Halo: Combat Evolved Guide

Legendary in Halo: Combat Evolved is a pretty tough challenge, but since it's a pretty old game, people have found out almost everything about the game. Since the Silent Cartographer is one of the most famous levels in the game, it's also the level that people have found some of the most skips on. If you utilize these skips, you'll minimize the firefights you'll have to get in.

However, should you get into a firefight, you should keep a few things in mind. Plasma Pistols are indispensable in Halo 1 legendary. Their charge shot can take down a shield instantly leaving you free to shoot them in the head with a pistol. If you're at a long-range and can't reliably hit them with a charge shot, have no fear.  Halo CE in particular has an unusually strong plasma pistol, with it firing as fast as you can pull the trigger and also having completely perfect accuracy and going to the center of your reticle no matter what. Firing the plasma pistol as fast as possible will easily out damage your charge shot in the long run. That, along with the abundance of Plasma Pistols that are available, makes it one of the best weapons on legendary.

Back to the Silent Cartographer, though. The very first thing you want to do after the fantastic opening sequence is immediately turn around and run the other way. That's right, you're more than likely leaving all the marines to die.

Keep running until you come across a Warthog. If you want, you can drive back to the landing zone to see if any marines are still alive. This isn't necessary, but it can make the next part easier. Next, you'll want to actually drive to the area you're supposed to go.

Here, you have two different strategies. The first strategy is that you just grab the overshield, then simply drive indoors with your Warthog and down to the second level. Here, the door is supposed to lock right in front of you, leading you on a lengthy sidequest to unlock it. However, you brought your hog down here for a reason. You'll want to drive down the ramp then sharply swerve right once you've passed the middle of the room, and get out while you're swerving. If you did it right, you'll fly out of your hog right through the door before it closes. You'll find yourself face to face with the Gold Elite, but it won't swing because it's scripted to stand still.

The second strategy involves doing all of the above, but taking the time to drive around and eliminating all the enemies in the area and then picking up the overshield after they're all dead.. The main reason you'd want to do this is because the checkpoint before the locked door is hard to trigger with enemies around - you'd have to totally nail the turn indoors. Killing all the enemies will guarantee that the checkpoint will trigger, making it easy for you to continuously try again if you mess the skip up.

After you kill the gold elite, turn right and you should hit a cutscene where the Chief will kick something into the chasm. Now turn around and look to your left. You should see a series of platforms - drop down to the one with a ramp.

This is why you grabbed the overshield. In Halo 1, crouching right before you land will give you less damage. With your overshield, you should have enough health to make it to the bottom and hit the cartographer.

Getting back up a is a little more complicated - there's a triple grenade trick that takes an insane amount of practice. It's nearly impossible to describe, so if you're interested, look up a video! You can simply make your way up normally and be done with the level.