Ancient Greece has been a very popular subject lately with numerous films, TV shows, documentaries, and of course video games based in these epic time periods. Sega decided to tap into this potential cash cow by enlisting the help of The Creative Assembly, a company best known for their critically acclaimed Total War series on the PC.

Last year, Creative Assembly released Rome: Total War for the PC. After the success of that title and the Total War franchise as a whole, Creative Assembly must have decided that it was about time they tried their luck in the console ring with a new franchise.

Enter Spartan: Total Warrior, a game that puts you in the leather sandals of a warrior of Sparta known only as Spartan.

Gameplay

Spartan: Total Warrior seems to be influenced quite a bit by games like God of War and the Dynasty Warriors series. With over a hundred enemies on screen at once and dozens of moves, you are guaranteed to remove quiet a few vital organs. You will slice, dice and literally tear your enemies limb from limb, just like my good buddy Kratos did in God of War.


Okay, who is this Maximus Guy?

Also similar to both God of War and Dynasty Warriors is the linear path you follow throughout the game, you are always told where to go and what to do. There is a sensation of heroism while you fend off the Roman army from breaking down a door to kill the king, but unlike a real war you are not really changing the course of the battle, you’re just following out tasks already set for you. I would have personally preferred things be a bit more open ended and allow for branching story arches, but that’s what sequels are for. That really doesn’t change the fact that decimating a hundred Roman soldiers and watching blood fill the screen isn’t incredibly cool. Unfortunately the Roman’s aren’t the only ones being decimated, your poor controller will likely take a beating due to Spartan's frustrating battles, you just get overwhelmed so easily and dying will become a frequent occurrence.

Luckily the gameplay is fun and not a burden to replay a couple of times, but cheap deaths are never any fun. It also isn’t any fun to be attacked while you try to heal!

This is seriously one of Spartan's biggest annoyances. You will always find a convenient placed health or magic shrine when you need it. The problem is since you find it in the heat of a battle, when you try and replenish your health or magic, every single solider out on the field decide to stop everything in order to come over and rain on your parade.