Halo 3: ODST ViDoc: Road to Recon

The Halo 3: ODST ViDoc: Road to Recon is a Halo 3: ODST ViDoc released by Bungie that focuses on the Mythic maps, and tips and directions for those who are working on the Vidmaster Challenges.

Transcript

Text appears on screen:

HALO 3 ODST

ViDoc: ROAD TO RECON

The Halo 3 Mythic screen appears.

0:11 - Lars Bakken: "Hey everybody, ah, I'm Lars Bakken, senior designer at Bungie. I've got with us Eric Osborne, community dude; Chad Armstrong, another designer, and Dan Miller, designer."

0:22 - Chad Armstrong: "We're here to talk about the Road to Recon."

Background shows the Homepage of Bungie.net.

0:24 - Lars Bakken: "So there are seven achievements total. They're all Vidmaster-titled."

Background shows the Service Record of the player "reconplz02b". A row of 7 grey-colored achievement icons are seen.

0:29 - Chad Armstrong: "Getting all seven achievements, you'll be able to finally unlock Recon and, uh, leave me the hell alone."

The background changes:

LIGHTSWITCH

Get the rank of lieutenant in any playlist in the Halo 3 on the new EXP progression system.

0:35 - Chad Armstrong: "Alright, so let's get started, and we'll start with Lightswitch. This is definitely my territory."

Background switches to the Matchmaking lobby.

0:41 - Chad Armstrong: "Uh, Lightswitch is pretty straightforward, you have to get, uh, Lieutenant rank in any playlist in Halo 3 matchmaking."

Background shows a Matchmaking game on Epitaph or Epilogue.

0:47 - Lars Bakken: "How much, uh, EXP is that, Chad?"

0:49 - Chad Armstrong: "50 EXP, which means basically 50 victories, which means it's a matter of time and takes a couple of hours, at the most."

0:55 - Lars Bakken: "Even if you're terrible, you will get this achievement."

0:58 - Chad Armstrong: "Yes."

0:58 - Lars Bakken: "You just have to put the time into it."

Background shows the player getting the Spartan Officer Achievement.

0:59 - Chad Armstrong: "Definitely low-hanging fruit. As you get that little message right there. Ba-deep!"

1:04 - Lars Bakken: "Next one, Annual."

The background changes:

ANNUAL

Finish final level of Halo 3; 4-player Legendary Live co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.

1:05 - Lars Bakken: "Dan, you should kinda give us the lowdown on that."

1:07 - Dan Miller: "Yes."

1:08 - Lars Bakken: "This is your baby."

Screen shows the Halo 3 campaign lobby.

1:09 - Dan Miller: "So Annual, so how you get it, you fire up a Legendary game, four player co-op on Xbox LIVE, Iron Skull. Yes, and play through the game, please play through the level all the way to where you fight Guilty Spark."

Background shows gameplay of the level.

Lars, Dan, and Chad mutter "Spoilers" and laugh before continuing.

1:29 - Dan Miller: "Well if you don't know that... Once you fight Guilty Spark, come back out and at the left, underneath the stairwell is four Ghosts. Make sure you get all four Ghosts, and kinda drive it on up. Be very careful getting it..."

1:44 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah, actually the first part is really hard."

1:46 - Dan Miller: “Yeah the hardest part, hardest part is to get actually past this little area there. Uh, you drive it all the way up to the trench run..."

1:52 - Chad Armstrong: "And then straight clear to the end, right?"

1:54 Dan Miller: "And straight through to the end! Now keep in mind you're Iron, so you need be, you need to play pretty, uh, so play like a team-"

2:00 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah, if any one of the four guys dies, you will go back to the last checkpoint. So it could take you a while to get through this. I guess people are running this from what, 45 minutes to an hour and a half?"

2:10 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, something like that. I gotta say though, this is my favorite achievement. It's a cool one - so awesome."

2:15 - Dan Miller: "Did you see that Ghost in the cinematic?"

2:17 Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, yeah. Yeah we're awesome like that." {laughs}

The background changes:

7 on 7

Enter into a ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month.

2:19 - Lars Bakken: "So 7 on 7. This is another one we released with the DLC update for Halo 3."

Background switches to the Matchmaking lobby.

2:24 - Chad Armstrong: "7 on the 7th, this is another one of mine. Uh, another matchmaking achievement. Uh, basically, on the seventh day of any month, you have to get seven EXP, a total of seven EXP in any playlist."

Background shows a Matchmaking game on Heretic.

2:34 - Chad Armstrong: "That's not the same as going into a playlist you've been in before to get seven more EXP; you have to have a grand total of seven EXP in that playlist. To make that a bit easier, once a month, we have put a playlist up called 7 on the 7th."

2:48 - Lars Bakken: "It's the sixth on some months."

2:50 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, it depends what time-zone you're in."

2:52 - Lars Bakken: "No, it's the seventh every month."

Background shows the player getting the 7 on 7th achievement.

2:54 - Lars Bakken: "Boom. Beautiful."

The background changes:

BRAINPAN

Find all the hidden skulls on the Mythic maps. There's 6 of them.

2:55 - Chad Armstrong: "Brainpan!"

2:56 - Lars Bakken: "So Brainpan, sweet. This is another one we, uh, gave out with DLC."

Background shows a Forge game on Longshore, along with a picture of a skull with a number one (1) on it.

3:01 - Chad Armstrong: "One skull is hidden on every map."

The player, as a Forerunner Monitor, moves to the location of the Longshore skull.

3:03 - Lars Bakken: "There is one skull hidden on every map, that is correct."

3:05 - Dan Miller: "You just have to go in Forge, make sure you're in Forge 'cause they won't show up in regular games."

3:07 - Lars Bakken: "Yup, you have to be in Forge."

3:08 - Chad Armstrong: "Correct."

Background shows the player entering player mode, taking the skull as he fall, and entering back to Edit mode. Shows the player getting the Longshore Skull achievement.

Background shows a Forge game on Orbital, along with a picture of a skull with a number two (2) on it.

3:10 - Dan Miller: "Skull two is in a really cool spot."

3:13 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, this one's pretty good, this one actually took me a while to find. I also like that we never each other where we hide things."

The player, as a Monitor, moves to the location of the Orbital skull.

3:21 - Lars Bakken: "Well that's supremely important."

The player enters player mode, takes the skull, and returns to Edit mode. Shows the player getting the Orbital Skull achievement.

3:24 - Lars Bakken: "Like, I think Dan and I were the only ones..."

Background shows a Forge game on Assembly, along with a picture of a skull with a number three (3) on it.

3:26 - Lars Bakken: "Or maybe I was the only one whe knew where all of them were. They - the testers knew obviously, but..."

The player, as a Monitor, moves to the location of the Assembly skull.

3:30 - Chad Armstrong: "This one's pretty good too."

The player enters player mode, takes the skull, and returns to Edit mode. Shows the player getting the Assembly Skull achievement.

3:31 - Lars Bakken: "We try to keep that stuff close, close to our chests so, we don't want it to leak, we want the fans to find these things."

Background shows a Forge game on Citadel, along with a picture of a skull with a number four (4) on it.

3:38 - Chad Armstrong: "This one's just mean."

3:39 - Lars Bakken: "It is mean, I placed it there on purpose to make, uh, Shishka angry."

3:42 - Chad Armstrong: "And it worked."

3:43 - Lars Bakken: "Sweet."

3:44 - Chad Armstrong: "I'm angry just lookin' at this."

3:45 - Lars Bakken: "Citadel was mine, so was Longshore."

The player, as a Monitor, moves to the location of the Citadel skull.

3:47 - Dan Miller: "Oh that's where Citadel's one was."

3:48 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah."

3:49 - Dan Miller: "I, I don't care about anyone else's levels but my own."

The player enters player mode, takes the skull, and lands on the ground. Shows the player getting the Citadel Skull achievement.

3:51 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah of course, see that's, that's good Dan."

Background shows a Forge game on Heretic, along with a picture of a skull with a number five (5) on it.

3:53 - Eric Osborne: "Speaking of; this one's up in the air vent."

3:54 - Chad Armstrong "Dean Miller spent a whole of twenty seconds working on this one."

3:59 - Eric Osborne: "Phoned this one in."

The player, as a Monitor, moves to the location of the Heretic skull.

4:00 {'All laugh'}

The player enters player mode, takes the skull, and lands on the lower level. Shows the player getting the Heretic Skull achievement.

4:02 - Chad Armstrong: "True. So that one is on Midship in Halo 2."

Background shows a Forge game on Sandbox, along with a picture of a skull with a number six (6) on it.

4:04 - Lars Bakken: "I like this one the best actually, this one is awesome. This one makes up for it."

4:06 - Chad Armstrong: "Okay, I take it back, this is the greatest... skull... ever."

Background shows the player, in Edit mode, moves to the border, in front of the outer area. The player spawns a Tube Corner.

4:10 - Lars Bakken: "And look at, look at what this guy did. Tube corner. What a-"

The player enters the tunnel, and moves it as they moves toward the location of the Sandbox Skull.

4:14 - Chad Armstrong: "He's lame."

4:15 - Lars Bakken: "Well he's, you know what, it's not... it's ingenuity is what it is."

4:18 – Dan Miller: "Kids, don't cheat like this. Make the tunnel out there and, and do it right. Right? Don't, don't cheat."

4:21 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, spend three hours building a tunnel..."

4:26 - Dan Miller: "Yes, three hours, you know what?"

4:28 - Chad Armstrong: "What, what doesn't sound fun about building a tunnel and being shot by a laser?"

The player enters player mode, takes the skull and gets back into the tunnel while lasers continue to fire at his/her position. Shows the player getting the Sandbox Skull achievement.

4:32 - Eric Osborne: "If you don't wanna earn your Recon, go buy it online." {laughs}

4:34 - Dan Miller: "I will sell... Marty's."

The background changes:

CLASSIC

In ODST, finish any level solo on Legendary, on LIVE, with no shots fired or grenades thrown.

4:37 - Chad Armstrong: "Classic!"

4:38 - Lars Bakken: "Classic, oh so this is cool. This one, we're up to ODST now."

Background shows ODST's campaign lobby. Campaign level Uplift Reserve begins.

4:41 - Chad Armstrong: "So this one hearkens back to the original Vidmasters Challenge, a creed that people would take uh, playing Marathon back in the day, which basically meant uh, that you would never fire a gun, never use ammo-"

Background shows the player enters the Warthog.

4:54 - Eric Osborne: "Could you honk the horn in that?"

4:56 - Chad Armstrong: "There were no horns."

4:57 - Eric Osborne: "Oh!"

Background shows the player, avoiding all combat, skips through the first Wraith.

4:57 - Lars Bakken: "Right, so if you're in a vehicle, say the Warthog for example, do not uh, honk the horn, because that actually counts as firing a weapon, which we know is funny and seems strange."

The player exits the Warthog and enters a Ghost. Gameplay fast forwards.

5:07 - Chad Armstrong: "A little bug!"

5:08 - Dan Miller: "Horns are dangerous."

5:08 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah it's, it's a bug. But, as you can see in the video the guy's using the Ghost and he's uh, boosting through which is totally fine."

5:14 - Chad Armstrong: "Boosting, boosting is totally fine, kind of wussy, but totally fine."

5:17 - Lars Bakken: "Yeah it's kind of a wuss way to get through, and get the achievement, but you know, points is points."

The player finishes the level.

The background changes:

ENDURE

In ODST Firefight, on any mission, pass the 4th set on 4-player Heroic LIVE co-op.

5:24 - Lars Bakken: "Endure! So this one is pretty interesting. Um, this probably our hardest achievement, I would say of the Vidmasters?"

Background shows the Firefight lobby.

5:30 - Chad Armstrong: "Probably yeah, it certainly earns its name, I'd say. The goal here basically..."

Background shows that the Firefight match starts, followed by gameplay footages.

5:35 - Lars Bakken: "Get through the fourth set."

5:37 - Chad Armstrong: "Get through the fourth set. Get to set five."

5:40 - Lars Bakken: "We should give a little back story because uh, originally Endure was on Legendary required..."

5:46 - Chad Armstrong: "It's Heroic now."

5:47 - Lars Bakken: "And uh, get to set seven, or rather through set seven. Aaaand..."

5:53 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, as opposed to through set four."

5:54 - Lars Bakken: "We, quickly realized that we had to bring it down a little bit, otherwise no one would ever be able to get Recon, and we wanted, you know what we wanted to give people Recon."

6:03 - Chad Armstrong: "Yeah, we do."

6:04 - Dan Miller: "I don't."

6:05 - Chad Armstrong: "Well..."

6:06 - Lars Bakken: "I did."

Background shows the player getting the Endure Achievement.

6:07 - Chad Armstrong: "I'm just tired of the Live inbox messages."

The background changes:

DEJA VU

Complete Coastal Highway 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and no Hog or Scorpion.

6:09 - Lars Bakken: "Deja Vu. This is another Dean Miller special."

Shows the ODST campaign lobby.

6:12 - Dan Miller: "How this one works is the same setup where you have to have four-player, over Live, Legendary, and Iron skull."

6:19 - Chad Armstrong: "The last level of the game."

Campaign level Coastal Highway begins, followed by gameplay footages.

6:21 - Dan Miller: "The last level of the game, Highway, uh Coastal Highway. The last thing you need to do, is you need to not get in a vehicle. More specifically do not, you cannot get in a Scorpion or any type of Warthog, meaning Troop Hog, Gauss Hog, you can't use any of those, and you have to finish the level without..."

6:36 - Chad Armstrong: "But Dean, what does that leave me?"

Background shows the players entering the first tunnel, revealing 2 Mongooses, and 4 Rocket Launchers. They mount on the vehicles. Gameplay fast forwards.

6:39 - Dan Miller: "It leaves you the delicious secret area. If you do not get in any vehicle and you run all the way to the first lower level you'll find two Mongeese and four loaded rocket launchers. And these, when I say loaded..."

6:52 - Lars Bakken: "They are loaded."

6:53 - Dan Miller: "A thousand rockets. Keep in mind you're still very vulnerable, you're playing Legendary still..."

6:58 - Lars Bakken: "And you're playing Iron.

6:59 - Dan Miller: "And, and Iron skull."

7:00 - Lars Bakken: "And Iron skull's on, so just like the Annual, if one of the players dies you will go back to your last checkpoint, so be careful. Um, this can probably take anywhere from forty-five minutes to almost two hours as well, depending how..."

Background shows the players approaching the Uplift Nature Reserve entrance. Gameplay footage continues.

7:14 - Chad Armstrong: "How slow you go."

7:14 - Lars Bakken: "How slow you go, or how careful your team is."

7:16 - Chad Armstrong: "You know fortunately Coastal Highway is an easy, you know, just a walk in the park."

7:19 - Lars Bakken: "Easy on Legendary." {laughs}

7:22 - Dan Miller: "At least Buck's not doing the shooting here, right?" {laughs}

7:25 - Lars Bakken: "Oh, snap."

7:27 - Dan Miller: "Achievement unlocked."

Background switches back to the campaign lobby and shows the player getting the Deja Vu Achievement.

7:28 - Lars Bakken: "That seemed, that seemed pretty easy."

Background switches to the Homepage of Bungie.net.

7:30 - Eric Osborne: "And that's it right? That's all seven of them. You go to Bungie.net, make sure you've got a profile linked to your gamertag. Go into your service record."

Background shows the Service Record of player "reconplz02b", the achievements icons all lit up.

7:37 - Chad Armstrong: "It's a huge button."

7:38 - Eric Osborne: "You push the button and..."

7:39 - Dan Miller: "It'll unlock for ya."

The cursor presses the "unlock my recon" button.

7:40 - Chad Armstrong: "And then please leave my Xbox Live inbox alone. Please."

7:44 - Eric Osborne: "There's your Vidmaster Challenge walkthrough."

7:47 - Lars Bakken: "Road to Recon!"

Background fades into the Halo 3: ODST logo. Followed by Bungie and then Microsoft Game Studios.

7:48 - Chad Armstrong: "Please send all your feelings about Recon to erkthered... {hums nonsensically}

Video ends with the Xbox 360 logo being shown on the screen.

Trivia

• Two of the gamertags of the players shown on the ViDoc are well-known phrases that associates with Bungie and the Halo series, being "i can haz recon" and "Phrogblast".
• "Monkey Gnuts" and "Tasty Primate" are the secondary gamertags of Joseph Tung and Eric Osborne, respectively.