> No matter what anyone says, Spartan Ops beats Reach’s firefight to death. It gives us an objective and some additions to the lore. I don’t even think the recycling of maps is even really worth complaining about that much because of two reasons. Number 1: It’s not like we saw new maps in firefight every time we played lol. And number 2: These maps are areas to explore. A lot of the time, there’s a start, and there’s a finish (minus the MP maps, of course), and even if the environment may stay the same. the content will change. With firefight, you stay in the same backyard and try to survive. Every. Single. Time.
Comparing Firefight and Spartan Ops is like comparing apples and oranges. They’re not the same game mode, they don’t feature the same gameplay, don’t have the same appeal and won’t necessarily interest the same people. But just because apples and oranges are different fruit doesn’t mean we can’t decide which is better. What would you rather have, a delicious apple, or an old, rotten orange?
Firefight was simple and was based on repetition. That was the whole point; survival against wave after wave of enemies. It didn’t “do” much, but what it did, this game mode did very, very well.
Now, Spartan Ops. The awkward thing is, I don’t know what kind of game mode Spops is meant to be, and actually I don’t think 343i do either. There’s no real direction or focus.
Yes, there’s narrative. Really, really bad narrative that makes the Gears of War storyline seem like Shakespeare by comparison. The characters are plain unlikeable, the chemistry nonexistent, their motives are just killing for the sake of killing and BECAUSE RELIGION (Covenant) or capturing artifacts and then pressing every last button recklessly BECAUSE SCIENCE (UNSC). This sure as hell isn’t good sci-fi, I’d be hard-pressed to even call it space opera.
And then there’s the recycled environments. Halo has always been about forging forward, exploring new frontiers, constantly on the move. Spartan Ops has us skulking around the same handful of environments pushing buttons and fending off teleporting or drop-pod forces in random and unstructured battles. It doesn’t feel as if we’re achieving anything, not even managing a decent defence like a successful Firefight game. Last week I scoured Ragnarok of enemy forces with heavy weapons; this week they’re back and magically resupplied and refortified. Unless 343i’s intention was to create an interactive Groundhog Day then they need to add some variety.
And lastly, the actual gameplay. What is it trying to be? Almost every single chapter to date has followed the formula kill > press button > kill > press button > kill > stand under the magic Pelican and wait for the Mission Cleared screen. What’s the point? Not progress, because the narrative is as deep as an ant’s grave. Not exploration, because by this point we know all the levels like the backs of our hands. Not survival since every other enemy has a fuel rod gun and death isn’t penalised in any way (apart from having your weapons despawn before you can get back to them, trololol). And not skill since the fights are messy, uniformly bland and directionless, and are just big explosion-y melees with enemy reinforcements often teleporting right on you or being literally dropped on your heads, and when you die you either respawn back at the start of the level or with a live grenade under your nose. It’s almost as if 343 are just raising the number of onscreen enemies and giving us more and more weapons and hardware to play with each time in the hopes that we’re too busy looking at the pretty explosions to notice that actually we’re just grinding for the sake of finishing the chapter and getting a half-hearted virtual pat on the head.
It’s really, really bland and it’s going to get even more stale by the time we’re nearing the end of this ten-week season, unless 343 has some pretty big changes up their sleeve.