Halo Skulls

A number of secrets and glitches have been discovered in the video game Halo 2.

Skulls

Several small skulls are hidden in every campaign level, and some levels contain more than one. [1] Their effects can do anything from making the player invisible to removing his Heads Up Display (HUD). With Names like "I Would Have Been Your Daddy," they offer some amusement for serious fans.

Confirmed Skulls

These Skulls have been determined to be true by testing. Therefore, their status is "Confirmed."

Thunderstorm Skull

Level: Cairo Station (Level)

Directions: In the large room after the armory, you need to use a duck-jump to get onto a light fixture on the right wall (right of the room when you enter) and then jump from there onto the higher area. There is a series of diagonal beams. Walk up one near to the end of it and use it to duck-jump onto one of the rails. You can fall between the rails, so be careful. Once on the rail, walk down it until you can jump onto the highest platform. Then bash the trashcan.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: All Grunts and Elites have white (Spec Op) armor, and the stats of their white-armored counterparts.

Status: Confirmed

Blind Skull

Level: Outskirts (Level)

Directions: At the beginning of Outskirts jump on top of the light on top of the door with a crouch jump, then jump to the left platform. Turn to your left and go down the long dark corridor and pick up the skull; it will say "blind" and your screen will flash black for a second.

Difficulty: Any difficulty

Effect: You can not see your weapon, body, shields, ammo, or motion tracker. Good luck aiming with no reticle!

Status: Confirmed

Iron Skull

Level: High Charity (Level)

Directions: When you enter the final (the second) Gravity Lift, look up. A skull will pass through you extemely quickly so you must start holding X a bit before you actually pass it to grab hold of it.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: When playing co-op, if either player dies the game restarts you at your last checkpoint. This effects all difficulties. Normally this only happens on Legendary.

Status: Confirmed

No Name Skull

Level: The Armory (Level)

Directions: At the begining of the level, after you power your shields for the first time, the Sarge shows up on an Elevator. Wait in the room until the Sarge starts berating you, telling you to get into the elevator. You MUST wait for him to say "Would it help if I said please?" Once he says this, get in the elevator, and go down to the tram. Get on the tram, and face towards the INSIDE of the building. Press up against the glass doors towards the inside of the building. You should hold X down, and you should pick up the skull. It's on a stack of green crates, near the end of the tram ride.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: It is speculated that the enemies will be much more aware of your location, but this is very difficult to prove. Similarly, it's also speculated that the skull's programming was not finished when the game shipped, and that it does nothing. This is supported by the lack of a name. Finally, it's also speculated that the No Name skull's effects have to be "unlocked" by other triggers.

After aquiring this skull in Legendary, I found the enemys slightly easier to kill, I do not know if this is the actual intended effect or my imagination, but give it a try to see.

Status: Confirmed

Catch Skull

Level: Metropolis (Level)

Directions: Right after you exit from the underground highway, you'll come to a large open-air circular room with a handful of Jackal snipers and some Elites. The quickest way to get safely to the skull is to get the next checkpoint by jumping into the Warthog and letting the marine drive you to the next area. Jump out of the jeep and backtrack to the large room, and clear the area. You will see a large semi-circlular beam going from one of the main platforms that goes from the ground up to the top of the two towers. Do a grenade jump at the bottom of this beam and walk all the way to the top. Jump over to the ledge of the left tower. Walk to the end of the ledge and you will find the Catch skull.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Enemies always drop 2 Plasma Grenades, and it appears that the AI in general will toss more grenades.

Status: Confirmed

Anger Skull

Level: Gravemind (Level)

Directions: Fight all the way through High Charity until you reach the first park area. As soon as you are outside, turn right. You will see some Covenant crates next to the rock ledge. Jump from the crate to the rock ledge. Walk up the rock hill and to your right you will see a large red girder. Jump onto the girder and follow it back towards the complex you came from. You will run into an invisible grunt weilding a Fuel Rod Cannon. Kill the grunt, and continue to the end of the girder where you will see the Angry skull floating above a small grav-lift.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Grunts shoot much faster, and the Angry skull is the only known skull that can be cycled through, allowing you to use the skull as a third weapon.

Status: Confirmed

Envy Skull

Level: Delta Halo (Level)

Directions: Progress through Delta Halo until you come to an area with a large central stucture that has a multitude of columns. This is the area where Cortana tells you that the Covenant is pouring out of the center section. When you first get into this area, you have to go left, and there is a ramp on the left that goes up and then back down. Get on this ramp and continue up the wall until you are on the landing where there will be (or used to be) some plasma turrets. Follow this landing all the way to it's end, and you'll see a door that is blocked off by a large stone. Jump on top of the stone, and jump again to get on a thin ledge. Make sure you're up against the left wall, and grenade jump up to the top of the wall to your left. Once you're on this wall, you'll see that the right wall ends and there is some earth behind it. Jump onto the dirt, and follow the stone wall all the way to the top. When you're on the top of this wall, you can look down towards the center and you should see two cloaked Elites dancing towards each other with the Envy skull between them.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: The Master Chief now has a Cloaking device just like the Arbiter's. 5 second cloak with 10 second recharge.

Status: Confirmed

Grunt's B-day Party Skull

Level: The Arbiter (Level)

Directions: The very first time you get a Banshee, fly down. Below you is a large beamlike structure (not to be confused with the one directly below you that turns and goes vertical) running from the arm of the station you just came out of to one exactly like it on the side opposite. Below this structure are 3 cylinders hanging down, with cylinders of light shooting out of the bottom. They look like they are what keeps the station floating. If this explanation is too vague, they are the absolute lowest parts of the station. Now go to the middle engine and land on the top part of it. This and the other engines connect to the large structure mentioned earlier. The tops of the engines come up to meet the structure at an angle, where this angle is under the connecting structure and coming up to meet it, there is a place to walk (like being under a bridge). Under one side you will see the six grunts dancing in a circle around the Skull.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Headshots turn into Plasma Grenade explosions.

Status: Confirmed

Sputnik Skull

Level: Quarantine Zone (Level)

Directions: From the start of the level, turn directly around, and you should see a tunnel. Head into the tunnel and go straight until you exit the tunnel. Go straight across the open area, and you'll come across a broken pipe tunnel on your right. Straight in front of you you should see a small ledge running across the wall, above the green pit. Carefully get onto that small ledge and walk all the way to the end of the ledge to find the Sputnik skull.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: The mass of certain objects is severly reduced, making them fly farther when smacked with a melee hit, or when they are near an explosion. Weapon damage is not changed.

Status: Confirmed

Black Eye Skull

Level: The Great Journey (Level)

Directions: Eventually you have to escort the Sarge who is in a Scarab. Follow him along until you see the huge compound in front of you. Directly above the door that the Sarge blows open with the Scarab is an angled beam. Land your Banshee on this beam and walk to the top of the beam. Look down and to your left and you will see a circular angled wall. Jump onto this wall and walk to the top. Walk straight along the right-hand side of this area. You will have to jump over a small beam in front of you. Continue walking straight until you come to a grassy area. Keep walking up the grassy hill and go until you come to the point where can jump onto the angled support for the tower meets the grass. Jump onto the support and walk up the support. It's a very steep climb, so jumping while you're going up the support speeds up the walk some. At the first landing you will see the Black Eye skull sitting on a glowing white panel on the floor.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Your shield does not charge normally. To charge your shields you must kill something (enemy or ally) with a melee attack. You can charge your shields into the Overshield range by doing this.

Status: Confirmed

Assassins Skull

Level: Regret (Level)

Directions: Immediately after the gondola ride following the battle with the Hunters, there will be a building with two turrets on it. Enter the building and turn to your left. There will be a box, jump on it. From there jump to the adjacent light fixture, then to the ledge. The ledge leads to the area with the two turrets. Once there use a Grenade Jump to get onto the roof area, then, using Crouch Jumps and grenade jumps, follow the right side perimeter of the building. Once you have gone as far as you can go you will find a small grassy area with two cloaked dancing Elites and the Assassins skull.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: All enemies in game are permanently cloaked. Marines can't see them, so they can't help at all!

Status: Confirmed

Famine Skull

Level: The Oracle (Level)

Directions: After you get off of the slowly decending elevator, you will come to a hallway where you see a handful of dead bodies. Continue into the next room, and you will be on the second floor of a room that has a lot of glass windows. When you enter this room, look to the right, and find the third pane of glass. It should be to the right of a wall that has some flood guts splattered on it. Shoot out this window, and the windows directly across the room. If you look below you, you will see a platform that has four tall posts. On the far side of the room there is a column that is right in between the two windows on the far side of the room. Turn on your active camo, and jump to the center platform. Jump on either of the posts on the far side of the platform and jump to the column between the windows. Make another jump through the window you shot out, and make a left. Walk all the way to the end and you'll find four Combat Form Elites convulsing on the floor, with the Famine skull in the middle of them.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: All weapons found on the ground have less ammo.

Status: Confirmed

Ghost Skull

Level: Uprising (Level)

Directions: After the outdoor area with all the ghosts and grunts, there is an L shaped room that is seen throughout the level. It is right after the armory room that is full of covenant and human weapons. Grenade jump using a Ghost up to the rafters and there it is.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Enemies take longer to notice you or react to your presence.

Status: Confirmed

Mythic Skull

Level: Sacred Icon (Level)

Directions: There is a semi outdoor area which has the same type of area right next to it. There is an Enforcer in front of each one. Go past this area and down the piston and you'll be in a vary dark and dank Flood infested area. There's a stack of 6 or 7 boxes as you enter the room. Use them to jump up to the landing above. There are a handful of alcoves on your right hand side. The skull is in the third alcove, floating above a dead human flood.

Difficulty: Legendary

Effect: Enemies have more health and shielding, and are therefore harder to kill. Note: health and shielding increase more as the enemies rise in rank. A red grunt will not gain as much health as a white grunt. Similarly, a blue elite will gain a small bit of health, but a white SpecOp elite will gain a ridiculous amount of both shielding and health, to the point that a Plasma Overcharge won't drop their shields even halfway.

Status: Confirmed

I Would Have Been Your Daddy Skull

Level: Outskirts (Level)

Difficulty: Legendary

Directions: Walk around on the roof tops and you will eventually get a special check point which triggers it. (See [1] (http://files4.bungie.org/cracking_the_egg.mov)) Picking it up will transport you to Sniper Ally armed only with a plasma pistol, and faced with seven waves of sword-wielding SpecOps Elites. There's one in the first wave, two in the second, ect. You have to kill all the Elites for the skull to take effect, if you die, the skull will have vanished and you will have to start at the begining. [2]. However, other users have acquired the skull with no apparent effect at all.

Effect: Characters, excluding the Jackals and the Hunters, say humorous lines.

Status: Confirmed.

Whuppopotamus

Level: ??

Difficulty: Legendary

Directions: ??

Effect: ??

Status: Unconfirmed.

Cowbell

Level: ??

Difficulty: Legendary

Directions: ??

Effect: ??

Status: Unconfirmed.

Tricks and Cheats

Scarab cannon

The Scarab's destructive main cannon is available as a handheld weapon. It is located in a hard-to-reach area in a level where the Scarab is present. To obtain this powerful weapon, the player must first arrive at the end of a long bridge in the level Metropolis . After defeating all the enemies except one Banshee, the player must lure the Banshee into a tunnel and board it as it reaches the other side. After commandeering the Banshee, the player must fly to a certain grouping of buildings. The Scarab gun resides in the middle of a bridge connecting them. Although the Scarab gun uses the Plasma Rifle model, it shoots a very large green plasma beam, identical to the one shot by the Scarab. This trick is most easily performed in Co-op mode, with a second player providing backup and assistance.

Pound on Keypad

In the Multiplayer map Zanzibar, there is a panel in the base that the player can activate. If it is activated, an error message is displayed that says "WAC A total FU exception has occurred at your location. All systems functionality will be terminated. *Press any key to power cycle the system. If system does not restart, scream at the top of your lungs and pound on keypad. *If you need to talk to a programmer, press any other key. Press any key to continue."

Sword Fly Trick

The player can leave the ordinary map boundaries by performing a "sword fly trick" or "sword cancel," in which the player presses the "R" and then the "X" button on his/her gamepad, while having his/her rocket launcher out and his/her sword equipped, while facing another player. The player will charge at but not slash the other player, allowing the sword user to fly over the other person and get over a boundary. Players could also use the "sword fly trick" to get past the boundaries in older versions, although this glitch has been removed from the game by an update from the game publisher, Bungie. The sword fly trick works by having one player already in the position the other player wishes to reach. While jumping, the player wanting to reach the position must have a rocket launcher with no ammunition and a sword. While targeting the jumping man, from the bottom of the cross-hair, the player must switch between the rocket and sword to obtain access to the new area. Two players can still use the "sword cancel" to gain access to new areas, or a technique called 'butterflying,' in which one player locks on with the sword by pressing "r" then quickly hitting "x." Another way to do it is by pressing the "B" and "X" buttons simultaneously with the index and middle fingers, jumping upon the other player's head and jumping again. The glitch can be done more quickly by adding "a" into the button combo. The player doing the cancelling is propelled up to the first, who jumps again. This method of play can be used to attain incredible heights, as long as the first person maintains his position on top of the other's head. Invisible walls on most levels stop the players from traveling 'out of the map,' but it can still lead to unfair play in objective games on maps such as Relic.

Super jumps can only be performed if video settings are NTSC or PAL 60 (found on the xbox dashboard under video settings, NTSC users do not have the option of PAL 60)

Super Jumps

Players have also discovered "super jumps," or bounces. Super jumps can be found on every map and are executed by crouching under something, releasing crouch so that the player is 'stuck' in crouched mode under the object, and jumping on one of the lines that make up the map's geometry, at which time the player will be propelled very high. The most appreciated theory as to why this works is that a player actually begins to fall out of the map, and the physics engine forces the player back up, hence the effect of being thrown up into the air. Players have discovered many of these jumps and there are possibly many more, especially in the newer maps.

One of these "super jumps" can be found in the map Zanzibar. This can be achieved by first going inside the base. In the area where the battle rifle is found, there are two windows with glass. The player breaks these windows by either throwing a grenade or hitting them until no glass is left. There then appears to be a glass shard in the wall at the window nearest right. By walking left to the edge of the window and crouching, the player should be able to get stuck into the wall. By jumping onto or near the line on the floor directly under the wall, the player can be propelled to the top of the base. According to several non-US players, the super bounce can only be used on Australian and American systems, and it is much easier to perform on American systems. There is another superbounce that allows the player to get on top of the wheel in the middle of the map. The player first crouches and walks into the corner of the wheel nearest the blue base, then turns around and jumps on the handrail near the ramp where 'Camp Froman' (where the defender's sniper rifle respawns) is located. When done correctly, the player is propelled into the air, allowing him/her to get onto the top of the wheel.

Another super bounce can be found on the map Coagulation. To perform this super bounce you must first travel to either red or blue base, and go up the ramp located in the back of the base. To your left you should be able to see a small hole. You must jump, then crouch while in the air to get into this hole (if you have trouble finding this, click here). Once you have managed to get in the hole, you must continue to hold the crouch button and press forward on the analog stick. After a few seconds, release the crouch button, and after a few more seconds press the "A" button to jump out of the hole. Just before landing on the ground you must release the analog stick. If you did this correctly when you hit the ground, you will spring into the sky.

Another great example of a super bounce can be found in burial mounds. To use it you must have one person stand in a corner of two rocks near the larrge metal structure and one person in a warthog driving it along a vague path towards the corner of the two rocks. The person in the warthog has to get up to full speed and ram the person in the corner head on.When the whart hog hits them it looks like the other person is vibrating.Keep driving fowards and they will suddenly launch up into the air. If the person being launched up into the air guides himself carefully you will encounter "upper burial mounds" which is a high up platform in which you can snipe from.

Elevator Grenade

A glitch involving grenades can be observed when you throw a plasma grenade into the air while riding an elevator. Instead of exploding, the grenade will keep bouncing until the elevator stops.

Rocket Launcher Jump

Another notable glitch involves the rocket launcher, an Overshield, and a battle shield. This is done on the new map "Relic". First of all, move one of the two tall blast shields found near the crashed transport vehicle, to beside the main structure. This is most easily done with a warthog. It is easiest if the shield faces away from the structure, and is about 20 feet away. Stand on the T-brace that supports the shield against the ground and shoot the top of the shield with the rocket launcher. This will kill you if you do not have an overshield. Theoretically, a teammate could shoot the shield if Friendly Fire was off. If done correctly, you will be launched very high into the air, and you can land on top of the structure if your aim is good (Note: You must be connection host to do this glitch). It is recommended that you bring a sniper rifle or the Oddball up with you, as you are essentially invincible. (this can also be performed using an upturned banshee)

Hackers

These glitches have become a major problem in Halo 2 multiplayer mode over Xbox Live. For example, players can use the aformentioned "super jump" on the level Zanzibar to jump to the top of the level out of reach of most players. Since the release of the downloadable maps, Halo 2 hackers have begun to mod the maps on the hard drives of their Xboxes to receive advantages, such as weapons that do more damage, flying ground vehicles, etc. (Hackers are users who edit the game with formerly illegally modified consoles -- modifying Xbox consoles is now legal in the United States.) This has become such a widespread problem in the "Matchmaking" system that Bungie was forced to resolve the problem by releasing auto-updates which ban hackers from the system and terminate their accounts. Bungie has banned thousands of players and is working to clean up the rest, earning in the process the moniker 'Banhammer.' Several sites offer a list of cheaters and hackers.

Although there used to be several ways to mod, Xbox Live and Bungie have collaborated to rectify the programming mistakes and prevent the game from being modded as much. They are also reinforcing much stricter punishments for cheaters, such as instant bans and longer suspensions. It is also known that if you log onto xbox live with softmods turned off but your maps are modded, you have about 6 hours before Bungie bans you with the trusty hammer.

Bibliography

• Cawood, Stephen. Halo 2 Hacks: Tips & Tools for Finishing the Fight. O'Reilly Media: 2005.
• Orlando, Greg. Secrets Of Halo 2. Triumph Books: 2005.

External links

• High Impact Halo – Site devoted to Halo stunts
• Halo 2 Skulls