Release Date: 18/07/2013
Played On: Win
Available On: iOS / Win / WP / XB360 / XBO
Time Played: 4h 30m
Progress: Completed
Developer: 343 Industries / Vanguard Games
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
This may be the only Halo game I ever play, which might seem a little strange to some, but obvious to others. To this day I've never played another Halo game, because I've never owned an Xbox of any kind. This could have been any other twin-stick shooter and I still would have given it a go, but it just so happens that it's a spin-off from one of the biggest Xbox franchises in history.
I think of Halo in the same way that I think of the God Of War series. As games they are nothing alike, but as exclusive console releases, they carry a bit of identity for their systems. There are others as well that share the load, but if you've ever owned a console you've probably seen or played one of these games.
Exclusives are a weird thing in themselves, as they're kind of necessary to make any one console enticing, but they limit the audience drastically. As primarily a PC gamer, I tend to just get the console that my friends have, so that every now and then we can play some games together. It doesn't happen very often, but it's a higher priority than any one game on the system.
Despite that, game exclusivity is an important element to remember when thinking about the importance of an overall series. While Halo has never been even a footnote in my gaming life, it's undeniably a huge franchise with many dedicated fans. It's a weird thing to realise that this entity, which you have no association with in any way, means so much to other people.
Hence why I clarify that I have no familiarity with Halo games at all, so when I played Halo: Spartan Assault, I had no idea what was going on plot-wise. I only picked it up because I love twin-stick shooters, so most of my impressions have been formed from the mechanics of the game, instead of its blockbuster theme.
In fact, I didn't really understand what was going on for most of the game's story, until I reached the very end. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the whole game is supposedly a simulation of important battles in the Halo timeline. This allows for the level structure in the game, where you basically go from one mission to the next, with little to no relevance between the two. It's a series of levels with objectives to complete, and not a lot else.
So I'm not sold on the story, but I'm also not put off by it either. As much as I love story and narrative in games, there's a time and a place for unadulterated gameplay and mechanics. Top-down shooters are some of my favourite games to play, but I doubt any of them have much of a plot or story to tell.
What I did manage to pick up on from a 'meta' perspective, was that Halo is a big budget license, as the cut scenes between missions are polished are fancy. I wonder if they are taken from the main games, or if they were made exclusively for Spartan Assault, but either way there's a lot of talent and effort that's gone into making this a shiny experience.
Although, that's about where the shine starts and stops, without ever really bleeding into the rest of the game. Everything about Spartan Assault looks good and you can tell it's coming from a well-designed universe, but the moment to moment gameplay leaves a little to be desired.
Instead of the frantic twin-stick madness that drives a lot of the genre, Spartan Assault opts for a much slower pace. In a funny way, it feels like it's trying to tell more of a story than other twin-sticks, but perhaps my lack of familiarity with the Halo franchise translated it into a lumbering pace.
While a lot of its contemporaries focus on speed and frantic split-second decision making, Spartan Assault opts for more entrenched mechanics. What's more, there is a focus on map traversal and exploration, instead of throwing you into an area and tasking you to survive. In this way it seems like having this kind of level structure has more in common with other Halo games, than other twin-sticks.
Many times I found myself travelling from one engagement to another, with little in between to keep the pace up. It reminded me of playing an action game where you walk into a room with waste-high walls and immediately know you're about to fight some enemies. In Spartan Assault many of the maps have pockets of enemy locations, leaving you to get from one to the other and taking them out.
Although, despite the plodding nature of the action, there's a lot of variety to keep things interesting. While missions often involve traversing a map and finding pockets of bad guys, there's also a little variety along the way. Some task you with defending a location with mounted defences and waves of incoming enemies. Others team you up with AI partners that help you assault a base, or take on more opponents than usual.
One of the best elements in the game come from the use of different vehicles. I recognised some of them from Halo marketing, but I think most of the vehicles you can drive in Spartan Assault are directly from the main games. Even without knowing why, I had a great time jumping in some alien contraption and raining down blasts of plasma-looking fire on the enemy. There's a nice range of vehicles that pop up here and there, which held my interest enough to complete the game.
There are also other Halo things that I didn't really understand most of the time. The alien weapons made no sense to me and it took a while to understand when each one was most useful. It really felt like you'd have an advantage when choosing weapons if you were familiar with other Halo games.
Likewise for the armour powers, which I'm not even sure have anything to do with your armour, but you basically get a single power that can be activated during battle. They range from extra armour strength, temporary invisibility, and creating a diversion with holograms, to name a few. Again, I think these are copied from the main series, but I didn't really get very familiar with any of them during my time with Spartan Assault.
With all of that in mind, I still enjoyed myself throughout the campaign. Even though parts of it didn't really make sense and I wasn't sure how certain weapons and mechanics were supposed to work, I put that down to my own ignorance.
I wouldn't rush out and play Spartan Assault purely on the basis of it being a twin-stick. The closest comparison I can think of is that it feels like a slower version of Renegade Ops, which is kind of a compliment as well. Everything about this game feels polished and solid, it just lacks the white-knuckle tension of other games in the genre.
Maybe super fans of Halo will love every part of Spartan Assault, which would be alright as it's probably made for them. However, there's enough of a polished experience here to make it worth a playthrough if you can pick it up cheap and enjoy these kind of games.
Just don't expect to work up a sweat. This is more of a casual Sunday afternoon experience.