Free Strategy/War Game For Windows 8/8.1- Halo: Spartan Assault Lite
Halo: Spartan Assault Lite is a free game for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 devices that allows you to play as the Halo Spartans who have to defeat the enemy forces from the other realm. If you have played the Halo series on the Xbox or on PC, you already know how gripping the game’s graphics are, and how addictive the game itself is. Halo is now finally available as a free download for Windows 8 devices as well, in the form of Halo: Spartan Assault Lite. It’s termed Lite because it only has a few missions when compared with the full paid version, but those missions are gripping and time consuming enough to keep you entertained for long hours! The graphics are great, and the entire aura of the gameplay is awesome indeed! The game runs without any lags whatsoever on Windows 8 and 8.1 devices, the only prerequisite being the requirement of a graphics card on your system. You can easily select the mission that you wish to play upon launching the game.
Halo: Spartan Assault Lite is available for free from the Windows App Store.
Controls…
W/A/S/D : Movement
Q: Access the armor ability.
Left Ctrl: Use Grenades.
E: Pick up items on getting close to them.
Spacebar: Perform melee attacks.
Left mouse: Fire the gun.
Right mouse: Reload the gun/ Use the secondary weapon while inside a tank.
Mouse: Control the crosshairs of the weapon for aiming.
Features of Halo: Spartan Assault Lite…
When you launch Halo: Spartan Assault Lite on your Windows 8/8.1 device, you will be shown an introduction movie to the game which gives the game an incredibly cinematic feel. The movies look absolutely stunning to say the least.
You can see the above screenshot to get a feel of how awesome these movies look! When the movie has been played through, you will now be taken to the main screen of the game, where you can choose from various options, as can be seen in the screenshot below.
The menu looks absolutely stunning, and gives the game a futuristic kind of a feel. It’s recommended that you play the tutorial of the game before you actually start playing, as that will help you a lot with the gameplay. So let’s dive into the tutorial screen itself.
In the tutorial, you will be made accustomed to the various controls of the game (the controls are already listed in the Controls) section at the beginning of this article. Once the tutorial has been completed, you can start playing the actual game itself!
The actual gameplay has nice graphics, although it hasn’t been designed in the traditional First person shooter format as the original Halo series. You can control your aim using the mouse, and fire on incoming enemies. At the top-center of the screen, you will be able to see your armor/shield level as a blue bar. This depletes when you take hits from enemies. The armor recharges automatically, but if the number of hits you are taking is too high, it will get depleted fully, and then this blue bar turns red, indicating that the armor has been damaged. Now, on taking hits, this red bar will deplete indicating that your health is decreasing. The best way to avoid such scenario is that the moment you get to the point where your health starts getting depleted, you should take cover immediately and wait for your armor to recharge before entering combat again. Your kill score and other score combined will appear at the bottom of the gameplay screen. At any point, you can pause the game by pressing the Esc. key, say if you get a call or need to use the loo! 
The pause menu looks like the below screenshot.
The pause menu is very basic, allowing you to resume, restart, or abort the current mission. When you return to the game and complete the mission, you will be presented with the mission completion screen wherein you will also be able to have a good look at the rewards that you have earned during the game.
You will be awarded stars and medals based on your performance in the game. Different scores will be shown to you towards the left, and the final score will be shown in the center of the screen. As you can see in the above screenshot, my score was so poor that I couldn’t even score one star! 
But I did manage to score 4 medals! 
To score stars, you need to have a minimum of a certain score level, before you are awarded. A bronze star needs a total of 10,000 points as the final score, silver star needs 15,000 points, and gold star (the unachievable for me 
!) needs 35,000 total points. Clicking Continue in the above screen will take you to the next screen. My overall impressions of the game are really good, and this game really works well to pass my time.
You can also check out other games that we have covered earlier like The Gunstringer or Asphalt 8: Airborne.
The things I like…
- Smooth gameplay.
- Futuristic feel to the game menus and to game in entirety.
- Detailed playable tutorial level.
- Amazing cinematic movies.
And the things I don’t…
- Don’t even think of playing it on battery! My fully charged 9-cell battery which gives about 4 hours backup on moderate use was drained to 10% within an hour of gameplay.
- Heats up the system pretty quick.
- Large size (about 277 MB).
- Limited number of missions in the Lite version, purchase is required to unlock all missions.
- No touch screen controls. You have to use the keyboard to play.
Also try: FIFA 14 and Despicable Me- Minion Rush.
The Verdict…
Halo: Spartan Assault Lite is definitely a great game worthy of checking out if you have been a fan of the Halo series on Xbox or other platforms. The game has nice graphics and smooth gameplay, and will definitely keep you entertained. I just hope that the developer will optimize this game for better battery usage stats in future and provide touch screen device support as an update, because apart from these two major quirks, the game is definitely where it needs to be – a nice, smooth game with incredible potential! As this is a Lite version, so you only get access to a few missions, but you can always purchase the full game if you want the complete Halo experience!