Ancient Wars: Sparta - Review - PC

By Scott Sandlan

Hot on the heels of recent box office smash ‘300’ based on Frank Millar’s comic book of the same name, is Ancient Wars: Sparta. Publishers Eidos are obviously keen to cash in on the hype surrounding the epic wars of the Spartans, Persians and Egyptians include the Battle of Thermopylae depicted in 300. The game has been developed by a team led by Tortsen Hess of The Settlers fame and to be honest he might as well have called this game “The Settlers: Sparta” as in the whole feel of the game reminds me of The Settlers. As Real-time Strategy games go this is all good fun but there is no ‘wow’ factor like in Medieval II Total War. In the game you can take control of many of the heroes of that era, for instance when choosing the Spartan faction, you get to control King Leonidas as well as his relatives and many of the famous heroes. Along with these heroes you can control and ‘manufacture’ helots to build your civilisation and hoplites to fight your battles. Before long you will have your heroes leading their units to war with the Persians. As you win battles you gain experience points and your characters increase in level, you can even equip them personally and give your heroes special abilities when they become available. Although the game is spectacular to look at, I just get the feeling that the game is too cartoon-like and it takes a while to accept that it is not The Settlers that I am playing. The battle scenes can get quite complex as each character can be controlled individually and before long you’ve lost track of half of your unit as they wander off aimlessly. When I first heard of this game I was looking forward to epic campaigns over eastern Europe and Asia, like Medieval II Total War, with the added touch of Greek and Persian history of that period. Unfortunately what they have churned out is a light hearted RTS with a cutesy angle to it.

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