Halo: Spartan Assault Review

[Something to note about this game for those out there who didn't think it through: Halo: Spartan Assault is a mobile game. The game is intended for play on mobile platforms, specifically Windows Phones and Windows 8 Tablets. This is not a PC game in terms of controls, mechanics, gameplay, graphics - anything.]

Halo: Spartan Assault released on July 18, 2013 for Windows 8 and Windows Phones. The game costs $6.99 and is available in the Windows Store.

It has been stated that a month after the game's release, Halo: Spartan Assault will receive support for the use of XBOX 360 gamepads on the Windows 8 Desktop PC version. As of launch, players must use the keyboard and mouse.

GAMEPLAY

Halo: Spartan Assault is designed to give players short, quick bursts of combat-based gameplay on-the-go. With replayable 6-minute missions, the game is perfect for play on phones and tablets while killing time.

The gameplay overall is pretty simple. The player moves their Spartan around the map, aims and shoots (one control both aims and shoots) throws grenades, switches weapons and grenades, and enters vehicles.

The controls for the game, however, are not very smooth - at least on PC. Movement  feels very clunky, and the game would only register right-click attempts to throw grenades about a third of the time. This led to a very frustrating experience.

Since the complex gameplay mechanics of the first person shooter installments of the Halo franchise, the gameplay overall is very simplified. The player controls their spartan from a top-down perspective, providing an arcade-style feel, almost similar to gameplay in games like Diablo 3 (PC) or Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (PS2).

The gameplay does not change much at all throughout the entire game. The goal of every mission is to either kill the Covenant on the map or protect UNSC personnel, by killing Covenant on the map. For a mobile game, this works out, as the levels do vary in difficulty and complex mechanics are difficult to achieve fluidly on the platform, but for a Halo game, this is somewhat disappointing.

There's also some glitching involved with entering vehicles. On occasion, when a player enters a vehicle, it will completely lock up, preventing the player from moving, or doing anything. The game has even crashed entirely from said glitch.

STORY

The primary goal of the game would appear to be to fill in missing story line and gaps between the ending of Halo 3 and the events in Halo 4, but do so in the form of a simple game that anyone can play through.

This has been achieved, somewhat.

Normal storytelling for the shooter genre involved a linear story line wherein the player plays through a series of missions with intermittent quick time events or cinematics to help the story along. This could be compared to a player acting out a movie or book with their character's actions.

Story progression in Halo: Spartan Assault is a tad different. The premise of the game is that the game is a history lesson for Spartan IVs on board the UNSC Infinity for them to go through in-between War Games sessions. War Games being the multiplayer mode from Halo 4.

The events revolve around Spartan Palmer (an important character of Halo 4) and a planet called Draetheus-V. Everything is told in past tense, as it has already happened - because to the current Halo story line, it has.

However, this makes things confusing as well. The player is given a quick time event that briefly narrates what the Spartan in the upcoming missions did during the mission set's time period, and then is presented with rather lengthy blocks of text before each mission. The block of text uses quite an extensive vocabulary of long words to explain what the Spartan did during the mission - before the player plays it. Then after reading, the player plays through the mission just as described in the passage.

This creates a very strange feeling for a game. Many games absolutely abhor spoilers to a game's story. Halo: Spartan Assault gives the player the ultimate spoilers: it says exactly what the player will do to complete the mission, and part of the outcome of the mission.

The text passages somewhat resemble those one would find in a history book, which makes sense for the context, however that also removes the point of playing through the mission.

Overall, the way in which the story for the game is told just doesn't feel right.

MARKETING

There are a few challenges present when developing a game for mobile devices from a huge, complex, console game franchise - scaling the game down to the platform, and financial success.

Since Halo: Spartan Assault is primarily a mobile game, it competes with other popular mobile titles such as Angry Birds and others, which at most generally cost $3-5 for the most expensive versions.

Halo: Spartan Assault costs a bit higher than most mobile games, at $6.99, but also much much cheaper than any previous Halo-related title.

With such a low consumer cost, one has to expect that Microsoft will try to get money out of players in other ways. That way being in-game loadouts.

Before starting a mission, players get to view the default loadout of weapons and perks and change them, much like in the console FPS Halo titles.

Some "power weapons" can be chosen instead of the default weapons at the cost of in-game Experience Points that the player earns by completing missions.

Players who have played Halo 4's War Games multiplayer on the XBOX 360 will receive "Redeem Tokens" to use some of the power weapons once. The unlock is only good for 1 mission.

Other weapons have to be bought using "cR" or Credits that are purchased with real money.

Credits start at $2.99 for 500 and go up to $39.99 for 10,000 cR.

The highest weapon choice costs 80 or 90 cR.

Overall, this system wouldn't be as problematic, except the weapon unlocks - even with paid credits - only last for 1 mission. A player buys a weapon or perk using Experience Points or paid cR and gets to use it only for the duration of that 6-minute mission. Once the mission is completed, the weapon or perk needs to be unlocked again - even to replay the same mission.

This creates either a money-draining process or the player or forces them to use the default weapons - some of which are some pretty terrible choices. (The Focus Rifle in this game is useless.)

LAUNCH PROBLEMS

Overall, the game's launch was very rocky, to say the least.

Halo Waypoint teased that the game would be released on July 18, the day before. Until that point no release date had been set. When July 18 came around, they took the information off of the web page. It wasn't until a few hours before that one of the official Twitter accounts announced that it would be released at 4pm PDT that day. (What kind of release time is that?)

Even now, the game is not fully released. According to the Halo Waypoint entry for the game (and many confused customers) anyone using Windows Phones on any wireless service than Verizon (which is probably most of them) will not be able to download the game until August 16, 2013. Those with phones that have 512MB of RAM (versus 1GB) will have to wait until an indefinite time in August to get the game.

Support for XBOX 360 controllers was promised for Halo: Spartan Assault. This feature is now not going to be available until "a month or so after release."

Additional missions and features are planned to come out at later dates for the game.

Taking a "progressive content" approach for the game makes sense, but progressive completion?

The game itself is also not very smooth yet. As previously mentioned, the controls are very clunky, grenade use does not appear to register most of the time, and there are some potentially game-breaking glitches involving vehicles.

OVERALL

Overall, I see Halo: Spartan Assault being a decent mobile/PC crossover title by this time in 2014. At the moment, however, it's just continuing the trail of disappointment from the Halo franchise.

You can watch some gameplay of Halo: Spartan Assault here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbFNznXE2ps