Tag Archives: Xbox One

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.

Halo Fest 2020 – Spartan Ops

The Story So Far: Adrift for over 4 years, the crippled UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn is pulled towards a mysterious object. Cortana wakes the Master Chief from cryosleep and the pair discover that they’re being attacked by a splinter fleet of Covenant loyalists led by the Sangeili Jul’Mdama. Without warning the object opens and violently pulls all nearby ships into it. Crashing onto the interior surface of what they learn is the Forerunner Shield World Requiem, Cortana picks up a faint signal from another UNSC ship, the supercarrier Infinity. Attempting to warn the Infinity of Requiem’s gravity well, the pair unwittingly release an ancient Forerunner warrior leader, the Didact, from stasis. The Didact resumes control of his army of defensive constructs, the Prometheans, with Jul’Mdama’s faction also falling into his ranks. Barely escaping, Master Chief and Cortana reach Infinity’s crash site where Master Chief rallies the UNSC defense, forcing the Didact into retreat. Aboard the Infinity Captain Del Rio dispatches a force to disable Requiem’s gravity generators so that the Infinity can escape. In the process the Master Chief is lured to a Forerunner facility where he’s contacted by the AI imprint of an ancient Forerunner called the Librarian. Explaining that the Didact intends to use a device called the Composer which had been used to digitally conscript living beings, including humans, into Prometheans to fight against the Flood, she insists that he must be stopped. Upon returning to the Infinity, Captain Del Rio observes Cortana’s instability and orders Master Chief to surrender her, ordering his arrest when he refuses. Instead, the Infinity’s executive officer, Commander Lasky, aids the Chief by procuring Pelican gunship for him. The Didact departs Requiem aboard his flagship, the Mantle’s Approach, though the Chief and Cortana make it just in time to stowaway on an accompanying Covenant dropship. Later hijacking the ship, the pair head to Ivanoff Station, a research facility where the Composer has been relocated. They find the station already under assault and attempt to sabotage the Composer before the Didact can reclaim it. Failing, they witness the Didact unleash the Composer on the station to devastating effect. Master Chief and Cortana then arm a Broadsword fighter with a HAVOK nuclear missile and pursue the Mantle’s Approach as it heads for Earth. Crashing into the ship’s interior, Master Chief takes the warhead and continues to fight his way to the Didact on foot. Confronting him, Cortana distracts the Didact for long enough for the Chief to manually arm the warhead. Cortana is able to teleport the Chief safely off of the ship but sacrifices herself in the process. Master Chief is later found and brought back aboard the Infinity where he quietly mourns the loss of Cortana.

“Oh goody, more Knights…”

Replacing the popular Firefight wave survival mode first introduced with Halo 3: ODST and iterated on with Halo: Reach, Halo 4 included a separate episodic co-op oriented campaign called “Spartan Ops”. 343 Industries might have opted to do this as part of an effort to canonize Halo 4’s multiplayer (AKA “Halo: Infinity”) with competitive modes being presented as war games conducted aboard the UNSC Infinity. Similarly, and the reason I wanted to cover Spartan Ops despite not talking too much about multiplayer during my Halo Fest posts is that, unlike Firefight, the Spartan Ops campaign actually includes a full story, taking place just after the events of Halo 4.

Back in the day I had started to work my way through Spartan Ops by myself on “Heroic” difficulty but quickly discovered that it was definitely tuned for 4 person cooperative play. Between this and that it still retained much of Firefight’s wave survival gameplay (and you were fighting damned Prometheans a lot of the time to boot) it was quite the slog. I think I made it as far as episode 2 before burning out, and I believe this is a huge reason for that negative impression of Halo 4 I’d been carrying around for almost a decade now. Going back to the campaign in 2021, I decided that cranking my difficulty down to “Easy” would probably be a solid first step in meeting my goal of making it all the way through this time.

“What can I say? The Warthog never gets old!”

While still not a total cakewalk, there were a few things unique to Spartan Ops that made it a bit more tolerable. For one, weapon racks and ammo crates are generously placed throughout each map. Sure, you may still need to grab a Covenant or Promethean weapon from time to time, but you’ll have the option of using UNSC weapons without worrying about running out of ammo much more often than in Halo 4 proper. There are also special ordnance drops that are given to you during many missions, usually when there’s a particular reason you might need a special weapon; rocket launchers being dropped for you just before a pair (or multiple pairs) of Hunters show up is a common example. You also get to use your multiplayer loadouts which means access to your choice of basic weapons and grenades, equipment, and special “tactical packages” and “support upgrades”. Finally, being multiplayer oriented, you simply respawn if you die rather than having to jump back to your last checkpoint. Nice!

Gameplay wise, your fireteam is dropped into an area and issued a linear string of objectives, coming one at a time to appear more dynamic. For instance, you might be sent to a waypoint, then told to activate a McGuffin, then told to defend the area against a few waves of enemies, then told to reach the extraction point and… oh no, reinforcements! Better defeat a few more waves so you can extract! You get the point. In the first 5 episodes this gets very formulaic and very repetitive very quickly. Even more so when you consider that the same 8 maps are featured multiple times in those 25 levels, and many of them are based on sections from the main Halo 4 campaign or are straight up taken from multiplayer in the first place.

Episodes 6 through 10 greatly improve things by introducing a new batch of maps which feel purposely crafted to be used this way. They also do a better job of varying the gameplay, though the tradeoff is that some chapters end up feeling more like single player campaign missions than Firefight-like scenarios. That said, all 10 episodes have some cool moments, including some awesome vehicle-centric sections. It should also be noted that Spartan Ops doesn’t suffer from the issue of having confined, linear levels that I mentioned in my Halo 4 post. Even some of the small maps feel very open which is refreshing when coming straight from the main campaign.

“Palmer and Majestic capture another Forerunner artifact.”

Presentation is another story. Individual chapters start and end with short in-game cutscenes and there are numerous radio communications from your mission handlers about your objectives throughout. Most notably, the biggest story beats are told via lengthy, beautiful rendered cutscenes created by Axis Animation that kick off every new episode and focus on a core cast of characters, many of whom you’ve already met in Halo 4. Honestly, say what you will about Halo 4, but these cutscenes are peak Halo awesomeness in my opinion and I’d love an entire series done this way.

The story itself is quite good too. Untangled from the legacy of Master Chief’s story and the perceived lore complexities of introducing the Didact and the Librarian, I’d suggest perhaps better than Halo 4’s. I definitely got pretty into it in any case. For one, I know he didn’t originate with Halo 4, but I thought Jul’Mdama was a great, more grounded antagonist. I also like getting some insight into the SPARTAN-IVs and the idea of Dr. Halsey feeling somewhat left behind as more advancements are made without her (which I feel is a more realistic narrative than making her cartoonish traitor.) Hell, I even started to like Sarah Palmer by the end of the campaign thanks in large part to the way her relationship with Lasky is depicted. The 10 episode story arc has a satisfying enough conclusion while also leaving some major developments wide open and begging for a sequel. I don’t know if one was actually planned or not, but sadly, a second season of Spartan Ops would never arrive, leaving the story to need to be fully resolved elsewhere.

“Fun times in the corridors of the Infinity.”

All in all, Spartan Ops is a pretty damn cool batch of bonus content that I doubt a lot of Halo fans have experienced. While I’m not sure I can heartily recommend it to solo players, there were numerous chapters that stuck out to me as likely being incredibly fun when played cooperatively while I was playing through. That said, in the exceedingly likely event that you’re unable to convince even a single buddy to play through this huge 50 mission campaign with you, watching a compilation of its awesome cutscenes is still an absolutely worthy investment of your time and that, at least, gets that my recommendation.

Next up, something completely different…