Hack 18. Teach Your Enemies to Take a Punch

Give the Covenant an iron jaw with Ghost mode.

You will find the Ghost skull within the Uprising level. It is located within the "Raze the Brute encampment" objective. The notification text of this skull is "Ghost." The effect of this egg is that enemies and allies are no longer stunned by melee attacks or by being shot. This is in line with the guideline that the positive skulls have obvious effects, whereas the negative skulls often have subtle effects.

You will need to play through a significant portion of the level to reach this skull and yes, there will be Jackal snipers. Furthermore, Uprising is an Arbiter level so you will not have the option of using the Infinite AC hack [Hack #42].

While working your way through a picturesque canyon, you will come to the Brute strongholds. After you defeat some Jackal snipers and Brutes, you will enter a series of rooms that the Brutes excavated out of the mountain. The skull spawns in an L-shaped room that is right after the armory.

To reach the skull, which spawns on top of the light fixture (see Figure 2-41), you can use a few different techniques, such as a grenade jump, arranging objects to climb on, or grabbing it from below.

If you would like to try a straight grenade jump [Hack #2], you can, but there are ways to make it easier. Why not use some of the many objects in the armory to aid your jump (e.g., the blue Carbine holder)? Moving these objects around with explosives is quick, but be sure to stand back if you fire in the armory things in there tend to explode. I like to use the Rocket Launcher to whack the blue Carbine holder on the left side of the room out the door. By hitting it, you can prevent it from falling over using its full height makes for an easier grenade jump (see Figure 2-42).

Figure 2-41. The Ghost skull spawns on top of the light fixture

Figure 2-42. Setting up the Grenade jump

Another option is to grenade jump off a jacked Ghost. If you don't have a Ghost, continue past the Wraiths and some Ghost riders will happily join you.

Once you grenade jump up to the light fixture, you will find the skull lying in the dark (see Figures 2-43 and 2-44).

Figure 2-43. Activating the Ghost skull

Although the grenade jumping method will work, there is another way to get at the Ghost skull. Instead of grenade jumping, walk underneath the skull and look to your left or right you will see a short ledge on the wall.

Figure 2-44. Looking down from the skull's spawn spot

Jump on this, and then you can jump toward the skull platform. If you look at the platform, and hold X, you will grab the skull as you jump underneath it. If you're not a fan of grenade jumping, this option could be the one for you.

One final piece of advice: the jump for this skull is a little tricky, and you are likely to open the door of the room accidentally. Therefore, before you try the jump, open the door and blow up the two snipers waiting on the other side. If you ignore them, they will probably tag you if you accidentally open the door (see Figure 2-45).

Figure 2-45. After the Ghost skull room there are a couple of snipers

After you've activated the skull, watch out you will no longer have those brief seconds where you can take advantage of a stunned enemy.