I bought the first version of Halo: Spartan Assault for my Surface RT earlier this year. As I played I found that my enjoyment of the virtual twin-stick shooter was hampered by the touchscreen controls offered, as I am truly a fan analog sticks, not presses on a touchscreen that emulate a true joystick of any kind. I really yearned for controller support, which was patched in later, but I don’t have a wired Xbox 360 controller and I had lost interest by then. Well, Microsoft has seen fit to release Spartan Assault as a downloadable title for the Xbox One. It was released just before Christmas and during the holidays I got a chance to check it out.
For those wondering about the story, it takes place between Halo 3 and Halo 4. You follow Spartans Sarah Palmer and Edward Davis, along with a few other UNSC fighters, who are deep in the war with the Covenant on Planet Draetheus V and its moon. There are a few cutscenes for you to watch, but most of the story is told via text between each mission. You’ll learn just what these few Spartan-IV soldiers faced along with other members of the UNSC as they fought the never-ending enemy. Personally, I am a fan of the Halo universe and to have some new insight into the world of Halo lore, I appreciated what I got, but I sure wished for more cutscenes rather than reading, as it would have made for a better overall storytelling experience.
For those looking for a traditional Halo FPS experience here, well surprise, it is not an FPS at all, but a top down twin-stick shooter. I guess my introduction for this review gave this bombshell away didn’t it? Oh well. Anyways, playing Halo from a top down perspective was pretty cool and made for a totally different Halo experience than when traditionally looking from the view of Master Chief. Controls use both of the analog sticks, the left stick to move your character and the right stick to aim. You use all the other buttons like you would in any Halo game (e.g. right trigger to shoot, left trigger for grenade, right bumper for melee, left bumper for special ability, etc.). If I had any complaint about the controls it is that the aiming didn’t feel as fluid as other twin-stick shooters that I have played in the past. Sure, it’s doable, but if I think of one word to sum it up, it was more ‘jerky’ and not as smooth as it could have been.
As I played through the game’s 35 missions, there is one thing that became clear to me; the game is really targeted to those that want to play in short bite-sized snippets. Each mission can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes, so you don’t have to put aside a lot of time to get your Spartan Assault fix. You can just fire up your Xbox One, play a couple of missions, and be ready to go out, or do whatever else you may want to do, in a short matter of time. I liked this aspect, as it was a nice break for me as I played Forza 5 or hit the links in Powerstar Golf.
For those looking for that deep and engrossing experience, the 5 hours or so that it will take to wrap up this game may not be that fulfilling for you, but there is more to this game then mindless shooting. You’ll find that you’ll have to keep an eye on your ammo and make use of your surroundings as you head deeper into the game. The learning curve is gentle, as you are drawn into the game with a useful tutorial, and the first few missions are quite easy, but the game gets tougher as you progress. It’s not controller throwing difficult, but you’ll have to play somewhat smart in order to finish the game.
Once you finish the game you can try to best your friends scores on specific levels. Personally, I am not that competitive, so this was not a feature that I went for, but I know lots of people that will want to best their online friends, so I can see many of them getting value just in this fact alone. There is also a cooperative mode in Spartan Assault for the Xbox One. This was not in the previous version when the game was released for Windows 8 devices (PC, Surface, Win-Phone). Here you and a friend can take on the dreaded Flood. It’s kind of a combination of Horde Mode from Gears of War and COD’s Zombie mode. You take on a mess load of Flood enemies while flicking switches and using turrets to gun them down. Although a nice addition, I really wish I could have played through the game’s campaign with a friend, just like you can do in the FPS Halo games. That would have made this game much more enjoyable, and extend the replay value immensely.
One of the strangest, and somewhat annoying, things that this Spartan Assault offers is the use of Microtransactions. Although you can get through the game without them, you can spend real money, or your earned XP, to buy more powerful weapons (e.g. Spartan Laser, Sniper Rifle, etc.) and boosts. Although great in theory, there is one major fault with this. The most glaring issue, in my opinion, is that once you spend some money (credits) or XP you can only use the weapon or boosts for the mission you’re about to tackle. Once you’ve completed it the weapon or boost is no longer available to you. Given how much XP or credit a better weapon or useful boost can cost, this one time use is not acceptable. It does not make it feel like you are rewarded for your work to get said weapon or boost as you cannot use it again as it is not in your inventory. Dumb, dumb, dumb…
In regards to the overall presentation of Spartan Assault, you can tell that care was taken in making a Halo game into a top down twin-stick shooter. There are lots of Halo-esque assets from ships, to landscapes, to weapons; it will all feel somewhat familiar. The visuals are in glorious 1080p and looks pretty good with ample use of lighting and special effects and a pretty stable framerate. As for the cutscenes, what limited ones you get look ok, but they definitely don’t feel like they were optimized for the Xbox One. Sound wise you’ll also recognize what has become staple sounds, from the simple banter or grunts, the sound of a well timed melee on a Elite, to the all too familiar sound of a plasma gun charging up or the wave of needles launching from a Covenant Needler. It’s all there loud and clear.
With Halo: Spartan Assault on the Xbox One, the bite sized missions are great for some quick gaming sessions when your time is limited, the cooperative Flood missions are a nice addition, and the new information of further Spartan battles is interesting. That being said, the ‘jerky’ aiming, one time use of each microtransactions, and the glaring omission of playing the game’s campaign cooperatively with a friend take some of the enjoyment away. At the end of the day Spartan Assault is not a bad game, but there are a few hiccups that hamper what could have been. Oh, for those that may have already purchased Spartan Assault for a Windows 8 device, Microsoft is offering it for the nice discounted price of only $5.00; you really can’t go wrong with that.
