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Happy coincidence or jumping on the bandwagon? Whatever your view, Eidos’ Spartan-themed strategy game arrives within spitting distance of a certain Spartan-themed cinema release, namely Frank Miller’s 300.
Ancient Wars Sparta is not a direct tie-in with the film (that privilege goes to the lacklustre Playstation Portable title, 300: March to Glory) but, like the movie, it features King Leonidas in all his warrior-like glory and centres on the historical conflict between the Greeks and the Persians.
Aside from the fact that Sparta seems to be very much en vogue this season, there’s not a lot to distinguish Ancient Wars from so many other period-set real-time strategy titles. Both in terms of visuals and gameplay mechanics, this is pretty much identikit RTS stuff.
A half-hearted attempt at some kind of coherent story, meanwhile, falls on its face thanks to cut scenes that consist of poorly pre-rendered clips built from a compressed version of the in-game graphics engine, along with some of the worst dialogue (“being a king is a difficult and responsible job,” apparently) and voice work we’ve heard for a while.
Who exactly is doing all the voice acting in these games, anyway? Surely there are entire legions of card-carrying out-of-work actors out there who would happily lend a touch of credibility to this type of thing if somebody could be bothered to hire them?
For those with a high threshold for mediocrity, however, the single-player game is playable from three viewpoints – Spartan, Persian or Egyptian – while multiplayer is available over the internet or Lan.
Ancient Wars is not a bad game as such, and fans of the genre will undoubtedly wring some fun from the well-worn blend of exploration, resource building and all-out combat. But next to other strategy titles we’ve seen recently (namely the excellent Command and Conquer 3 and Supreme Commander), this attempt at historical epic just feels old hat.
All Action & Adventure Games Tags: Game, RTS
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