Halo: Spartan Assault

Halo: Spartan Assault is a top-down shooter game developed by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games. The game takes place between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4 near the end of the Human-Covenant war and details the first missions of the SPARTAN-IV Program through the eyes of Sarah Palmer and Edward Davis stationed aboard the.

Halo: Spartan Assault was released for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 for $6.99 on July 18, 2013. The price dropped to $4.99 on April 10, 2014. Halo: Spartan Assault was later released on the Xbox One on December 23, 2013, and for the Xbox 360 on January 31, 2014 for $14.99. These prices dropped to $9.99 on March 25, 2014. Players who purchased and logged into the Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 versions of the game on or before December 15, 2013 are able to purchase the Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions of the game for the discounted price of $4.99. Halo: Spartan Assault was released for Windows Vista and Windows 7 via Steam for $4.99 on April 4, 2014.

Gameplay
Halo: Spartan Assault is different from other Halo games in that it is the first Halo game to be a top down shooter. The player controls Spartan Sarah Palmer and Edward Davis (in specific missions). There are 30 missions which typically take 2 to 5 minutes to complete.

As with most Halo games, the player can pick up weapons and grenades, enter vehicles and use armor abilities. The game can be controlled with a touch screen, keyboard and mouse or Xbox 360 wired controller.

Before starting a mission, players can upgrade their loadout by either using microtransactions or earned XP. On the Xbox version of the game, achievements in Halo 4 give the player free uses of different upgrades. Halo: Spartan Assault can also earn the player emblems in Halo 4 along with XP.

Halo: Spartan Assault lacks checkpoints, so a death will result in the player having to restart the level.

Updates
On August 29, 2013, a free update called Operation Hydra was released. The update added five new missions, five new achievements, Xbox 360 controller support, and the ability to purchase all loadout options with XP. Upon launch of the update, a cloud save issue prevented Windows 8 players from accessing their save files. This issue was resolved with an update on August 31, 2013.

The Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions of the game include five new cooperative missions and five new achievements. 343 Industries has not announced any plans to bring this content to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

Achievements
The Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 versions offer 25 achievements worth a total of 250 Gamerpoints. The Xbox 360 version offers 28 achievements for 400 Gamerpoints and the Xbox One version offers 30 achievements for 1000 Gamerpoints. Each achievement can be earned once per platform.

Co-op Missions
5 missions are present in the Xbox versions of the game that aren't in any other versions. These missions must be played with another player, who can be found via matchmaking or by invitation. Like the other missions, these can have skulls activated, and can also modify your loadout. However, modified loadouts in the co-op missions can increase clip size for weapons rather than replacing the weapon, and decrease cooldown on armor abilities rather than replacing them.

Reception
Metacritic gave it 70 (PC) and 51 (Xbox), while GameRankings gave it an even less generous 68.79% for the PC version, and 55.39% for the Xbox version. The game was given 6.7/10 by IGN and 7 by Destuctoid. Gameinformer gave it a 8.25

Trivia

 * The cinematics resemble the art and style of the Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Terminals and the Halo 4 Terminals.
 * Prior to its announcement, Halo: Spartan Assault was code named Halo: Bootcamp.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the second Halo title to earn an ESRB rating of "Teen" rather than "Mature." The first was Halo Wars.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the second Halo title to not be a first-person shooter. The first was Halo Wars.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the first Halo title to be made for mobile devices.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the first Halo title to be released on the Xbox One.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the third Halo title to appear on PC. The first two were ports of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the first Halo title to not be initially released on a Xbox console.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the last Halo game to be released on the Xbox 360.
 * Halo: Spartan Assault is the first game in which the player cannot change the difficulty in the Campaign without the use of skulls.
 * Although very unusual in other media, in Halo: Spartan Assault, it is common to fight against Jiralhanae and Sangheili on the same battlefield.
 * Though they are seen on the cover, Halo: Spartan Assault is the first Halo game in which the player cannot fight Hunters.
 * Playing Halo: Spartan Assault and then entering certain glyphs in Halo Waypoint's Classified section unlocks additional XP, stances, and skins in Halo 4.
 * It is the first Halo game ever to be released on Steam.