Halo 4 Spartan Ops surrounds the exploits of a team of Spartans called Fireteam Crimson who are deployed to the planet Requiem six months after the events in Campaign mode. The Covenant and Promethean forces are still very active on Requiem and the UNSC wants to clear them out to be able to establish a research base. Crimson is one of five Fireteams deployed to the planet to complete this objective. This is the first episode, Departure, in season 1 of the Spartan Ops free DLC and contains 5 chapters: Land Grab, Sniper Alley, The Challenge, Sacred and Core.
 
Gameplay

Each chapter has its own map and can be played in any order you choose. Spartan Ops uses the same loadouts as multiplayer so you can customize them according to what you’ve unlocked. There are multiple objectives you have to complete on each map and even though they coincide with the story in the episode aside from the first and fifth chapter it’s pretty standard fare. You can play with up to four other players through online or co-op play. Your commanding officer is Sarah Palmer and throughout each mission she’ll pipe in new objectives or add commentary. She’s no Cortana and doesn’t have to be. At this point she’s her own interesting character.

The first chapter deals with the arrival of the Spartans so you and your team arrive in the midst of UNSC forces and you have at your disposal a number of vehicles you can choose to use. You have to clear the area of all Covenant forces and destroy the outposts. I’ve always enjoyed the occasions where you could use vehicles in the Halo series so I enjoyed this chapter and felt it was a good start to this episode because it fit with the story.

Chapters 2 through 4 deal with the Spartans making a push deeper into the Promethean structures on Requiem to investigate what the Covenant are doing and also partake in a competition to see which team can clear its tower of Covenant forces faster. If you played the campaign this will feel a little too familiar to you. Working with Fireteam Majestic in The Challenge was interesting and there are drops to give additional weapons to use that aren’t in your loadouts. However it’s just mainly eliminating waves of enemies to advance further and gather information

Chapter 5 deals with the team working to stop Covenant forces at an archaeological site and as a result find an ancient artifact. This also sets up the story for episode 2 and this chapter was the most enjoyable one to me. The map was refreshing and the final objective added an element to the story that increased interest in the remaining episodes. The balance between the different enemy types was also well done.

The real gem is the cutscene. There’s one for every episode and this one shows your team arriving on the Infinity and being introduced to the crew and the commander of all the fireteams, Sarah Palmer. There is where you see the story for the first episode and there’s also some cool action when the Infinity arrives at Requiem. If nothing else this episode is at least worth watching
 
Summary

The chapters in the first episode are pretty much the setup for the other episodes and even though the majority of the objectives was eliminate all enemies in the area the chapters aren’t long so it doesn’t feel tedious. It’s not on the level of the campaign but had more than enough to keep me intrigued for the next episode to find out more about the artifact discovered at the end. The cutscene is great and feels like a 1 minute Halo movie so it’s worth watching. I recommend going through all the chapters however if you’re more interested in the story then chapter 1 and 5 might be suffice. There are communications in chapters 2-4 that might be crucial in future episodes but you can also go back and play any chapter. Overall I enjoyed the first episode and looking forward to playing the other episodes
 
Kareem Ali