The ability to order fresh soldiers onto horses whose riders have been slain is a nice touch - especially since, in the messy chaos of cavalry battles, you'll find a lot of slaying going on. Combat tends to dissolve into a jumbled melee within seconds of being initiated, which leaves the player's actual tactical options reduced to 'throw more units at the situation, or retreat' - and if that kind of decision was fun, there would be a hell of a lot more games out there based on the Iraqi civil war.

Part of the reason for that is that there's actually disappointingly little strategy involved in playing any of the sides. However, on a basic level, you'll find that there's no major difference between playing the different sides. Each one has their key strength - the Persians have War Elephants, the Egyptians have a catapult style device that fires a massive volley of arrows, and the Spartans, unsurprisingly, have great infantry units. Worse again, while remaining within the boundaries, it fails to actually deliver an experience which is up to the standards of previous, incredibly similar games.Д®ach one of the three sides in the game plays in pretty much exactly the same way. No, the problem is that Ancient Wars: Sparta doesn't actually step beyond those fairly familiar boundaries, except in a few very limited cases. Now, there's no problem with any of that - it sounds like the basis for a fairly solid game when you put it in those terms, in fact. Combined with the ability to equip your units with different weapons, this gives the whole thing a smattering of RPG-esque features. In the now well-established manner of 'ancient world' RTS titles, you have a few named heroes on the battlefield whose abilities level up. It's a real-time strategy game where you control the forces of either Sparta, Persia or Egypt, and engage in a variety of campaign missions aimed at bringing conquest and glory to your forces. They take their bossed-about frustrations out on innocent sheep.ДЄncient Wars: Sparta, in brief.

Earth and Water You'll spend a lot of time ordering villagers around. Sadly, however, that's not to say that it's exactly a labour of love either. After all, Ancient Wars: Sparta, being a fairly extensive real-time strategy experience, isn't exactly the kind of game you churn out overnight to match an upcoming film release.

Let's run with the benefit of the doubt, though, and call that a lucky coincidence.

We'll admit that it's pretty convenient for this game to be appearing just when a whole generation of historically challenged types has discovered that the word 'Spartan' meant something before Halo was released. Now, you can call it a cash-in title if you like. That's just as well, because anyone who's still got a bit of an afterglow from their cinema expedition to see 300 is probably reading this review for the wrong reasons.ДЄncient Wars: Sparta isn't a game based on 300, and it draws no noticeable inspiration from Frank Miller's incredibly loose adaptation of the Battle of Thermopylae. Now, doesn't that feel better? You can now safely read the rest of this review without feeling overcome by the urge to shout like a mad beardy Scotsman with computer-generated pecs. Come on - 'THIS IS SPARTAAAAA!' There you go. If you're in the privacy of your own home, it may help to stand up and shout. Okay, come on, get it out of your system.

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