Halo: Spartan Assault Xbox 360 Preview

It has been quite some time since I mentioned the need for some AAA twin stick shooters.  Microsoft Studios more than likely (obviously not) read my article and brought us Halo: Spartan Assault.  The current Halo developer, 343 Industries, and the creators of the twin stick shooter, Gatling Gears, Vanguard Entertainment bring everything Microsoft a solid twin stick shooter.

As a disclaimer, I have not touched the Halo Series since the third entry so I am not familiar with any of the 343 Industries games giving me a strange sense of nostalgia coming back to the universe about seven years later. Playing through the demo, you will be introduced to a completely new story that Halo fans should appreciate assuming they follow the lore of the series.  The game lacks cutscenes and gives players briefings for the missions instead. The game feels like it was built for mobile devices because the missions are incredibly short and lacks the chaos we see in most twin stick games on PC and console. The game is very good looking and environments really pop out. The characters also look really good and have that “shine” I tend to see in the enemies and players armor. However, the lack of power on mobile devices can be seen with the amount of enemies. Drop ships will spawn about three grunts and I never saw more than five enemies on screen at one time.  With that being said, I did only touch the demo and the pace of the game is much slower than other top down shooters. As one would expect, you aim with the right analog stick and shoot with the right trigger. Halo: Spartan Assault does a great job feeling like a Halo game giving you all the same options with guns, power ups and grenades.  You can even get into vehicles and melee enemies.  Although it’s rare for top down shooter to have a jump button, I feel strange not being able to do so in a Halo game. Especially when the levels provide small barriers that I would like to jump over.

As I said before, the two developers do a great job converting the FPS experience to the twin stick genre but the slow pace of the Halo series adds for a underwhelming experience.  The plasma charge gun is powerful when charged but the lack of reticle or even a red dot sight makes aiming the gun hard in the top down setting. Turrets manned by grunts are relatively easy to take down but, from my understanding, you can’t take the grunt out without destroying the turret.  Turrets are extremely powerful and are incredibly useful. Unless, of course, you have to destroy it. Even the tutorial was structured in a strange manor.  The first thing you learn how to do is get hurt.  The point of the game is not to get hurt and even though you are teaching us the shield mechanics, the player will learn that anyways.

This demo didn’t give me any reason to come back to the Halo series but fans of both Halo and twin stick games should definitely check it out.  There is a great amount of gameplay variety for a twin stick shooter and a fair amount of replay if you want to get the high score or play with friends.