This week’s Episode of Halo 4’s Spartan Ops was titled “Key.” With only one episode left in Season 1, 343 Industries had to cram a whole lot into this episode’s cinematic. And they left it off, once again, with a massive cliffhanger.
Commander Sarah Palmer goes on “her rodeo” to track down and hopefully eliminate Dr. Catherine Halsey by orders of the upper dogs within the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Fire Team Majestic is given personal orders from Captain Lasky to reach Halsey first and bring her to safety. Meanwhile, in the cinematic, Dr. Halsey comes face to face with the Librarian who hands her the Janus Key, a map to every single piece of Forerunner technology throughout the entire galaxy. When she leaves, half of the key is taken by Jul’Mdama and the other is thrown to Spartan Thorne who arrives just before Commander Palmer does. Palmer sneaks in a quick shot at Dr. Halsey, and shoots her in the shoulder before she’s teleported away by a Promethean Knight.
This week’s missions gives us a variety of objectives to achieve. From defending areas, clearing out Covenant, and rescuing different Marine Fire Teams. This doesn’t mean we don’t see the usual “press this switch,” “press that switch” to activate devices. Each mission, either playing alone or co-op has a few tough points. My partner in crime this week, L. Trigger, assisted me with this week’s episode and even on Heroic, we had a tough time getting passed certain areas. No mission stood out other than Chapter 2: Clean Up and Chapter 5: The Hammer. Without going into spoilers for those who haven’t played it, the end of Chapter 2 gave us some great laughs. Chapter 5 was just all around some good ‘ole fun.
343 Industries has done a phenomenal job writing the second half of Spartan Ops Season 1 and has left every Halo fiction fan wanting more. I was nearly drooling when the cinematic ended. Yes, the levels are re-used levels, but they’re different objectives and hordes of enemies make up for the overall experience as the story unfolds.
