Get Hype For Halo 4 Spartan Ops: Episode 6-10

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Updated: January 10, 2013

It’s been some time everyone. It’s a new year, so naturally there will be some new games. I used to talk about Black Ops because it simply was a go-to game for me and my friends and it is easy to pick on with the problems it tends to have, but that’s a topic for another time. Let’s just say I’ve moved onto bigger and better things and leave it at that – for now.

The Halo franchise was put in the hands of 343 Industries. No longer was Bungie behind the precious Halo franchise that fans have come to love. Fans had to put faith in a different developer. Long story short, people like the game. It received many Video Game Award nominations for several categories last year. This includes Game of the Year, Best Graphics, Best 360 Game, and in some cases won in these categories. Some even view it as the best one in the series, although that is purely opinion. Matter of fact, 343 Industries plans to keep on with the Halo brand. Halo 4 is the first game of a new Halo Trilogy that has been deemed the “Reclaimer Trilogy”.

Any Halo fan basically knows what to expect here and for those that are not fans, it’s the perfect entry point into the series. The story may confuse you at times but this is the start of a new trilogy, so don’t be too worried about it. With Halo 4, you get a decent length Campaign to be enjoyed, Spartan Ops, and War Games (multi-player online kill each other action). I’m going to focus on the part of the game that has grabbed my attention the most, Spartan Ops. For you CoD fans, it’s pretty much Spec Ops but with slightly more story to it, that doesn’t make you completely just feel like you are playing scenes from the game with random enemies spawning. There are five episodes with the game that you can play alone or with a party. Each episode has five chapters (missions) that you can have fun with on any difficulty of your choosing. What you can also do is find other randoms to play with, but the rules change slightly. You can only play the current episode for the week with random people online. For example, this week is Episode 4 and next week will likely be 5, leading up to 6-10 in the upcoming weeks.

The thing that makes Spartan Ops so great is you gain XP just like you would playing online. Some people may not want to deal with people online. Some may not be able to handle the pressure of competitive play. If you go against a skilled Halo player and you are not skilled, you will find out real quick. Trust me on that. The XP gained from playing Spartan Ops has actually proven to be better than the rate of gaining XP online. Now perhaps this is because I haven’t tried every single playlist, but right now, this is what I have been doing with a friend and having fun doing it. In the end, that’s what matters, right? Starting January 21st, 2013, the next five episodes will roll out on a week to week basis. Or so one would assume. According to a post on the Halo Waypoint blog, we can expect the following in the next few weeks:

Week of 1/21:

Spartan Ops Episode 6: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.

“Forge Test” playlist (name not final): A rotational hopper featuring small Forge maps such as Relay. Help us test these maps by providing feedback and reporting bugs that will assist us in getting them ready for Matchmaking!

Specializations: Pioneer and Pathfinder Specializations unlocked for all players.

Week of 1/28:

Spartan Ops Episode 7: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.

Grifball playlist: A rotational hopper featuring everybody’s favorite virtual sport. Catch the disease!

Specializations: Engineer and Stalker Specializations unlocked for all players.

Week of 2/4:

Spartan Ops Episode 8: Five new missions and an accompanying new CG cinematic.

Team Doubles playlist: A rotational hopper for those of you that like action of the 2 vs 2 variety.

Specializations: Rogue and Tracker Specializations unlocked for all players.

Now after seeing all this you may wonder how much all this additional content will cost you. Stop reaching for that wallet because it costs nothing. To top it off, the specializations that are offered were in the Limited Edition of the game. Now everyone else can have access to them as well. Specializations are like Prestige levels in CoD, sort of. This is my first Halo game, so forgive me if something here is inaccurate.

Upon observation, this content will just give me more and more reasons to have fun with this game. The game is about two months old and already was discounted to $40 as opposed to $60 over most of the holidays. I took advantage of this and never looked back and if you’ve never played a Halo game before and decide to give this a shot, you might find yourself saying the same thing.