Tag Archives: Xbox One

Halo Fest 2020 – Halo Wars 2

I was both surprised and more than a little pessimistic when I heard that Halo Wars 2 was in development for the Xbox One. It seems that neither my observations about the first game’s questionable intended audience or its odd, semi-forgotten place in the Halo series necessarily correlated with low sales numbers. Still, I’m curious about what inspired them to make Halo Wars 2 beyond 343 Industries’ continued efforts to grow and diversify the franchise, particularly with Ensemble out of the picture. Speaking of, Halo Wars 2 would be developed by another studio with some serious strategy game credentials, Creative Assembly, best known for their Total War series. Likely pretty exciting for fans of the first game, though, like I mentioned in my Halo 5 post, I was out of the loop on all things Xbox for much of that generation.

“Capt. Cutter and Jerome-092 are back, along with a new friend.”

Immediately upon loading the game up I was struck by its presentation, as extremely close-up shots of units in combat cycle in the background showcasing a change in both art direction and graphical fidelity; the further you zoom in the more the individual units start to look cartoonishly stylized, almost appearing like figurines from a tabletop wargame. Then we have the pre-rendered cutscenes. Oh my! Blur is back and their work here is top-tier, even more impressive than in the original Halo Wars.

Hopping into my first mission I was struck by how much better the effects, animations, and particularly the environments looked than in the first game. As for the units, Halo Wars 2 sticks with designs much closer to those of the original Halo trilogy than 343’s later revisions. Whether this was an attempt to appease older fans or simply justified for the in-universe reason that the Spirit of Fire and her crew had been drifting since before Halo: CE (and without any fancy nanomachine upgrades) I don’t know, but I appreciate it in any case. About my only complaint is that, unlike in the original Halo Wars, your units are all colored with the multiplayer forest green color rather than the typical olive green we associate with the Master Chief. A total nitpick, I admit.

“The Flood aren’t the only ones who can field ridiculous numbers of the same unit.”

The UI has been totally overhauled, and while many of the controller bindings and interface concepts are the same as in the first game, they’ve definitely been improved and expanded upon, particularly when it comes to unit selection. In the end, I still relied mostly on the basic controls of selecting every unit, all units on the screen, or units of a particular type rather than grouping them more strategically as I might in a PC RTS. As such, there were points at which I returned to the cheesy strategy of massing a single type of unit, most notably fully upgraded Banshees when playing the last few missions of the Awakening the Nightmare expansion.

As with the first game, I opted to lower my difficulty level down to “Normal” in the interest of keeping my playthrough from being too laborious, but while there were definitely still a few difficult spots where I found myself caught in a bit of a grind against unit attrition and/or base defense versus exploration or aggressively seeking out objectives, overall it felt a little less challenging, at least until I got to the DLC content. I still find the unit constraints and other limitations many campaign missions force on you to be pretty annoying, but this is typical of single player campaigns in RTS games, and I at least found some of these scenarios, particularly the mission “Hold the Line” (a straight-up tower defense ripoff) to be pretty fun.

“A huge UNSC combined force claiming a Forerunner structure.”

Now let’s talk about the story. As this is a side story without too much relation to the main series, I’ll go ahead and recap the plot of Halo War 2’s campaign and its two DLC expansions. I try to be somewhat vague in these plot summaries but they absolutely do still contain spoilers, so skip the three paragraphs if you don’t want the plot to be spoiled!

The Story: After drifting for 28 years the Spirit of Fire’s crew awakens to find themselves orbiting an enormous Forerunner installation in uncharted space. Spartan Red Team and a small recon squad are soon dispatched to the surface to investigate the source of an encrypted UNSC transmission. There they find the battle-scarred ruins of a small UNSC science outpost and its still-active AI, Isabel. Isabel tells Captain Cutter and his officers about the installation they’re on, the Ark, and the Banished, a powerful mercenary army made up of Covenant remnants and led by the Brute warlord Atriox, who have occupied it. Determined to stay and fight, Cutter begins deploying forces planetside, successfully executing a series of strikes against Banished bases. Enraged by these losses, the Banished send their flagship, Enduring Conviction, to engage the Spirit of Fire directly. With the Spirit of Fire only temporarily able to fend off the Enduring Conviction, Isabel enacts a cunning plan to gain access to the flagship’s systems and attack the Ark, causing the installation’s Sentinel drones to attack the ship en masse, quickly crippling it. Meanwhile, Professor Anders comes up with her own cunning plan to regain contact with the UNSC. Launching a reserve Halo ring from the Ark’s Foundry, Anders plans to plant a beacon in its control room before it jumps to the site of the destroyed Installation 04, hopefully close enough to UNSC space to be detected. After repelling a Banished assault on the newly launched ring, Anders, while successful, is unable to escape the ring’s control room before it jumps. Sometime later while Cutter and Atriox plan their next moves in the war for control of the Ark, the ring drops out of slipspace. Investigating, Anders comes face to face with a Guardian.

Set one month later, Operation SPEARBREAKER follows a squad of ODST as they lead an operation to stop the now stranded Banished from activating a Forerunner fighter and using it to destroy the Spirit of Fire. Caught between UNSC forces and the Ark’s own considerable Sentinel defenses, the Banished plan is ultimately foiled.

Set several months later still, Awakening the Nightmare shows the war from the perspective of the Banished. With the loss of the Enduring Conviction, Banished forces must scour the Ark for supplies and other resources to keep up their war against the Spirit of Fire. During such a mission, two of Atriox’s lieutenants, brothers Voridus and Pavium, violate direct orders and penetrate the crashed High Charity’s defenses, unwittingly unleashing the previously quarantined Flood. The Flood rapidly spread across the Ark, infecting Banished and UNSC troops alike, with every plan the brothers concoct to halt their advance being decisively defeated. Soon the existence of a Proto-Gravemind is discovered and, running out of options, the brothers make a concentrated effort to destroy it. Thanks to this massive coordinated strike, Voridus and Pavium succeed, and at Atriox’s order, turn to cleaning up the remaining Flood.

“Atriox, Warmaster of the Banished, throwing off the Covenant’s yoke.”

First, I have to say that I liked Halo Wars 2’s story a hell of a lot more than some other recent entries in the franchise. It feels more original than that of the first Halo Wars while also being grounded enough to not require you to be a scholar of expanded lore to appreciate (looking at you, Halo 4.) To that end, you’re never left scratching your head about who the antagonists are either. In fact, Atriox and his Banished are introduced with a detailed backstory right up front, and the awesome cutscene in question should be required viewing for anyone playing Halo Infinite. I also love that the Spartans of Red Team now have a lot more personality so we can like them for more than just being ridiculously effective, and despite me just saying that, they don’t feel like invincible superheroes either, with one of them getting messed up bad during the very first encounter with the Banished. Between that and Isabel’s almost palpable fear of Atriox when you first meet her, I felt like I was set on my back foot from the start. My only real disappointment is the end of the campaign, which never fully resolves the conflict at the core of the story, even with the addition of two DLC campaigns that extend the timeline. To be continued, I suppose, and likely in a book or a comic rather than another game. *sigh*

“Hellbringers roasting some garrisoned Brutes.”

To wrap up, Halo Wars 2 feels like a good sequel, retaining the feel of the first game with expected iterative refinements to gameplay, technology, and practically everything, really, along with the level of polished presentation you’d expect from a Halo game. It honestly blows my mind that the first Halo Wars managed to be good, but for Halo Wars 2 to come out 8 years later with a completely different dev team at the helm and also be good? Kind of amazing. So, it goes without saying that if you were a fan of Halo Wars, you shouldn’t hesitate to give Halo Wars 2 a spin. If you tried Halo Wars and didn’t like it, on the other hand, there’s probably nothing compelling for you here outside of a quick watch of the cutscenes.

Oh hey, it’s bonus live-action media time again! While Halo Wars 2 did have the usual barrage of promotional and marketing content from 343, the only real live-action content were these two ads which, while having very little to do with efforts to make a Halo movie or television series, did at least get a chuckle out of me. More of this, please!

Halo Fest 2020 – Guardians

With my decision to skip out on the Xbox One meaning I’d likely never play Halo 5, I stayed oblivious to both the considerable amount of pre-release hype and the immediate post-release criticism around the game. That’s not to say I don’t know anything about it as these days it’s difficult to find yourself in any sort of Halo community without stumbling across a ridiculous meme bashing Spartan Locke. Indeed, the game has a remarkably terrible reputation, often slated for having the worst campaign of any of the mainline Halo games. This means I was totally intrigued to finally play it, but my expectations weren’t exactly high.

“Guns down in Sanghelios.”

Graphically, the Halo franchise’s entry into the 8th generation definitely didn’t disappoint and of course Halo 5 continues the tradition of featuring levels that span across diverse environments which helps showcase this, the awesome “glassed” moon Meridian and the beautiful Elite homeworld Sanghelios being particular standouts. Quite a nice looking game with all of the little touches and polish you’d expect from the series. Technical fidelity aside, 343 Industries continued the stylistic overhaul they started with Halo 4, bringing more of an overall cohesion to the designs of the UNSC. Some of these changes, such as with my beloved Scorpion tank, were perhaps the biggest departures from Halo: CE yet, while still quite respectful of their classic designs. The Covenant and particularly the Prometheans were similarly given a fresh coat of paint.

Things fare a little worse when it comes to gameplay. For the first time in Halo Fest 2020, I was struck by how different Halo 5 felt to play. It’s hard to describe, but it didn’t quite feel like Halo anymore. It was as if the series was moved to a new engine without much care being put into trying to replicate the feel of the previous one. On top of that, the overhauls I mentioned above didn’t stop with the graphics, with many weapons being heavily reworked as well. The classic Assault Rifle / melee combo I’d used as my crutch in literally every game since Halo: CE no longer felt quite as effective. Of course, I quickly got used to all of this and adapted, but I have to imagine that this is a big part of why fans heaped so much praise on how Halo Infinite feels to control.

“Atomizing a Promethean Soldier with a Splinter Turret.”

Gone are the armor abilities that had been evolving since Halo 3, replaced instead with some inherent “Spartan Abilities”. You can now sprint at will, have built in thrusters to propel you directionally, and you can also perform special charge and ground pound attacks. The charge in particular is used a lot in the campaign to break through walls, unlocking secret stashes or alternate routes. There’s also a new ledge grab, which improves jumping and climbing quite a bit. I’m honestly not sure how “Halo” it all feels, but you’ve definitely got dramatically more maneuverability than ever before. Not technically a Spartan Ability but “assassination” melee moves are also a prominent part of the game now too. Another core change is that all weapons have an “aim down sight”-like system of zooming which is helpful without going all the way into Call of Duty territory.

Speaking of weapons, new to Halo 5 we have the tracking UNSC mini rocket launcher, the Hydra, the Covenant Plasma Caster, which is kind of a combination of the old Concussion Rifle with an alt-fire mode that charges up to fire a high damage projectile, and the Promethean Splinter Turret, which feels like some sort of cannon, and I absolutely grabbed it every time I had the opportunity. They also replaced our beloved SPNKR missile launcher with a totally new model that tracks like in Halo 2. On the vehicle front, the most notable additions are the UNSC Wasp, yet another Hornet and Falcon like aircraft, and the Phaeton, something of a Promethean equivalent. As mentioned, quite a lot of the weapons were tweaked and adjusted, with the Promethean weapons in particular being heavily altered. While I might prefer the old Suppressor, at least it feels like a distinct weapon now.

“Chief finally meets the Warden.”

Oddly, the difficulty struck me as a bit more brutal than the last few games. Playing on “Heroic” as usual, I felt like I could be killed in only a few shots, encouraging further engagement distances and a bit less aggressive play than usual for me. When things did go pear-shaped, my squadmates could usually be trusted to save the day and revive me. That is, for the first time in the Halo series, every single mission has you running as part of a four person fireteam. You have a single context sensitive button, being able to order them to go to a particular location, get in a vehicle, pick up a weapon, engage an enemy, etc. This works reasonably well, but is a far cry from the highly tactical experience I first dreamed of when hearing about Halo: Reach, largely thanks to the AI squadmates being absolute blithering idiots. At least they give us plenty of banter during missions…

The missions themselves are quite quick. If I hadn’t been obsessively scouring every map for hidden intel and skulls I think I would have wrapped up Halo 5’s campaign in record time. This wasn’t an issue for me though; the game was paced with a momentum that never left me ever stopping to wonder if I was bored, even with the addition of a few new “guns down” areas where all you’re expected to do is wander around and talk to other characters. Really, my only major complaint around the campaign structure and level design is with the repeated Warden Eternal boss fights, and even if it was a bit repetitive running into this goon over and over again, the fights were at least a fun challenge.

“Filling a Promethean Knight full of lead.”

Since I griped about them quite a bit during my Halo 4 post, I should mention that the Prometheans have been pretty thoroughly reworked. Knights are now mini-bosses, complete with a “shoot parts off their armor” mechanic for taking them down, and they, along with the Watchers, appear a lot less frequently. Crawlers also appear a lot less, and in much smaller groups when they do. Instead, the Promethean roster now includes a new type of humanoid robot called a “Soldier”. Soldiers can teleport, though not as a frustrating way of fleeing from firefights as with Halo 4’s Knights, and they can wield a variety of weapons, including the above mentioned Splinter Turret. All in all, this version of the Prometheans is far less of a chore to fight and personally, I’m pretty damn happy about that.

So, by now I must have mentioned at least half a dozen things that you might imagine could be responsible for the derision this game constantly gets from the Halo community, but not so fast! I think it’s time for us to talk about Halo 5’s story. Since I feel the need to nitpick it, and from Halo 4 on the games are only loosely connected anyway, I’m going to go ahead and summarize the plot right here. As usual I’ll keep it somewhat vague, but this, as well as the two paragraphs after it, will definitely contain spoilers. Skip the next three paragraphs if you want to avoid them!

“Fireteam Osiris heading towards a distant Forerunner Guardian.”

The Story: Spartan Fireteam Osiris, led by Spartan Jameson Locke, is dispatched from the UNSC Infinity to rescue Dr. Halsey from Covenant faction leader Jul’Mdama. Once planetside, the Spartans find that the Promethean and Covenant forces have turned on each other. Taking advantage of the chaos, Osiris eliminates Jul’Mdama and his retinue and successfully extracts Halsey. Meanwhile, the Master Chief and his fireteam “Blue Team” are conducting a routine mission when the Chief sees a vision of Cortana, who gives him a cryptic message about the planet Meridian. Deciding to investigate instead of returning to the Infinity, Blue Team are listed as AWOL. Arriving on Meridian, Osiris tracks Blue Team to a Forerunner structure housing a Guardian, massive Forerunner ancilla built to police entire systems. Soon after, Osiris catches up to and briefly confronts Blue Team, but they’re able to escape onto the Guardian, leaving Osiris to hastily flee the structure and later the Meridian itself as the Guardian activates and jumps away to devastating effect. Blue Team arrives on an unknown Forerunner planet where Guardians from all over the galaxy are gathering. There Master Chief reunites with Cortana, who shares that when the Didact was defeated his ship performed an emergency jump to this planet, Genesis, where she was able to join the Forerunner data network, the Domain, curing her of her rampancy. She also reveals her plan to take up the Forerunner’s “Mantle of Responsibility” herself, enforcing a new era of peace across the galaxy, seemingly accepting the death and destruction this will inevitably cause. Eager to show Master Chief that her plan will work, she places Blue Team in stasis. Aboard the Infinity, Halsey hatches a plan to hijack a dormant Guardian located on Sanghelios, the Sangheili homeworld. Despite being embroiled in a civil war against the remnants of Jul’Mdama’s Covenant, the Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios get Osiris to the Guardian just as it is about to jump away. On Genesis, Osiris, with the help of the planet’s caretaker AI, 031 Exuberant Witness, is able to wrest control of the planet’s systems away from Cortana, freeing Blue Team in the process. Cortana and her fleet of Guardians jump away to continue with their plan. Some time later, with innumerable AIs joining her cause, Cortana and her “Created” begin disabling ships and other technology all over the galaxy, sending the UNSC Infinity on the run.

From the cutscene at the beginning, which is the most over the top depiction of Spartans I’ve seen since “The Package” in Legends, I was bracing for the worst, but thankfully I found most of the claims of the story being a train wreck to be hyperbole. I think my aforementioned low expectations helped a lot, but, despite so much of the story between Halo 4 and Spartan Ops as well as other crucial background information (like who the hell Blue Team actually is, for one) being left to the most dedicated Halo fans to discover via novels and comics, I was able to follow the plot reasonably well. I admit, I was disappointed that the events of Spartan Ops were wrapped up in such an unceremonious way, but I’d probably be even more bummed out to have never played through Spartan Ops and have no idea why Halsey was hanging out with the Covenant and missing an arm, if I even knew who she was in the first place. Regardless, while there are many signs that maybe the game had been rewritten perhaps one too many times and I’m absolutely certain that a closer examination of the game’s plot would reveal it to be a swiss cheese of much more disconcerting plot holes, there are some very cool ideas here.

“That actual main character of Halo 5, Spartan Locke.”

A much more immediate issue is Halo 5’s dialog. I can generously interpret that 343 intended to depict Blue Team as “quiet professionals” but Master Chief hardly says anything and half of the little he does say is, well, just kind of stupid. It’s easy to imagine that after the traumatic loss of his only companion after so many months fighting the Covenant on his own he’s chosen to lose himself in his work, but the game doesn’t make any effort to show us that, and that is an example of what people really mean when they say Halo 5’s writing is bad. Cortana is the real standout to me though, as her physical depiction, voice acting, and even her behavior (like cruelly mocking the members of Osiris towards the end of the game) barely resemble the Cortana we know. Sure, this could be explained by everything that happened to her since Halo 4, but it just feels… off. Speaking of Osiris, it’s absolutely mind boggling that, after the well-known fan backlash over playing the Arbiter for a third of the game in Halo 2, 343 would have us playing Locke and Fireteam Osiris for all but three of the 15 missions in Halo 5. *facepalm*

While I could go much, much further, this is already getting too long. I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit more than I was anticipating. Still, it fails to continue Halo 4’s character development of either Master Chief or Cortana and it fails to wrap up the events Spartan Ops set up in any meaningful way. Indeed, it also sounds like, despite introducing a huge new threat and ending on somewhat of a cliffhanger, it doesn’t connect in an important way to the story of Halo Infinite either. So, while maybe Halo 5 might not deserve every bit of the ridicule it gets online (and indeed, much of the community was quite fond of its multiplayer, and its Forge is supposedly incredible) that doesn’t exactly make it an impressive entry into the series either.

To briefly carry on the tradition of talking about live action media around the series, the “Hunt the Truth” campaign advertisements The Hunt Begins, All Hail / The Cost, and A Hero Falls set up a seriously epic showdown between the Chief and Locke, which, yeah, isn’t even close to what happened. Ooops! What was it I said about too many rewrites again?

Halo Fest 2020 – Spartan Assault

The Story So Far: 6 months after the Didact was defeated the UNSC Infinity embarks on a mission to return to the Forerunner Shield World Requiem and reclaim it from Jul’Mdama’s rogue Covenant faction. As part of a massive combined force, including over 300 SPARTAN-IVs led by Commander Sarah Palmer, Spartan fireteams engage in various operations on Requiem’s surface. During one such mission, fireteam Crimson recovers a mysterious Forerunner artifact. Later investigating it aboard the Infinity, head engineer Dr. Glassman appears to be disintegrated by the artifact. In his absence, Dr. Catherine Halsey is temporarily released from custody after being arrested for war crimes, including her role in the SPARTAN-II program, and brought onboard to continue the investigation. During her research, Dr. Halsey begins communicating with an unknown entity who she eventually pieces together is Jul’Mdama himself. Caught in the act, Halsey is placed back into custody though not before reaching out to Jul’Mdama to offer her assistance with unlocking the Librarian’s AI imprint. As a result, combined Covenant and Promethean forces lay siege to the Infinity, appearing to abduct Dr. Halsey in the process. Brought to the Librarian’s shrine, Halsey is able to unlock and enter it before Jul’Mdama can intervene. ONI learns of Halsey’s betrayal and orders her assassination with Commander Palmer departing to handle it personally. Captain Lasky orders fireteam Majestic, who are already on Requiem, to rescue the doctor instead. The Librarian shows Halsey another artifact called the Janus Key, which can provide the real time location of all Forerunner technology, and gives it to her in hopes that it can be used to propel humanity’s evolution forward. Pulling her out of the shrine, Jul’Mdama snatches one half of the Janus Key from her just as Palmer and fireteam Majestic arrive. In the ensuing chaos Halsey passes the other half of the Janus Key to Majestic, Palmer wounds her, and Jul’Mdama absconds with her. As his fleet begins to jump away, Jul’Mdama deactivates the slipspace anchors holding Requiem in place, pulling it into a nearby sun. The Infinity is able to free itself from the artifact’s hold and jump away just in time.

With 343 Industries continuing to grow Halo as a full “transmedia” franchise, more of the type of spinoffs Microsoft first tried with Halo Wars seemed inevitable. Unlike Halo Wars though, 2013’s Halo: Spartan Assault wouldn’t be limited to a niche genre on a single platform; Spartan Assault was an easy to pick up and play twin stick shooter that was eventually available for Windows and iOS mobile devices, Xbox One and Xbox 360, and Windows. I’m not sure whether Spartan Assault’s sales actually reflected being both more approachable and more available but, given that it was quickly followed up with a sequel the following year, it seems likely.

“While the gameplay is a little repetitive there’s plenty of variety in the maps.”

I can’t say I have any particular fondness for twin stick shooters myself but these kinds of genre spinoff games are always intriguing to me. Still, never much of a mobile gamer, Spartan Assault flew completely under my radar and I honestly didn’t know that it was released on anything other than mobile devices until spotting it in the Xbox Store just a few years ago. Indeed, it’s that version I played for this playthrough; the Xbox One version on my Series X. Notably, this also marks the first time I’ll be covering something entirely new to me as part of Halo Fest 2020 and that remains the case from here on out. Kind of weird given how rooted in nostalgia this whole thing is, eh?

Spartan Assault actually does a fairly good job at taking a great deal of the core Halo formula and cramming it into a twin stick shooter mold. You play as a single Spartan wandering around on foot spraying down Covenant forces en masse with a variety of weapons. Included are staples like your Mjolnir armor’s recharging shield and a two weapon limit, with many of Halo’s iconic weapons showing up, and even armor abilities making a prominent appearance. One of the bigger twists to the genre is the lack of unlimited ammo, though scavenging from weapon racks, ammo crates, and fallen enemies should keep that from ever being more than a minor inconvenience. You’re sometimes given a UNSC Scorpion or Grizzly tank (though oddly no Warthogs) and hijacking Ghosts and Wraiths is an option as well. Overall, it all feels sufficiently “Halo”.

“Everything is better with tanks!”

Developed as a mobile game first, each mission takes no more than 10 or 15 minutes to complete, with many clocking in closer to 5 minutes. Between that and the lack of anything more than simple objectives like “destroy this emplacement” or “hold this point” there really isn’t a ton of challenge here. While there is a stripped down but otherwise familiar skull system, there isn’t any kind of selectable difficulty level either. Instead, the challenge is in earning a star rating based on your score at the end of each mission. In most missions earning a bronze star is effortless, though you’ll need to intentionally chase as many kill streaks and multikills as possible to get beyond that. The other way of doing this is via in-app microtransactions in the form of score boosts and temporary special weapon unlocks. Thankfully, these microtransactions (and indeed chasing high scores in the first place) can be easily ignored if you prefer, and purchasable with in-game experience points if you’re desperate to use them without laying down cash for the privilege.

Graphically Spartan Assault doesn’t come close to representing what the Xbox One can do. While serviceable, I’d argue that the Halo game it shares the most in common with, Halo Wars, shows a much higher degree of polish. The soundtrack fares better, with the original Halo trilogy’s soundtrack being an obvious influence. It’s just a shame you don’t get to hear more of it. A bigger complaint I have is that certain button assignments and other UI choices make it obvious that the controls definitely don’t appear to have been designed from the ground up with a gamepad in mind. That’s not to say they’re horrible, but they never clicked with me in a truly satisfying way which is kind of make or break for a twin stick shooter in my opinion. I also find it shocking that, despite being a common feature of both the Halo series and this entire genre, the campaign completely lacks cooperative play. There was a mini cooperative-only campaign that introduced a Firefight-like wave defense mode against our old friends the Flood added to the console releases, but even that lacks local co-op. Definitely a huge missed opportunity.

“The dryness of the mission briefings makes sense in context.”

Taking place sometime before the Infinity returned to Earth after the end of the Requiem Campaign (as described above) Spartan Assault is framed around a TACSIM training simulator that lets Spartans experience historical battles. The campaign covers the events of the Battle of Draetheus V, and follows the exploits of SPARTAN-IVs Edward Davis and Sarah Palmer. A motion comic style cutscene (similar to some of the ones we’ve seen in the terminals of earlier games) narrated by the Infinity’s quirky AI Roland sets up each operation, while each mission therein is presented by a strategic map and a couple of paragraphs of text that dryly describe each scenario.

Given that this is a side story that actually takes place out of chronological order, I’ll go over the plot here. While I’m fairly vague in these summaries they do still contain spoilers, so skip the next paragraph if you want to avoid them.

The Story: A splinter fleet of Covenant forces led by Sangheili Merg Vol appeared over the research colony of Draetheus V and launched an assault on its moon, X50. Spartans Edward Davis and Sarah Palmer rallied the UNSC defense, fortifying its primary research facility as well as setting up anti-air defenses to target incoming Covenant dropships. While successful in slowing the attack, Meg Vol’s fanatical forces still quickly overwhelmed them and established a solid foothold on X50. Spartan Palmer departed for Draetheus V to assist with its defense which soon escalated to targeted strikes against Covenant officers and an organized counter offensive resulting in a large armor engagement in which both sides suffered great losses. Meanwhile Meg Vol’s true goal became clear as it was discovered that X50 was not a natural moon but a massive Forerunner structure capable of building and destroying entire planets. With the support of the UNSC Eminent Domain and its marines, Spartan Davis was able to fight through the Covenant’s lines to the Forerunner control structure. UNSC technicians successfully disabled the weapon, though not before Merg Vol had already begun to unleash its devastating power against Draetheus V itself. Back on Draetheus V, Spartan Palmer’s efforts shifted to assisting with the evacuation of the planet, commandeering numerous Covenant troop carriers. With Meg Vol still at large on X50 and not being able to contact Davis who had been killed in action in a ferocious Covenant counterattack, Palmer headed back to X50 to hunt for the rogue Covenant leader. After a vicious battle, Palmer subdued and killed Vol. With his faction now leaderless and in retreat, the survivors were able to evacuate the system.

“He’s no Master Chief, but Spartan Davis did save an entire planet.”

Spartan Assault’s plot retreads a lot of familiar ground, especially on the heels of playing through Halo 4 and its Spartan Ops campaign. I can’t say it adds very much either; I’d personally hoped to learn a little more about Sarah Palmer given that she was already an established character but, as was increasingly the trend, 343 saved that for elsewhere. Still, the details of Palmer’s heroics during the battle of Draetheus V are certainly impressive and surely contributed to how she ended up as the Commander of Spartan Operations on the Infinity. Overall, while not all that significant to Halo’s overarching plot, the story of the Battle of Draetheus V at least doesn’t feel out of place in the canon.

In the end, Spartan Assault feels like a fairly typical budget spinoff game. It’s decently executed and relatively fun to pass the time with, but ultimately a fairly mediocre experience for anyone who isn’t a big fan of the twin stick shooter genre (who I’d imagine would have a heap of their own criticisms beyond the ones I brought up.) Still, as a unique experience within the franchise that’s quite quick to play through, it was an enjoyable enough diversion. I wouldn’t say you should avoid it, but it’s entirely skippable.