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First Recon

Vidmaster may have been conceived in concert with Marathon, but it hasn’t been home in over twenty-five years. I doubt anyone could expect the series would get a reboot in 2023.

From UESC to UNSC and back again, the eponymous Vids have been on ice for quite some time– But I doubt the spirit of Vidmaster went anywhere as Bungie shot into superstardom with Halo back in 2001.

In fact, Bungie’s shift to Xbox in an era before widespread broadband internet access leaves Halo’s campaigns more replayable than Marathon ever was. Long before matchmaking, single player had to pull weight– And Halo is strong.

High on its list of game industry firsts, Halo has incredible AI. It’s fair, clever, and just unpredictable enough to make replaying the game a joy– Even on Legendary. I’d argue Halo 1 is so fun to master because the repetition comes easy. Fights never seem to play out the same way twice, and player railroading is kept to an absolute minimum.

Enter Infinity

Ironically– Bungie’s shooters weren’t always this open ended, nor were they as honest. Where Halo’s levels feign linearity, Grandad Marathon is abrasively complex and utterly malevolent. Staying in character, Marathon’s original Vidmaster Challenge reads like psychotic dogma.

By all accounts, Marathon is player-inhospitable. The series’ capstone, Infinity, is especially brutal: A 100-Meter, 27 Map Freestyle through molten rock and time itself. Marathon 3’s narrative is so convoluted, so impregnable, that its lead writer actually forgot what most of it was about in the years since. The gameplay doesn’t fare much better.

After Infinity, Bungie wasn’t supposed to make another Marathon… Why did Halo 2 wear its skin?

Despite maximum corporate meddling and a chunk of their staff leaving for Double Aught, Bungie’s Halo sequel released just as angry and caustic as Marathon. Incinerating pressure under an immovable deadline warped Halo 2 into another violent concept album. If it hadn’t come together, the game could’ve gone on to kill two companies.

In lockstep with “Total Carnage,” Halo 2’s Legendary Difficulty isn’t surmounted, only survived. For newcomers, the game is a seven hour flogging. Mastering Halo 2 doesn’t make you better, it just makes you numb. In this business, I suppose all roads lead to Infinity.

E.O.D.

From the jump, Halo 2 sets a crushing pace. In the game’s first real mission, we take control seconds before a horde of Covenant boarders sack Cairo Station. On Legendary even the breached bulkhead door can kill you.

Securing Cairo is a slaughter, and by the map’s second encounter the stakes are raised. Halo 2 may slowly reintroduce the Covenant bestiary, but who’s clocked in for the Cairo Raid are more numerous and dangerous than ever. It only gets louder and harder from here on. You could probably make a sheet rope back down to Earth with all the corpses.

To make matters worse, a squad of Elites have brought a bomb on board. Cairo’s sister stations, Malta and Athens, are already dust. You won’t let the Covenant go three-for-three. Only blood can pay for this.

Vidmaster Forever – “Calm Like Bombs”

The Challenge: Breach Cairo Station’s fire control center and give the Covenant back their bomb. Like Vidmasters of the past, admit the existence of no level except Total Carnage, and never shoot where you could use grenades.

The Method: On Legendary and with Bandanna, That’s Just Wrong, and Catch enabled, protect Cairo Station by any means necessary. Firing any weapon, mounted or otherwise, is banned. Melee is encouraged.

The Rub: The Covenant are feeling extra flexible today. Cairo’s interlopers will find just about every way to gap your explosives, and Catch guarantees anything you toss will be swiftly matched. Bottomless pockets don’t mean a thing if you pitch nothing but bricks; Be the bomb.

Fastball

In hindsight, Overload may have been a little much. Your support, however, has been incredible. Special thanks to everyone who wrote in after trying the challenge themselves. I only wish I could’ve given you a better warmup.

With that in mind, today’s Vidmaster Forever is far easier. Now don’t go thinking I’ve gone soft– This is still Halo 2 Legendary, after all!

“Calm Like Bombs” is my absolutist’s take on Vidmaster. If you’ve ever read the posts that spawned the challenge, you’d know the Vidmaster Ruleset needed a few revisions to get its legs. For a first step, however, the December 1994 issue of Inside Mac Games hits pretty close.

A Guide to Vid-Mastery

“There is a certain mystery surrounding Vid-Mastery, but there are certain characteristics that separate a true Marathon Vid-Master from an acolyte.”

1. A Vid-Master never loses the draw. You are on a ledge, he is on a floor. Who wins. A vid-Master can “look” up or down fast enough to always get a shot off. A true vid-Master will get off a good shot.

2. A Vid-Master never uses CAPS-LOCK for a run key. This is simply the wussy way to do it. The pinky finger is perfectly designed to constantly hold down the control key. It is true! The easiest way to spot fodder is to look at the preferences file. If you see CAPS-LOCK anywhere, you know that guy is no Vid-Master.

3. A Vid-Master can climb at least two world heights by grenading himself up a wall. I will not say anything more about this. It is very important that you learn this skill without any more help.

4. A Vid-Master can kill with the Rocket Launcher at will. See the target, feel the target. Know where the target is going. When you fire, imagine the target exploding and flying across the room. A true Vid-Master fires at the target’s feet, thus insuring “Maximum Air”.

As Marathon took off and got its sequels, rules were added, removed, or otherwise changed. Even Bungie themselves couldn’t agree on what being a Vidmaster meant, just that we should all strive to be one. They dropped the hyphen in some places too.

Light Fuse, Run Away

Calm Like Bombs digs up the most obscure rule in the Vidmaster playbook and drops it into Halo 2’s brutal opening mission. Mix it up, clear the fire control center, and score the first victory for humanity in the battle for Earth. Simple right? With Vidmaster, nothing ever is…

“To never shoot where I could use grenades.”

What does the even mean, anyway? Well for us it means no shooting, ever. Only one of Marathon’s slugthrowers can fire grenades. If you never pick up the Assault Rifle you can never use grenades, so you can always shoot. Rule defused!

Halo was revolutionary for binding grenades and melee to specific buttons on a controller. We can always use them, so we can never shoot; Damn. My first few attempts did not go so well.

For what should’ve amounted to an extended tutorial, Halo 2’s Cairo Station is crushing. Even if I never missed, there aren’t even enough grenades on the map to kill all the Covenant aboard. That’s hardly a downgrade from Overload, so I turned on Bandanna to even the odds.

Infinite grenades doesn’t make Calm Like Bombs easy, it makes it doable. If a lethal Trigonometry Exam somehow sounds too easy, make the course “Pass/Fail” and toggle Iron. I’m honestly a bit scared to try that.

Difficulty Tweak

Cairo Station’s first few firefights go as you’d expect. Most enemies are fodder for your grenades in the level’s corridors. Once the map opens up, however, things get complicated.

That’s Just Wrong keeps every enemy perpetually alerted– A death sentence in Cairo’s atriums. I suppose getting spotted is pretty easy when all you can do is chuck high-explosives. The challenge’s last Skull, Catch, is more of a formality. It’s only fitting that the grenades should fly both ways.

Both of Cairo’s hangar encounters are tough. If you don’t frag the Elite Ultramarines as they’re deployed, they’ll put you in a stalemate. These jerks can survive a direct hit from a Plasma Grenade, and their shields can nearly recharge before they catch another one. Expect to see the Elite dodge animation a lot as you clear both Pelican bays; This could take a while.

Whistle While You Work

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t feeling Calm Like Bombs until Cairo’s halfway point. It wasn’t hard, just slow. That all changed when I walked through the station’s airlock in rehearsal.

Halo 2 is one of two Bungie Halo games to feature a low gravity element. I’d imagine they didn’t expand on the gimmick because it wasn’t fun. That, or they just ran out of time– Both could be true of Halo 2’s development.

Anyway, the “Zero-G” combat in Calm Like Bombs makes it. Halfway through the level your grenades’ arc totally changes, and the game doesn’t get any easier to compensate. This rules!  You’ll repressurize another two times on your way to the bomb room, perpetually off balance.

Until then, I was content with just mashing my grenade key through most of Cairo’s fights. Onstream, I’d throw in a few cheeky bank shots for style. My strategy was working so well, I’d even taken the challenge totally deathless up until the armory basement encounter.

But the low gravity sections? Those fucked me up.

I couldn’t mash anymore! Every grenade became my baby as I perfected the parabola and limped my way to the final encounter. Failing to prepare, I prepared to fail. That’s Vidmaster!

Blast Recon

Everything had fallen into place. Disposing Cairo’s Antimatter Charge felt like a victory lap after all my time on the outside. If nothing else, Calm Like Bombs is unique: A new frontier for grenades and the Vidmasters that throw them.

I think my pitching days are over. See you Starside!