Find the Marines From the Second Downed Pelican
Around the corner from the first Pelican, you'll come to a long corridor overwatched by multiple enemy snipers. If you grabbed a sniper rifle, you can use it to pick them off from long range; if all you have is a battle rifle, then you're probably going to have to run from cover to cover until you get into a position to return fire. (You might check to see if any of the Jackals near the Pelican dropped a Beam Rifle, which is basically a Covenant sniper weapon.) On Heroic or Legendary difficulty, this is going to be a happy fun death march for you, as a couple of stealthed Elites will also eventually appear. Your teammates are likely not long for this world, so let them go on ahead, and use whatever weapons you can to pick off the Elites and the snipers, but be watchful for Drones, who'll complicate matters by flying around overhead and zapping you while you try to zoom in your weapon. Fun!
At the very least, you'll have a good idea how capable you're going to be of playing on your chosen difficulty when you hit this area. When you've cleared everything out, head down to the far end of the corridor to hit the checkpoint, then gradually peek into the corridor on your right to check for yet more snipers. There are at least three of them here, including one that may spawn in behind you, so if you don't have a beam or sniper rifle, check the burning crater nearby. A fallen soldier here has an almost-full sniper rifle for your distance-killing pleasure.
As you work your way through the buildings, you'll have to deal with quite a few Grunts and Elites, including a sniper or two that'll appear on the rooftops. Deal with them as you see fit; the tight corridors lend themselves well to grenades or dual SMGs/Plasma Rifles, but your mileage may vary.
Depending on how thoroughly you killed off the baddies, you may have to deal with another firefight in front of the hotel. There may or may not be a gray Elite here; if there is, then you may be screwed, especially on higher levels. The gray varients seem to have a lot more shielding than any other color, but you may be able to take him on with an energy sword, if any of the earlier Elites dropped one. He can even survive a stickied plasma grenade! Regardless, you'll have to do your best to take him out, if indeed he appears.
Inside the hotel, you'll come across the survivors of the crashed Pelican, who'll want to escort you through the hotel itself. As per usual, your teammates are expendable, so run ahead into the hallway (don't forget you have a flashlight on your white button) to spawn the Covenant forces, then pull back a bit and let the troops do the heavy lifting.
A Day At The Beach
Destroy the Covenant on the Shoreline
- If your teammates are driving, you won't have any way to avoid dropship cannon fire; you might want to try shooting off the cannons with your turret.
After you clear the hotel, you'll have to dispatch more Covenant that fall from a dropship, so clear them out. After you do so, a welcome gift arrives, in the form of a Warthog. Yay! Hop on into the driver's seat if you wish to drive; if not, you can hop into the turret position and blast away while one of your teammates drives. This latter option is probably preferable, as you can pick targets a bit better than your teammates will be able to, while they can drive passably well, with the exception of some annoying pauses.
You have two groups of Covenant to destroy here. The first consists of a couple of small encampments, each with Grunts and Elites, as well as a Ghost that'll zip around. The annoying part about this fight is the fact that an apparently indestructible Covenant dropship will appear as you're wrapping up your destruction of the ground forces and drop out two or three more Ghosts, while it itself lays down a base of turret fire on you. What's even more annoying is that it just hovers off the shore and continues to blast away while you try to deal with the Ghosts, but after all the Ghosts are dead, it'll back off a bit.
After penetrating the fortifications and making it to the second section of beach, hop into the driver's seat and blast towards the large tunnel behind the second set of Covenant fortifications. The dropship will assume a gunning position above the fortifications, which are well-manned by Covenant forces, so you'll have a difficult time breaking through, but just keep in mind that your goal is to survive, not blast everything that moves. In point of fact, you shouldn't waste your time with pointless battles here; just drive the Warthog as close to the tunnel as you can get it, then jump out and head towards the Ghost that's parked inside.
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