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Chapter 1. Halo 2 Jumping

Hacks 1-5: Introduction

Hack 1. Add Height to All Your Jumps

Hack 2. Blast Yourself into the Air

Hack 3. Extend Your Jumping Distance

Hack 4. The Longest Unaided Halo 2 Jump

Hack 5. Extend Your Landing Points

Hacks 1-5: Introduction

Much like Halo fan videos (see http://www.redvsblue.com), Halo 2 jumping has taken on a life of its own. Groups such as Jump Tactics (http://www.jumptactics.net) have raised the bar when it comes to the difficulty and complexity of Halo 2 jumping techniques.

Some sites have even started to have "jump" game tournaments. Instead of fighting each other, players engage in a game similar to HORSE. One player challenges another to perform a particular jump. If a player fails to meet the challenge, a referee penalizes him with a letter. Some of the more esoteric jumping techniques are not applicable to normal Halo 2 game play. However, other jumping techniques are vital for all players to learn.

Many of these trick jumps require considerable practice, so I met up with Kahai Maluu, the founder of Jump Tactics, on Xbox Live. Kahai demonstrated some of the more difficult jumping maneuvers. In fact, we captured some screenshots for this chapter during that online session.

Unfortunately, we don't have space to include all of the jumping techniques here, so look online for information about other jump techniques (http://www.jumptactics.net/modules.php? name =Downloads). I recommend that you check out the online videos of each technique.

Hack 1. Add Height to All Your Jumps

Use the crouch technique to add height and distance to your jumps .

Every multiplayer Halo level provides numerous opportunities to use the crouch technique. Players who do not use this jump will simply not have as many options (see Figure 1-1) as the ones who are crouch jumping all over the map.

Figure 1-1. A Spartan trying a regular jump

Of all the Halo 2 jumping tricks, the crouch jump is the most useful. Not only are there plenty of chances to use this skill, but it's also easy enough that anyone can use it in the heat of combat. To perform a crouch jump , you simply crouch when you reach the apex of your jumping arc. By crouching at the top of your jump, your feet will be slightly higher than normal. The effect of raising your feet is twofold: you will be able to clear objects that are slightly higher than normal and you will be able to jump slightly farther (since your feet won't hit the landing point as quickly). To illustrate this point, take a look at this jump on the Lockout map (see Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2. The same jump with a crouch

You can see here that the player is attempting to jump from the ledge (on the left side of the screen) up to the Lockout courtyard. A normal jump is not high enough to get him to his objective. However, by crouching, he lifts his legs and makes it over the ledge. On most maps, you can find numerous places where such jumps would be helpful.