@Pulse: It was AWESOME to play with you! I hope you continue to hit us up with requests when you're online. And get a mic! We love you, man!
Now about those datapads...
Despite my hatred of the whole strategy guide marketing ploy and people "cheating" their way through a $60 game, I've learned that with Bungie, the guide is a really nice thing to have. I have the hard-bound "Legendary Edition" which is a beauty.
Independently, I was searching around for "skulls", and decided that I should check to see if their locations were in the guide... NOT so that I could simply go grab them, but so that I would know what information is "public knowledge" and what is left as a "mystery" for we gamers to figure out. No use posting "we found it!" and/or making a guide if the printed one already had the info.
So here's the scoop on datapads:
There are 19 of them. They seem to be the Halo: Reach equivalent of the Halo 3 terminals. The guide explains:
Locating them all is an exercise for the few- their exact coordinates have never been tracked. Success earns no Achievements or Credits, nor does it confer any special items in the Armory. You take on this challenge for the thrill of the hunt- and for the knowledge that each data pad brings.
The guide does NOT provide the exact locations of the pads. It gives hints to their locations, and specifies that on each of the nine playable levels, there are two datapads: one to be found on easy/normal/heroic difficulty and one to be found on legendary. This accounts for 18 datapads.
It provides some info on the nineteenth one, but I do not want to reveal it publicly because it may be too much of a spoiler, even though you opted to read this far despite my warning!
So this is enough information to create a checklist of what we have found. And perhaps we should just "skip to the chase" and start the list in guide form.
@Pulse: what difficulty were you on when you found the pad on Winter Contingency?
