Podtacular Episode 9

September 18, 2005
82 minutes, 28 seconds
(sorry for all the delays but I’m back, and its done! even better with the intro. what’s with the hollow sounding audio?)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Spelchek has his own gamertag “spelchek”, his friend list may be full so be considerate.
• Decidus is the co-host for this show.
• If you don’t have a clan invite, go open your eyes! there are several places to place your “requests”, if you are blind get your dog to go here and leave your info.
• Clan Rules:

• No De-Ranking.
• No Cheating.
• No Modding.
• No Sexual Comments.
• No Racist Comments.
• No Excessive Cursing.
• No being a complete loser (note this is subject to dispute, so talk to a staff member for more information on how you may, or may not, be being an ass.)

• Halo “Flood Relief” shirts are kewl, help out Katrina victims, and get a great shirt too!
• Inter-Clan Tournament is being set up by Scotty Sewell, sign up here.
• Doing this Podcast costs money, so if you can it would be just great if you could support us at our Paypal link on the Podtacular home page. What’s a buck? Not much.
• The voice mail number is for one thing: VOICE MAIL. There is not any one on the other side!
• The Podtacular.com web site is coming soon, hold on.
• Liquid Enforcer, and Paradox, are new members to the Podtacular team, they work on the web site.

WEB RESOURCES

• Halo 2 Coloring Book – For all those nights when you’re home alone with no friends.
• HBO - There’s the site. Go look for Sticky Style. [I’m not doing all the work for you].
• Spread shirt site – For halo fans, get some custom shirts based off of your halo 2 emblem.
• Halo2customs.com – Customs site.
• Halo2gametypes.com – Game types site.
• Master Chief Konfabulator widget! ...widget

GENERAL TIPS

• Jump through teleporters to avoid being taken out my a teleporter camper.
• You can block a plasma pistol over charge shot by dropping a your second weapon if you are dual wielding.

SNIPING GUIDE

SECTION 1: Sniping

This is purely what you can do with both snipers. I feel that Sniping is an important part of the Halo series, so you will need to get as good as you can with it.

PART 1: Patience Patience, Patience, Patience, Patience! If you cannot wait, you cannot kill. If you rush into a shot, you may miss, be spotted, and targeted. The only appropriate time to rush a shot is when facing another sniper. If he’s turned away from you, take time to set up a shot, if he’s facing you, that’s when you duck, jump, zigzag, all the while trying to get a head shot. But DON’T shoot until you’re sure you’ve got him.

PART 2: Head Shots You will hear this everywhere. I will say it too.
Headshots are the most important thing you can do in Halo. Apart from saving your ammo, it may also save your life. People usually don’t have a chance even if you’re getting body shots, but two flashes/trails are actually pretty easy to spot. A single one is much harder to spot. Another sniper will have a much harder time tracking you off one flash/trail then two. Halo 2 headshots ARE easier then Halo headshots. Now, when and how to pull one off? One thing, Elites are easier to get from the front then the back. The head is Hunchback style, so there is little poking up from its back. On the other hand, from the front, you have a clear shot. So, what do you do? Wait for your target to face you. Then blow his head off. A Spartan, on the other hand is equally showing his head from the front and back. So, in the case of a Spartan, take time to shoot and shoot WHENEVER ready.

PART 3: Moving Don’t camp. Apart from grenades being able to find you pretty easy, you will also have a problem with other snipers. If they figure they can take their time on you, you will be taken out without much problem. MOVE MOVE MOVE! Regardless if you missed, or hit, MOVE! The flash will attract attention. If you missed, zigzag, duck, and jump until you finish the job, then double time it out of there. If you killed him, move to a different spot and resume your dirty work. I can’t tell you this enough. Unless you have a death wish, you will be taken out and your teammates will be out for your blood.

PART 4: Be Original Don’t go to well known sniper spots like the fort on Ascension, the tower on Coagulation and the roof on Zanzibar. Move, create, and adapt. If they found your favorite hiding spot, then you’re in trouble. NOT because you have no place to snipe from, BUT because you allowed yourself to have a favorite spot. That’s suicide. Go somewhere unexpected, somewhere people will think it’s suicide to snipe from so they DON’T check there. For example, stand on a hill in Coagulation instead of going into the caves.

PART 5: Sniper to Sniper Many people have this problem. I had this problem, THE FIRST TWO WEEKS the game was out. The way to overcome this problem is snipe on every game, and make custom games where it’s only snipers. This will raise your ability to kill another sniper considerably. If you are looking for specific tips, I guess I’ll help you. Get him in the body. NOT head. This is the only time I’ll tell you to do this. Because if you’re hit, you’ll still have your general aim. Two quick body shots will take him out. Don’t let him take you out. Duck, zigzag, circle around, jump (Yes, actually jump), and run diagonally. Be unpredictable.

Sniper Training at home alone with no connection… (actually this works ok for any tricky range training really, sticking battle rifle, carbine etc.)... you need two controllers and some tape, set up a system link game pretty much where ever you want… but I’ve found Coagulation is best for this. Take player twos controller tape the left thumb stick slightly forward and the right thumb stick slightly left or right… player two will now permanently run around the screen in large circles, rarely getting stuck in one place.

Your Color Can Be Camo: Tan and Steel are two good options to be since in most maps your armor blends in more. This may not seem important but it really is when people make a quick glance at your position and they mistake you for a rock on Ascension instead of sniping you because you are white as a ghost.

Making the Enemy Believe a Lie: Known as Deception. As you guys mentioned you could pretend to be the other team by yelling, “There’s a blue in front of the base!” in the Burial Mounds base while your bomber is sneaking in the back. Another tactic is throwing a grenade to make the enemy believe your location is somewhere else and then assassinating him or killing him some other way while he’s looking for your position which you’re not or never even been in. You guys mentioned this but it was one of my favorite tactics since Halo 1. Weapon Feinting. Showing off to everyone your weak old Magnum then you are charged by the poor victims whom are blasted by your hidden rocket before they know what happened. Hiding your weapon is very effective as you appear weaker meanwhile you actually have a better weapon hidden.

Know Who You Play With: I mean this in two ways. Firstly, I mean know the people you are playing with like make sure they are people on your Friends list. This is the best way to prevent quitting and deleveling on your team. Secondly and related to the first, is knowing what your teammates usually do. This usually makes you win more games, and very rarely does someone meet up randomly with a teammate from 3 days ago with whom you may have developed some teamwork skills with. That’s why you play with friends.

Active Camouflage: Some players get Camo then run out on the bright white snow of Containment prancing around like they’re totally not seen. Actually you may even be seen more then without it. Why is this? It’s because you’re in the light and the clearness of the Camo and the light kind of make you appear to be this bright figure walking along. That’s why on maps like this and areas of maps like this, Camo is not the best in these spots, compared to how hidden you are in the shadows of Warlock. From this comparison I learned that if you throw a bunch of grenades or shoot a bunch of rockets into a corner or somewhere else and stay in where the shots hit you are more hidden because its darker like in shadows.

NEWBIE TIPS

• I have a newbie tip. Since I’ve joined Podtacular 4 I’ve been leveling up my Team Skirmish level. I’ve been in a bunch of shotgun CTF matches and I’ve noticed that newbies don’t know about the shotgun blast to immediate melee attack. If you pull the trigger with the shotgun then immediately hit a melee attack you’ll kill your opponent quicker than if you just fire the shotgun twice.
• Newbie tip shoot anything that doesn’t have an icon over it’s head.
• When u spawn, go to the top tower or someplace where u can see a lot of the map and wait until some one has fired a shot, then follow the trail of smoke or plasma and snipe the person who fired it b4 the other guy does.
• Noobs should listen to Podtacular. If they don’t, and they get good out of a miracle, they’re oldbie newbies. Without podtacular, you are not good. It’s a fact of life.

MAP OF THE WEEK: RELIC

• Hey guys. I have a nice tip for Relic, since sniper owns on the map. Once you have the sniper, get on the base and near the tip where the flag is. There should be some dividers that you can jump onto. If you jump onto the one farthest toward the tip of the base right under the giant tower that lights up when you open the teleporter, you can see the whole back of the base and the entire beach. This is useful because NOBODY ever looks up there (if you stay in the shadows), and you can hit people charging your base or spawning on the beach. This tactic is especially good for one flag assault or CTF if you’re defending, even though there’s a limited view.
• When held down by a snipe-happy team best response is to man the ghost and warthog. You can drive either up the backside of the mountain (around the crashed dropship) and say “hello” to anyone who managed the oversight of expecting only a frontal assault.
• I’m going “ot” give you guys some assault and CTF tips. I you’re on defense on assault, open the teleporter and have everybody go through it except for one guy. He can go get the ghost and rockets and stop there warthog. All of your other players should just use whatever weapons they get to stop the bomb on the beach and keep it there. This can also surprise there sniper. It doesn’t work to well in CTF, but it can sometimes be devastating.
• MasonC2K says: I thought I’d include some tips and tricks for this weeks map.

• Use a Warthog to launch someone to the flag/assault spot. This takes practice and lots of it. One player stands at a certain spot on the offensive side of the rock the teleporter is on and another drives the Warthog into him. This sends the player flying. Done properly, the player can land right on top of the flag/assault spot on the Relic base. This can be executed in as little as 20 seconds in to the game/round.
• The teleporter doesn’t have to be open to be used. Get on top of it and crouch jump. It works from both sides of the teleporter. [actually that’s wrong {i think} bungie fixed it with the last patch]

• I have a hint for this map. It works really well in oddball, slayer, and some others. Hint: Go straight for the rocket launcher. The go pick up the sword. After that go on top of the building (underneath the main tower) and get onto the middle wall- you will see a hallway on both sides of you. If you go far enough down the wall, a sniper cannot see you if they are looking from the direction of the crashed ship. Anyone that comes on one of the side halls, you can easily ambush. If the are medium range, bombard them with a rocket or two. Close range, a sword, far range, use a grenade to make them pay attention to dodge it, then take cover. A well planted grenade will kill them or create a good enough smoke screen for you to find a hiding place. As they near, you, rocket them or slice them.
• Snipers on this map control the tide of the war, be sure that you have a skilled trigger finger if your going to be holding the sniper rifle and know the best locations to snipe from. Sniping from the “sniper tower” and the rock formations at the pelican are spots that are bound to have you looking at your corpse in no time. If you start on defense, its a little difficult to get to the sniper and back to cover without taking some kind of fire either from the other sniper or from some battle rifles. Take the ghost that spawns at the back of the base (you will spawn there too, don’t fret) and make haste for the beam rifle. Not only will this provide some cover, it will cut your commute in half if not more. Some spots that I try to get to while sniping are the beach teleport and at the back of the defense base. Every few kills or so I try to switch sniping spots. I never try to stay in the same place for too long. There’s a trick that you can do on this map for objective games like CTF and Assault where you can disable the teleports. Its not considered cheating since neither you nor the other team can use them. Its just taking the teleports out of the picture. To do this trick, there must be multiple and timed rounds. When there are 10 seconds left in the round, get ready to hit the switch for the teleport. Once the round has ended and your screen has gone dark, hit the switch. At the beginning of the next round, the teleports will appear to be open, but they will not work. You can walk right through them without teleporting. If your the connection host, you will see no change. The teleports will appear to be closed. But if you aren’t the connection host, they will appear to be open. I will occasionally do this trick if we are winning by a lot or we are being modded. Otherwise, I like to just play. But I have seen many a battle where this has happened and the outcome was outrageous.
• Even though most will not agree the teleporter can be used as an advantage for the defensive team in flag and assault game types. Once you spawn to the map coordinate one of your team mates to take the ghost and head for the rockets..once the rockets are in hand have that guy go back into the ghost and make his way for the teleporter. Open up the teleporter and have him sit inside the room as the offensive team will try to use the teleporter as a quicker route to the defensive base. Also have the rocket launcher guy hold either a Battle Rifle or a Carbine and he can go between the two teleport points to cause havoc on both sides of the map. This also works well in slayer matches (especially in snipers) to switch between the two teleport points to avoid enemy fire. By doing this you basically control both ends of the map. In both assault/flag variants The teleporter is a good way to lure enemies but it usually doesn’t work for very long as the opposing team will catch on. Also in slayer/sniper variants the teleporter can be used for quick moving through both ends of the map. Since most spawn points are on either end if keep going between the two teleporters it’s an easy way to rack up some kills. In my use of this tactic it takes most people awhile to catch on that your using the teleporter. Other tips(some might of been used already) On defense in bomb/flag types have your player who wields the sword hide in the corridor/hall that leads to the flag/bomb point. Even though after the first time people come up they usually tell their teammates you are there but you can still catch them off guard as they are normally thinking about either arming the bomb or throwing the flag. Remember on offence not to forget about the human sniper (i think everyone’s said this) but all to often i’ve worried to much about the bomb/flag rather than the sniper in the middle of a game and our team ends up losing it. The game will get quite boring as the defensive team snipes you time after time so always have the human in mind. Who has it, where it is, and if who ever has it dies hurry your ass over there before the other team picks it up. Also on offence the Warthog is is very useful but never at the beginning of the game. It usually gets knocked out by a rocket if you use it in the beginning so gradually make your way to the base until either the other team has lost the rocket or runs out of ammo then the Warthog can be useful. Take it up from the ramp in the back (and hopefully by then the other team wont have both snipers) and run it through the hall till you come to the bomb point. Don’t forget not to park the warthog close to the bomb point as the other team will just throw grenades and blow the warthog up which will probably kill anyone else around it. The one time that we armed the bomb on this map we tied this and it worked every well. One more (man this is long) Snipers can be overrated on this map. Most people fear and worry too much about them but a few well placed Battle rifle rounds with good movement can easily counter an enemy sniper. Use the rocks and other things to help you for cover (and hope the sword guy isn’t near). Also grenades will be useful against a sniper. If you can get two people together with the Battle rifles and good movement a sniper can basically do nothing against you.
• The giant construct in Relic makes for a formidable base in One Flag CTF. In fact, that is what Relic was designed for. The geometry of the map changes with the game type, in One Flag CTF the ramps on the side of the “Relic” compound are removed and teams will funnel through the teleporter or use the Warthog or creep along the beaches to get into the base. The flag is located at the top of the relic compound and can be grabbed and tossed down easily to a waiting warthog. Take notice of the lengthy two-minute respawn time on the Rocket Launcher on Relic. When a team controls a Rocket Launcher and a vehicle, the opposition will be in for a rough attempt. The ghost can be used to quickly grab the Beam Rifle near the lift tower. Sniping from the lift tower seems like a good idea, but it’s a pretty predictable location to snipe from. When defending the flag, the opposition will have to make a long walk up the relic construct to get to the flag. If you are aware of where the attacking team’s Sniper Rifle is, placing the Beam Rifle up in the Relic construct (near the flag) covering the entire base will give the defending team an advantage. Like most CTF One Flag maps, the onus here is on the attacking team to break the stranglehold on the power weapons. The attackers will get a Sniper Rifle and the Warthog, the defenders a Beam Rifle, Ghost, Sword and likely the Rocket Launcher. The Sword user should stay in the base in objective games, closing off the teleporter or crouched underneath the base, waiting for the other team to move in, likely leaving their rear exposed. Once those weapons change hands in one team’s favor, that team should win. In Slayer game types, because of the rarity of the Rocket Launcher, the warthog and ghost are team’s best friend or worst enemy. If a team gets the Rocket Launcher and the Warthog, the opposition is in for a terrible time. If you lose the Rocket Launcher/Warthog/Ghost, a team’s best bet is going to be in the hands of a sniper, who will have to pick off the vehicles while his teammates pray. The terrain in Relic is advantageous to snipers and mid-range players because of the undulations in the ground, however those same undulations in the terrain make players plenty vulnerable to fire from elevated snipers.
• On defense of CTF or Bomb games, get the ghost and drive it up into the base. Park yourself under the arch right before you get to the flag and look back towards the rear of the base. If you are directly under the arch, for some reason the arch disappears and you have an unobstructed view of the other team approaching. Then, just sit there and call out where you see the other team coming from and let your guys take them out. Use the ghost as the last line of defense. Of course, one of your guys should have the rockets, or this becomes a little less effective. The only problem comes when everyone dies and then you’re chasing down a flag carrier on foot, which is nearly impossible on this map because it’s so huge and you respawn so far away
• If a few enemies are in the covie sniper tower, get the rockets and shoot 2 at the tower part from a point where you’re facing the water. If the blast doesn’t kill them all, the sniper tower will usually fall off the lift, launching the rest of them into the water. This also prevents them from getting back in the tower.

CUSTOM GAMES

Rocket Man: The main point isn’t to kill, but to do some flips. Let me explain. First, you need warthogs, rockets and overshield. One person needs to drive, while the party leader or connection host or whatever rides in the passenger seat. The driver drives off a hill or ramp, and the passenger has shoot a rocket at the side of the hog while going off a jump. The idea is to get as many flips as possible. My record stands at 6. Good on Coagulation, Relic, and Headlong, but it works on any map with a couple of good jumps.

Texas Hold ‘em: Here is what you need:

• 1 round
• Score to win 3 minutes
• Respawn time 3 seconds
• Moving hill off
• Normal shields
• Motion tracker on
• Team ON
• Friendly Fire ON
• Uncontested Hill ON
• Starting Weapon: Shotgun
• Starting Grenades ON
• Weapons on Map: Shotguns
• Weapon Respawn: Double Time
• Grenades on Map ON
• Overshield OFF
• Active Camo OFF

My advice: Do not play this game with less than 12 people. When you do get around 12 people don’t do teams of 6, instead do smaller teams like teams of three. This is a crazy game. Best played on lockout or ascension.

Joust:

The maps:

• Coagulation (preferred)
• Headlong (2nd best)
• Containment and Waterworks

The settings:

• Slayer
• no shields
• extra damage
• weapons on map: snipers
• primary weapon: human sniper
• secondary weapon: shotgun
• 25pts to win
• vehicles on map: lots of warthogs

The rules:

• 2 people per team (at least 3 teams)
• no beat-downs
• and you can only fire a weapon when you are in the passenger side of a warthog!

Resident Evil: When you think of Resident Evil, you most likely think of the endless horde of zombies that come at you from all different angles. This is exactly like that, well almost. This game is mostly like Dawn of the Dead, except instead of holding out for fifteen minutes, you have fifteen minutes to detonate a bomb inside the zombie stronghold. As always, you start out with 1 to 3 players as zombies, and the rest as humans. If your a red and die by a green, you switch over to green. Zanzibar works with any number of players. If you have at least 4 to 9 players,you should stick with zanzibar and foundation, while if you have 10 to 16 players, you should go to headlong for a royal rumble. Remember, reds can only use magnums and shotguns while zombies are stuck with energy swords.

Prisoner Escape: [also known as Crossing the Boarder]
Based on slayer 1 round 1 life 2 teams blue team has max 2 people red has as many as u want Played on Zanzibar Blue team goes to the base with the gate Red team stands in the above the beach sniper snipers only 10 minute game how it works: The blue team gets inside the base with the gate. When the timer gets to 9 minutes you open the gate everyone has to walk out of the gate and try to get to the sea, while the other teams tries to snipe the blue team. Tip for the game: This is all to do with teamwork.

Melee Ball: [brought to you by Ganai.com]
This is a very fun mode to play and can get really crazy. The objective here is to make it easy as possible to make a ball carrier get a one hit melee kill. And to make it as hard as possible for someone to shoot or grenade another person. Make sure that everyone is meleeing only so this does not turn into a game of Oddball! Okay here is the layout:

• Mode: Oddball (3 Oddballs)
• Kill Limit: 15
• Players Recommended: 4-16
• Map(s): Lockout, Foundation, Ivory Tower, Midship
• Time to win: 1 minute
• Oddball Carrier has Massive Damage, and Oddball Carrier is set to Run Faster Than Normal
• Extra Damage
• No Shields
• Primary Weapon: Plasma Pistol
• Secondary Weapon: Plasma Pistol
• No Weapons on Map
• No Respawning of Weapons
• No Grenades
• Note: You could even make it so that there are only 3 players, and each player has only 1 life. That would make things quite hectic and intense!

Michael Jackson: [also from Ganai.com]
the Juggernaut is Michael and everyone else is a kid. The children have to
hide from Michael, who has to go around singing “OWWWW!” and “CHA MONE!” The
last guy gets to kill and sue Michael…

• Mode: Slayer
• Players Recommended: 4-16
• Map(s): Lockout
• Primary Weapon: Magnum
• Secondary Weapon: Covenant Energy Sword
• No Grenades
• No Weapons On Map
• No Shields
• No Camo
• No Overshield
• No Time Limit

Warthog Wars: [sigh] This game
type forces you to really use the warthogs because shotguns/needlers/plasma
pistols can’t do anything from far away so your are either going to have to
get really close to the enemy warthog or get a new warthog. This game is different
from “Hoggin
Boggin” because the emphasis here is to use the Warthog guns, and not just
ram people. It’s a blast!

• Mode: Team Slayer
• Kill Limit: 50 or higher
• Players Recommended: 4-16
• Map(s): Coagulation, Water Works, Headlong
• Primary Weapon: Needler/Plasma Pistol/Shotgun
• Secondary Weapon: None
• Vehicles: Warthog, Gauss Warthog
• Turrets: Any
• Note: You can also do this with other vehicles. For example, you could have “Spectre Wars” with the same setup. Or it could be “Ghost Wars” if you change the Primary Weapon to Battle Rifle or Carbine.

4 Flags: [...] It’s played on Foundation with Battle Rifles, get as many even teams of players as you can. (16/ 4 groups of 4 is the best) Have the only weapon be the battle rifle, you can turn shields on or off, I like them off. And put on when you touch the flag it respawns. It’s really fun if you have a lot of people.

• Mode: Capture the Flag
• Score Limit: First to 3
• Players Recommended: 4-16
• Map(s): Foundation
• Primary Weapon: Battle Rifles
• Secondary Weapon: None
• No Shields

VOICE MAIL

Decidus gives us another kool rant, go listen. [also not all modders are evil bastards… modding is {outside of halo 2 matchmaking} a great way to increase your experience. There are a lot of Halo 2 modders that only do it for fun, and crazy lan parties/customs on XBL.]

To get on the show, listener voicemail is 206-888-HALO. You can email us mp3’s up to 3 minutes long.

You can say what ever you want, but if you want to be heard by the masses here are some general rules for you to follow:

• You have 5 minutes to Leave one message, say everything you want to say in that one message. Other messages will be ignored, and deleted.
• Keep your messages short and to the point.
• Leave your nickname or gamertag.

Drakecake: get a sniper rifle on relic, and cover the other sniper rifle so no enemies get it.

Daniel Goodman (aka Danl251): on relic, that little sniper tower [covie sniper tower] is really a bad place to camp with your sniper because you are out in the open, a better place is behind the mound where the crashed drop ship is. you can hide while defending or something you can sit on the divider to reduce your enemies visibility of you. snipers are very powerful on this map, don’t hide in obvious places. [make a note to laugh at spelchek] HalcionHeron: [hahaha go listen to this one].

SHOUTOUTS

• Mendoza68
• effrum117 (10 bucks!!!)
• Spelchek [not]
• Freak in a Box aka DragonBreath900
• MajorPayne0628
• and all Mac users
• Big thanks to Fooluaintblack, and canttouchthis73, MasonC2K, Acheria and Joe, OnlySmokeZero and Spelchek for making this show happen.

WRAP UP

We appreciate our staff! Scotty Sewell is setting up a sweet tournament so even if you play for fun, join in. Email your Tips, Strategies, Game Types, Segments, and Web Resources to podtacular@gmail.com. Be sure to send us your gamertag too because we may put it on the show! Call in segments, tips and custom games to 206-888-HALO. Even better: if you have a mic, send us an MP3!

TRANSMISSION TERMINATED