Stranded!
Posted October 13th 2009
While playing about on the bridge on Easy (exploring things for the bridge onslaught challenge) I noticed something amusing. If you set the charges then head over to the covie side, the bridge will blow about 77 seconds after setting the final charge, leaving you stranded on the wrong side - potentially still battling covies. Except, that doesn't last for long because you then get magically transported across to join your buddies. It's like the game just realized something was really screwy somewhere. Like, "Huh? What the heck is that ODST doing on the wrong side? He's supposed to be over this side dammit. Is he trying to make a fool of me? I'm not having that. Let's yank the silly fool over, that'll learn him!". And whoosh!… there you are with your fellow knuckleheads again. Ain't technology marvellous?
An alternative to setting the charges is to retreat to the first metal UNSC barrier, just past the sandbagging. This seems to trigger the same failsafe countdown to bridge destruction, which will blow the bridge in about 77 seconds if you don't use the laptop to make it blow sooner (or at least, it usually does; I did have one time where I was back using a Gauss turret and the bridge never blew, so maybe there's some extra detail about this triggering). There's time for you to grab the sniper rifle from the tower if you like, and still reach the other side of the bridge. You could use it for sniping enemies as you run. You won't have much time for using it on the other side though. Reaching the UNSC barrier also triggers a checkpoint incidentally, though you can cancel it just like you can usually cancel them in Halo 3, by jumping five or six times (jumping causes a delay, and when you keep it up long enough the game apparently gives up on the checkpoint entirely).
Incidentally, have you noticed that those UNSC barriers are destructible? Nice! Give 'em some punishment with a Gauss turret for example; spike grenades are rather satisfying too. Mind you, Wraith blasts seem to do nothing. I guess those barriers must be coated with special anti-Wraith paint. Useful stuff - I could do with some of that on my armour!