Microsoft has been getting sneaky with all of these Xbox One stealth releases! First it releases Max: The Curse of Brotherhood on Xbox One last week with no prior warning, and now today it releases Halo: Spartan Assault a day early from its initial plans. It's good for Xbox One gamers starved for games but they've really gotta stay on top of the marketplace to see what's there.
Halo: Spartan Assault is a top-down shooter that sees you controlling either Commander Sarah Palmer or Spartan Davis against Covenant forces. Yes, there's no Master Chief, but the game takes place between the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4. There are over 30 campaign missions that let you use the familiar Halo weapons, vehicles and (relatively new) armor abibilites. Co-op is of course available, allowing you to fight through waves of the zombie-like Flood. Oh, how I hate those Flood. What a terrible enemy. Please kill as many of them as possible and do it for the poor people who died in the Halo wars of '01.
Vanguard Games and 343 Industries (the new keepers of the series after Bungie took off) developed Halo: Spartan Assault, which was actually released for Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices back in July but is only making its ways to Microsoft's consoles right now. It's still coming to Xbox 360 in January although sadlly they're not offering cross-platform play between the two Xboxes. On Windows Phone it was a fairly well-regarded touch-screen shooter, and it translated pretty well to PC. The Xbox One version should look the best of all of them but this is still a budget title, and the cost reflects that. Still, for Halo fans looking for their fix before the next installment of the game (and the return of Master Chief) it's a good stop-gap.
You can purchase Halo: Spartan Assault from your Xbox One or online at the Xbox Game Store- it costs $14.99 and will take up 2.53 gigs of your hard drive.
