Halo: Spartan Assault

Author: Efrain Silva

Plot

2554 is the special year when Halo : Spartan Assault’s story line kicks into action, set in, once again, what we know as the wonderful world of futuristic sci-fi and in a way like only Halo can do it. The Covenant fleet under ‘Merg Vol’, this time, is leading an attack on a moon on Draetheus V. What happens then, in a nutshell, is that the planet becomes severely damaged and gets evacuated pronto --- then, Palmer heads out to the moon with the goal of eliminating Merg Vol, which is accomplished a bit later. After that, Palmer gets a new assignment : This time, now, it involves finding the very source of a signal that has been broadcast, and she comes to discover that it’s coming from within the moon itself ; interesting way to go with a plot twist, right? I think the game’s story and design team could not have gotten it better….

Gameplay

Playing the game itself was nothing less than a joy of joys, for me, as it was with all Halo games (except for 2 and 5, which, though they had their pros, to me, they did certainly have bigger cons --- but every fan is different on how they feel about each game, of course). With this game, anyways, I really liked the fact that you can play it across not one --- not two --- but three controller schemes ; first, you have the twin - stick controls, as some call them, and with their touch screen, no less. Then, you also get to play via mouse - and - keyboard style, as all well know. Then last but not least, of course, there’s always the option of the Xbox console and controller...my favorite, and many else’s.

The gameplay was also nice and long, just how I like my games --- this one gives you 30 missions to play through...don’t try to beat the whole game in one night, now. It will have you up for hours, and sleep is precious. Anyways, these missions, surprisingly so, took me about less than 10 minutes to get through --- in terms of each one, one at a time. I, of course, have some more Halo experience and have been playing since game 1 came out, so the natural finger and movement - coordination / timing reflexes are there. I have been gaming since before being developed in my mother’s womb --- well, maybe not literally, but I’m sure you get the idea. And with that said, if you’re a hardcore gamer with experience and know - how (especially in terms of the Halo universe), then flying past these missions should be a breeze for you, by now, as it was for me.

Make sure you give it your very best effort, after each and every single mission. Because if you do so, you get scored at the end, as you might already be familiar with. And yes, in this game, you do still get to enter armored vehicles, throw grenades, shoot enemies, use a sword, pistol whip others, snipe, and so much more. It’s Halo reinvented, but still with the best of the original stuff in it that we’ve all come to love.

You might want to know about the weapons here, too. I’ll bet you’re dying to read what follows. Read the next part, then….

Weapons

Used by the UNSC

Used by the Covenant

Levels

In this game, your levels are made up of ‘Operations’, quite interestingly enough. And each ‘Operation’ carries several missions of its own inside of it. The ‘Operations’ are numbered from A to F, respectively. There’s Operation A : Umbra, Operation B : Tempered Shield, Operation C : Monolith, Operation D : Captured Chance, Operation E : Frostbite, and Operation F : Hydra, all in all.

Uniqueness

Halo : Spartan Assault is great on so many levels, and countless elements set it aside from all other shooter - Halo games. For one, this game’s Windows 8 / Windows 8 mobile versions include 25 unique achievements, and out of these, there’s a 250 - point Gamerpoints total. As for the Xbox 360 variation, you get a good 28 achievements and up to 400 Gamerpoints. Whereas with the Xbox One version, it even rises to a total of 30 achievements and a possible 1,000 Gamerpoints. Keep note that you can only earn each achievement one time per platform.

Also unique about the game (though perhaps not in a good way, but still worth mentioning and making a note of nonetheless) would the slight bugs that came with the game, a few errors that got fixed along the way later with updates. And notably, some of these updates came to feature free content along with them, perhaps as a little ‘thank you for your patience’ to the faithful gamers. You’ll find that these have been applied to Operation F, a few co - op missions, the game’s distinct Community Meld feature (for the Xbox One game version) and more. Also, very unique is the fact that a few of the game’s terminals, you may notice, are made to emulate some of those in Halo 1 and Halo 4.

Check this game out. If you like, give it a thumbs up. I mean, hopefully, a thumb straight up! There was nothing I didn’t like about it, myself. And I can get pretty picky sometimes….