Skulls
Un-named Skull
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Armory
Words on screen: No words appear
Effect: Makes enemies more aware of your location.
How to get to the skull: At the beginning of the level, after you power your shields for the first time, the Serge shows up on an Elevator. Wait in the room until the Serge starts berating you, telling you to get into the elevator. You MUST wait for him to say "Would it help if I said please?" Once he says this, get in the elevator, and go down to the tram. Get on the tram, and face towards the INSIDE of the building. Press up against the glass doors towards the inside of the building. You should hold 'X' down, and you should pick up the skull. It's on a stack of green crates, near the end of the tram ride.
Video Links: Link 1
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Thunderstorm
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Cairo Station
Words on screen: "Thunderstorm"
Effect: All convenant enemies become special ops.
How to get to the skull: After you take out the second room of covenant boarding the ship, the game says "Priority Shift". Shortly after this you will go to the armory where you will have to take out a couple of Elites. The next room is "Commons B.01". Clear out all of the enemies on the ground floor and the Grunts in the far landing that are manning the plasma turret. Once you've cleared the room, look towards the outside -- literally out into space. You should see the dual tram tracks, and some diagonal supports holding up the tram tracks. You'll also note that the diagonal supports in the center are close together. One of those supports goes down the side of the wall near where one of the glass railings is. You can jump on the post for the glass railing and jump up onto the diagonal railing. From here, jump to the tram track and follow it all the way down towards the door you originally came in. You should see a landing with a trash can. The skull is in/under this trash can. Simply walk up to the trash can and hold X to pick up the skull.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Blind
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Outskirts
Words on screen: "Blind"
Effect: There is no HUD or weapons on screen.
How to get to the skull: As soon as the level starts your vision will be blurry. Directly ahead of you there is a hallway with a flashing light. Enter the hallway, turn around, and look up There will be a horizontal flashing halogen light. Jump to it. Then turn right and crouch jump to the roof. Then turn right again and there is a long passageway with some ammo, grenades, and the Blind skull.
Video Links: Link 1
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IWHBYD
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Outskirts
Words on screen: "I would have been your Daddy"
Effect: Apparently, this skull unlocks all sorts of interesting dialogue.
How to get to the skull: The specifics of this skull are still a bit sketchy. The best thing to do is watch the videos showing how to spawn the skull and just keep trying until you get it to spawn. The main thing appears to be getting the checkpoint right past the pelican that picks up Johnson. This checkpoint spawns the sniper jackals in 'sniper alley.' The skull itself is in a room on a balcony. The room contains a sniper rifle and sniper ammo, and if you're one of the lucky ones who can get the skull to spawn, it will also contain the skull. Picking up the skull teleports you to the ground level, and gives you just a Plasma Pistol. You will quickly be assaulted by Elites. Some people say that grunts and jackals will also spawn, but I've never seen them do so. In my video, 7 waves (not 6, like I said initially) of Spec Op Elites come out. Killing the last Elite will have the text for the skull flash, meaning that you have to kill all of the Elites to actually finish getting the skull. If you die to the Elites, and your checkpoint no longer spawns the skull, kill yourself 4 or 5 times to be pushed back one extra checkpoint. The skull should spawn for you again, so you can try the fight again.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC
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Catch
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Metropolis
Words on screen: "Catch"
Effect: Enemies always drop 2 plasma grenades, and it appears that all enemies will toss more grenades in general.
How to get to the skull: Right after you exit from the underground highway, you'll come to a large open-air circular room with a handful of Jackal snipers and some Elites. The quickest way to get safely to the skull is to get the next checkpoint by jumping into the Warthog and letting the marine drive you to the next area. Jump out of the jeep and backtrack to the large room, and clear the area. You will see a large semi-circlular beam going from one of the main platforms that goes from the ground up to the top of the two towers. Do a grenade jump at the bottom of this beam and walk all the way to the top. Jump over to the ledge of the left tower. Walk to the end of the ledge and you will find the Catch skull.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Grunt Birthday Party
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: The Arbiter
Words on screen: "Grunt Birthday Party"
Effect: Headshots makes enemies explode
How to get to the skull: Progress throughout the level until you get a banshee. As soon as you are in the banshee, fly straight down towards the far side of the bottom of the middle structure. You will see two large circular supports and a large connetion between the top of those two supports. In between the supports and the large connection there is enough space to land your Banshee. You will find a circle of dancing grunts, and in the middle of that circle is the Grunt Birthday Party skull.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Famine
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: The Oracle
Words on screen: "Famine"
Effect: All found weapons have less ammo.
How to get to the skull: After you get off of the slowly decending elevator, you will come to a hallway where you see a handful of dead bodies. Continue into the next room, and you will be on the second floor of a room that has a lot of glass windows. When you enter this room, look to the right, and find the third pane of glass. It should be to the right of a wall that has some flood guts splattered on it. Shoot out this window, and the windows directly across the room. If you look below you, you will see a platform that has four tall posts. On the far side of the room there is a column that is right in between the two windows on the far side of the room. Turn on your active camo, and jump to the center platform. Jump on either of the posts on the far side of the platform and jump to the column between the windows. Make another jump through the window you shot out, and make a left. Walk all the way to the end and you'll find four flood elites convulsing on the floor, with the Famine skull in the middle of them.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Envy
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Delta Halo
Words on screen: "Envy"
Effect: Active Camo takes the place of your flashlight. The camo acts just like Arbiter Active Camo.
How to get to the skull: Progress through the level until you come to an area with a large central stucture that has a multitude of columns. When you first get into this area, you have to go left, and there is a ramp on the left that goes up and then back down. Get on this ramp and continue up the wall until you are on the landing where there will be (or used to be) some plasma turrets. Follow this landing all the way to it's end, and you'll see a door that is blocked off by a large stone. Jump on top of the stone, and jump again to get on a thin ledge. Make sure you're up against the left wall, and grenade jump up to the top of the wall to your left. Once you're on this wall, you'll see that the right wall ends and there is some earth behind it. Jump onto the dirt, and follow the stone wall all the way to the top. When you're on the top of this wall, you can look down towards the center and you should see two cloaked Elites looking towards each other with the Envy skull between them.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Assassins
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Regret
Words on screen: "Assassins"
Effect: All enemies in game are permanently cloaked.
How to get to the skull: Immediately after the gondola ride following the battle with the hunters, there will be a building with two turrets on it. Enter the building and jump on the square stone block right in front of you. Jump again onto the ledge above you. This ledge takes you outside to where the turrets were. You'll want to get on the roof of the small room you were just in. There is a broken pillar right outside the door that you can jump on which will give you plenty of height to get on top of the roof. Using croutch jumps and grenade jumps, follow the right side perimeter of the building. Once you have gone as far as you can go you will find a small grassy area with two cloaked dancing elites and the Assassins skull.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Mythic
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Sacred Icon
Words on screen: "Mythic"
Effect: Unknown. Apparently enemies have more health, making them harder to kill, but this has not been proven.
How to get to the skull: There is a semi outdoor area which has the same type of area right next to it. There is a large sentinal in front of each one. Go past this area and down the piston and you'll be in a vary dark and dank flood infested area. There's a stack of 6 or 7 boxes as you enter the room. Use them to jump up to the landing above. There are a handful of alcoves on your right hand side. The skull is in the third alcove, floating above a dead human flood.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Sputnik
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Quarantine Zone
Words on screen: "Sputnik"
Effect: The force of certain attacks and explosions is increased dramatically. The most obvious changes are to frag grenade explosions, rocket explosions, vehicle explosions, melee attacks, and plasma attacks from turrets and vehicles. What this increase in force means is that objects tend to go flying farther, making for some very crazy battles, or for some very nice height when frag grenade jumping. It's important to note that weapon damage is NOT changed. Also, when you melee attack an enemy from the front, you will hit them so hard it will turn them all the way around - giving you the perfect opportunity to get a mortal melee blow in.
How to get to the skull: From the start of the level, turn directly around, and you should see a tunnel. Head into the tunnel and go straight until you exit the tunnel. Go straight across the open area, and you'll come across a broken pipe tunnel on your right. Straight in front of you you should see a small ledge running across the wall, above the green pit. Carefully get onto that small ledge and walk all the way to the end of the ledge to find the Sputnik skull.
Video Links: Link 1
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Angry
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Gravemind
Words on screen: "Angry"
Effect: Grunts shoot much faster, and the Angry skull is the only known skull that can be cycled through, allowing you to use the skull as a third weapon.
How to get to the skull: Fight all the way through the Covenant city until you reach the outdoors. As soon as you are outside, turn right. You will see some Covenant crates next to the rock ledge. Jump from the crate to the rock ledge. Walk up the rock hill and to your right you will see a large red girder. Jump onto the girder and follow it back towards the complex you came from. You will run into an invisible grunt weilding a fuel rod. Kill the grunt, and continue to the end of the girder where you will see the Angry skull floating above a small grav-lift.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Ghost
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Uprising
Words on screen: "Ghost"
Effect: Unknown. Some reports say enemies take longer to notice you or react to your presence.
How to get to the skull: After the outdoor area with all the ghosts and grunts, there is an 'L' shaped room that is seen throughout the level. It is right after the armory room that is full of covenant and human weapons. Grenade jump using a jacked ghost up to the rafters and it's up there. You can also push a box from the armory room into the hallway, and jump on this box. The skull is right above the door, and if you hold X down while jumping close enough to the skull you will pick it up, even if you're not in the rafters and the skull isn't visible.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Iron
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: High Charity
Words on screen: "Iron"
Effect: When playing co-op, if either player dies the game restarts you at your last checkpoint. This effects all difficulties. Normally this only happens on Legendary.
How to get to the skull: When you enter the final (the second) Gravity Lift, look up. A skull will pass through you extemely quickly so you must start holding "X" a bit before you actually pass it to grab hold of it.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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Black Eye
Difficulty: Legendary
Level: Great Journey
Words on screen: "Black Eye"
Effect: Your shield does not charge normally. To charge your shields you must melee enemies. You can charge your shields into the overcharge range doing this.
How to get to the skull: Eventually you have to escort the Sarge who is in a Scarab. Follow him along until you see the huge compound in front of you. Directly above the door that the Sarge blows open with the Scarab is an angled beam. Land your Banshee on this beam and walk to the top of the beam. Look down and to your left and you will see a circular angled wall. Jump onto this wall and walk to the top. Walk straight along the right-hand side of this area. You will have to jump over a small beam in front of you. Continue walking straight until you come to a grassy area. Keep walking up the grassy hill and go until you come to the point where can jump onto the angled support for the tower meets the grass. Jump onto the support and walk up the support. It's a very steep climb, so jumping while you're going up the support speeds up the walk some. At the first landing you will see the Black Eye skull sitting on a glowing white panel on the floor.
Video Links: Link 1
Action replay saves: NTSC PAL
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