The emotions Halo inspires, like panic from hearing your shield beep as enemies overcome you or the explosive joy you feel from throwing a well-placed grenade, are all on display here. Spartan Assault is a true Halo game, even if the series’ signature scope and size are scaled down.

Although smaller aspects such as in-app rip or missing multiplayer mode nerves, Spartan Assault is a worthy Halo offshoot that brings the big name no shame.

Halo: Spartan Assault translates the Halo-franchise to a top-down mobile shooter successfully. The (touch sensitive) controls can be too complex and the game could lean less on micro transactions, but other than that Spartan Assault is the mobile game that Windows (Phone) 8 sorely missed.

Vanguard's created a decent blaster which offers a couple of moments of genuine bullet-dodging glory: Halo's touch-screen debut is good-looking, colourful, and fun.

It's by no means Windows 8's killer app, but provided you have access to a Windows 8 device, you could do much worse than Spartan Assault.

Played with a mouse and keyboard Spartan Assault becomes a much more enjoyable experience, better able to recreate classic moments of Halo brilliance, but it’s still limited by hit-and-miss mission design and fiction that takes the urgency out of this fight for survival.

It’s almost absurdly simple. The thing I’ve always liked about twin-stick shooters is a sense of escalating chaos - the idea that you’re only just keeping a lid on waves of baddies. Spartan Assault never manages this: there just aren’t ever enough enemies on screen, nor do they ever feel particularly dangerous.