Halo: Spartan Assault Review

Fighting Covenant From a New Perspective

Halo: Spartan Assault absolutely nails the look, sound, and overall mood of the iconic franchise, despite the switch to an overhead perspective. Unfortunately, unwieldy twin-stick touch controls betray this attention to detail, leading to a game that – while still enjoyable – does not live up to expectations for a game bearing the Halo name.

Spartan Assault fits into Halo lore in between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4, played through the eyes of two super-soldier Spartans... sort of. All of Spartan Assault’s 25 bite-sized missions are actually historical recreations of those events, played out by cadets aboard the UNSC Infinity on tablet computers.

This is a smart framing device that offers an in-game explanation for why you’re playing with your thumbs on a touch screen, and also makes it easy for developer Vanguard

Games to release fresh stand-alone episodes covering unseen pockets of Halo lore. But it also considerably lowers the stakes. When I was clinging to life as Spartan Davis on an alien moon overrun with Covenant, I didn’t really care, since it’s only a simulation of past events. Halo: Reach at first glance appeared to employ a similar structure, but there, even though the outcome was known, you at least controlled Noble Team directly.

While the story might be low-stakes, it’s at least well-told. The animated cutscenes are gorgeous and impressive, and the voice acting is likewise high quality. This head-turning presentation and attention to detail extends to the in-game maps as well, and sound design is absolutely great. Playing Spartan Assault with a good pair of headphones was my first true realization of just how important sound is to the Halo experience. The warbly hum of a Ghost, the guttural orders barked by Elites, iconic weapon sounds like the Needler or sniper rifle... it’s all here, and it’s all glorious.

On paper, all of Halo’s celebrated gameplay pillars are here as well, just played from a new overhead angle. You can melee, lob grenades, pilot vehicles, and even activate armor abilities. But in practice, attempting anything more than basic moving and shooting on a touch screen results in frustration and disappointment far too often. Moving by dragging your left thumb and firing by dragging the right isn’t much of a problem, although it can still feel imprecise. The real offender is the variety of abilities mapped to virtual buttons around the edge of your screen. Even in Spartan Assault’s final missions I had to take my eyes off the action and glance down to ensure I was placing my thumb in the right spot to switch weapons or activate an armor ability.

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Spartan Assault is a vastly superior experience when played with a mouse and keyboard.

I’m not against touch screens for action games in general – I’ve seen it done very well elsewhere – but Spartan Assault is a vastly superior experience when played with a mouse and keyboard. With a keyboard you can target with pinpoint accuracy, without the inevitable tragic consequences of the game taking its best guess at where you want to throw that grenade. Frustratingly imprecise and tiny virtual buttons are replaced with keyboard hotkeys. Bottom line? If at all possible, experience Spartan Assault with a mouse and keyboard. (Official Xbox 360 controller support remains bewilderingly absent.)

Once you have the proper control devices, Spartan Ops includes plenty of reason to return to the campaign time and time again, including medals, achievements, challenges, gold-medal scoring goals, and leaderboards. I especially appreciated the inclusion of Halo’s infamous skulls, which are all unlocked from the start. If you’re masochistic, you can use them to earn a score multiplier by turning on effects like more brutal enemies, decreased ammo pick-ups and more nastiness.

Shade Turrets... my only weakness.

The missions themselves also include a welcome amount of variety. Every time I began to get frustrated with a brutal on-foot mission Spartan Assault would let me blow off some steam with a Scorpion Tank segment. Levels of polish vary, however. Some, generally the more expansive vehicular ones, manage to recreate the feeling of sandbox combat pioneered by the Xbox games. But a few too many stages rely on “last stand” scenarios with wave after wave of enemies phasing into view directly in front of you, which is only fun the first couple of times.

Hardcore Halo fans should keep in mind that Spartan Assault does not include any kind of multiplayer. Even though this is a smaller side-story, it’s disappointing to not have any way to play with my friends.