Last time - Halo 4 - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=142825
This time - “A lot less ammo will go to waste if you aim with the right stick while firing.”
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Microsoft’s efforts to diversify the Halo franchise had already taken them to real-time strategy games and anime anthologies. Next they partnered with Vanguard Games to get into the handheld / mobile gaming market, delivering Halo: Spartan Assault in 2013 and Halo: Spartan Strike two years later. Reviews were mixed, even in the case of the second game which was considered an improvement but still punished for lacking a multiplayer mode (a curious oversight for a franchise so dependent on that for a large chunk of its popularity on consoles), and unsurprisingly the enterprise was abandoned after two entries.
Tom Salta was part of the Halo: Combat Evolved anniversary re-recording crew and returned to score both of these games. He knew that a handheld game was going to have different musical requirements and cost constraints, in essence viewing his brief as “to create a big budget sounding score without the big budget.” A choir and a handful of instrumentalists were recorded live, but most of the score was created on his various devices. Salta’s first score does a credible job extending the dreamier aspects of O’Donnell and team’s blend of synths, pianos, drums, and voices, with some of the more energetic passages adding a rock feel akin to ODST. It’s no classic, but it’s far better as a standalone listen than it has any right to be. Spartan Strike is more of the same, and its only true weakness on album is that 71 minutes is way too long for this kind of material.
Spartan Assault: *** - https://open.spotify.com/album/2WDRtEWdtQijffW7PrP8E9
Spartan Strike: **½ - https://open.spotify.com/album/5QLrQc4y7V6tTYVSUKFsYw
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Next time: “You ask, you buy.”
(Message edited on Monday, July 28, 2025, at 4:20 p.m.)
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