of The Storm.

The Storm is an exciting mix of all different sorts of battles. Almost immediately, the level throws you into a memorable hallway encounter.

After clearing one large outdoor area of Covenant anti-air, the next provides the player with vehicles and rocket launcher marines. It's weird, but perhaps one of the most iconic and generally awesome encounters in the series.

ShadowOfTheVoid: Let's rock and roll.

After clearing the Covenant ground forces, Halo 3 introduces its scarab. It is large and intimidating. It is also about to get wrecked by two people trying to be the first to the core.

The scarab goes down easy, but ShadowOfTheVoid manages to kill me in the process anyway :)

We finally reach our destination, a large anti-aircraft gun, and we take it out.

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So, when Hindsight Halo 3 pointed out that Crow's Nest was visible from The Storm? I think Halo 3 was actually being sold a little short. Welcome to Floodgate.

The sunlight scattering through the haze looks amazing.

However, Voi has become a big mess. Space zombies and gigantic portals, and that sort of thing.

This is still recognizably the same place we went through in The Storm, though.

Floodgate maintains some fairly intense gameplay, and is arguably the part of Halo 3 where Flood combat shines brightest. It's not until the end of the level that ranged pure forms show up and discourage movement.

We make it to the crashed ship, and see...

ShadowOfTheVoid: I love the colour here.
dovber781: My screen is all white.

It's some crazy environment design, though.

The trip through the ship is somewhat uneventful, but there are ways to spice things up.

ShadowOfTheVoid: Alright, come over here and throw them on top of the thing.

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And that concludes Floodgate, and the post. Next time, we land at the deep fryer where gigantic space donuts are made!