How to Spot Cheating in Halo 2

Ah yes Halo 2, the most popular game on Xbox live. If you have ever played this game you know all to well about what I'm getting ready to describe, cheaters. There is a small portion of them that prowl the online gaming world, but they are out there, and your best defense is the feedback system. If you spot a cheater report him and talk to the other people playing in that game, make sure they too are going to report him because the more negative feedback a cheater receives the more likely it is he will be banned. I will say this though, not everyone cheats, so don't go and report a person for cheating just because they beat the crud out of you. As a responsible player you have to be 100% sure that an opponent or teammate in some cases was indeed cheating.

Another term for cheating is known as "modding" when a player modulates the game for his or her own benefit then they have violated the Xbox lives rules and are therefore cheating. Common mods are weapon enhancement, better shields and being able to start with the better weapons on a specific level. These cheaters are a bit hard to spot because their methods are not so noticeable. If the game is running really really slow, people are skipping a lot, or things in a level are out of place then someone is running a mod. So look for these signs and try and pick out which player is getting more kills frequently. Also check the stats after a game, if a mod was being run and the player in first place has no deaths, chances are he was the one running the mod.

Another common cheat is know as "standby cheating" In this form of cheating an entire team may be involved so you run into it more on Team Snipers, Team Slayer and Team Skirmish. What happens is you get ready to kill a guy then suddenly the screen changes to blue, like it's re-establishing a connection. Then when the game retunes your opponent is no longer in front of you, but behind you, and they kill you from behind. This will happen a lot if you are engaged in a close combat situation; however with strategy you can actually combat this form of cheating. Try sneaking up behind an opponent and assassinating them, also a sniper rifle shot to the head will kill them at a distance and too quickly for them to initiate the cheat. Make sure that you stay around after the game to see which players on the opposite team leave right away; these are most likely your cheaters. If you're still unsure of whom it was cheating on your opponent's team and then report them all. Bungie will review the game and be able to tell exactly who was cheating.

An obvious form of cheating is when you start a game and continually die one time after another. A modding player will set the game to re-spawn you in the same place and continually shoot you in the head with a modified sniper rifle. You just die over and over again, as do your teammates. The best thing to do is stay in the game; don't leave because when Bungie reviews the game you want them to have sufficient data to ban the cheater. If you happen to be on this cheaters team, just find him and beat him down, it lets your opponents know that you're not cheating, and you care about the integrity of the game. Make sure whatever team you're on that you report the player who is cheating.

There's a mod that is not commonly used but it's around that allows the cheater to run incredibly fast. Everyone else in the game moves normally but the cheater runs around almost unnoticeable. Also if you see a player firing a battle rifle or sniper rifle at a high rate like a machine gun, there modding. Watch for players that can shoot through walls, around corners, whose ammunition does not match their gun, like shooting rockets from a plasma pistol. All these are mod cheats that have been used before.

There is nothing Bungi or Microsoft can do to stop all cheaters. There have been actions taken to stop most of the more harmful cheats and mods, but they still get used. A sure sign of someone who is cheating is a person with a name like "JasonMods" "Mikeymodding" "XXCheater,ha,haXX" and so on. Be smart and don't let the cheater get the best of you, and do your part to help solve the problem by sending feedback. You can't accuse someone of cheating if they are killing themselves or their teammates. Yes it's terrible to have bad teammates but stupid people and cheaters are different. Also there are glitches in the game that can be exploited legally. Such as the Super Jump in levels like Zanzabar and Turf, these glitches don't affect a players character directly, but only allow them to access areas of a level that are normally inaccessible, they can still be easily killed. So be mindful of what your reporting a player for, and always be 100% sure that they are in fact cheating.