Those of you familiar with my troubling bed should also know that for the last few days, I've played this game religiously. Yes, the game is very good, but it is not without some very basic flaws. Of course, I will cover these in the review.
Good cover art, no? This game is brought to you by the makers of the Total War series on the PC and were looking to do an action title for the consoles. Their battle engine shines throughout the game with massive numbers of troops coming in and aiding you. Sometimes, this can mean the difference between life and getting your ass killed by a Roman.
The story is fairly simple. You are The Spartan, a young man found in Sparta and raised by King Leonidas to be a fighter and defender of the city. When the city is seiged by Romans, you step up to kill some bitches. And oh, God, do you ever kill bitches. Ares tells you that he can tell you where you come from, if you help him, and thus the game begins.
In gameplay fairly reminiscent of Dyansty Warriors, you run around massive levels and stabe the hell out of people. Button mashing is key in some of the earlier stages, but when you progress in the game, you learn very quickly that using your shield to block and bash enemies is a very helpful technique.
The stages are slightly more linear then Dynasty Warriors, although at points, the enemies spawn infinitley. In the first stage, you're pit against over 400 Romans, plus reinforcements that come over the city wall. At the end of the stage, you destroy a large mechanized statue using strategically placed catapults, knocking down the giant. At the end of the first level, I had killed over 500 people.
The graphics are simply breathtaking. Up to 200 soldiers on screen at once without a hint of framerate hiccup. Yes, the engine is that stable. Often times, you can lose yourself in the battle. The insanity that goes into the detail of the levels is astounding, from Sparta to the Coliseum. Blood stays on the ground, bodies stay on the ground, severed heads stay severed. If bodies disappeared, I didn't notice: I was too busy killing more guys.
(Said Stone Giant from Level 1)
Those are the graphics from a cutscene featuring the stone giant, although the graphics do not differ much from in-game screen-caps.
This is an in-game screencap, featuring your starting equipment. Shiny, no?
Throughout the game, as you do missions and side-missions, you gain God-Points to put into Health, Power and Magic, although the end result is the same. One of my gripes, there was not enough stat customization as I would have liked, although the game kicked ample amounts of ass to recoup that loss.
This is just one of the impossible situations you'll find yourself in. Cornered by guards, what are you going to do? Bloodbath, that's what. For every successful attack you make, your rage meter fills. When your rage meter is completley full, you do a Rage-Attack, which is good for clearing large amounts of Roman troops. My favorite involves twin blades and mass decapitations.
Say you're not landing any hits? Each weapon you have has a specialized magic attack used to kill large amounts of Romans, from the Medusa Shield (wonder what that does. Not only does it freeze more than one enemy, it freezes an upwards of twelve IN THE ENTIRE MAP) to the Hammer of Beowulf, each weapon has a magic attack that really helps you out in a pinch.
The boss fights, although tricky, are larger than life. The game works a fair shake of mytholgy into the game, from the Minotaur to the Hydra, you're gauranteed to find something to make your head against the wall from fun frustation.
If this is beginning to sound like God of War, make no mistake, they are two seperate games. God of War was a fun action-adventure-platformer, while this is a fairly straight forward beat-em-up with stat increases, and secrets out the wazoo.
Every stage contains treasure chests which either hold arrows, fire arrows, concept sketches or arena goodies...
Which brings me to another good point. Why play through a level when you could just drop yourself in a coliseum and kill things? In this game, you can. The coliseum bonus games are both wildly addictive and frustrating. Bonuses you pick up in game you can put in the arena to face wave after wave of enemies, from the standard grunt to a wave comprised entirely of fierce trolls... That section alone has at least six hours of gameplay before you make your way through all coliseum sets... Then you can concern yourself with getting the high-score.
Onto the gripes:
- The difficulty is incredible if you don't know what you're doing.
- There are 2 platforming sections of the game (that last all of one minute) that can be frustrating.
- I completed the game today, on a rental. I was also playing on Easy mode and the game still gave me a tough time.
Otherwise, an excellent game that I would reccomend to anyone with any cash to spare.
SPARTAN: TOTAL WARRIOR (Ps2, XBox, Gamecube)
Final Score:
9/10
A must buy unless you need food money more.
-
Mal
Good cover art, no? This game is brought to you by the makers of the Total War series on the PC and were looking to do an action title for the consoles. Their battle engine shines throughout the game with massive numbers of troops coming in and aiding you. Sometimes, this can mean the difference between life and getting your ass killed by a Roman.
The story is fairly simple. You are The Spartan, a young man found in Sparta and raised by King Leonidas to be a fighter and defender of the city. When the city is seiged by Romans, you step up to kill some bitches. And oh, God, do you ever kill bitches. Ares tells you that he can tell you where you come from, if you help him, and thus the game begins.
In gameplay fairly reminiscent of Dyansty Warriors, you run around massive levels and stabe the hell out of people. Button mashing is key in some of the earlier stages, but when you progress in the game, you learn very quickly that using your shield to block and bash enemies is a very helpful technique.
The stages are slightly more linear then Dynasty Warriors, although at points, the enemies spawn infinitley. In the first stage, you're pit against over 400 Romans, plus reinforcements that come over the city wall. At the end of the stage, you destroy a large mechanized statue using strategically placed catapults, knocking down the giant. At the end of the first level, I had killed over 500 people.
The graphics are simply breathtaking. Up to 200 soldiers on screen at once without a hint of framerate hiccup. Yes, the engine is that stable. Often times, you can lose yourself in the battle. The insanity that goes into the detail of the levels is astounding, from Sparta to the Coliseum. Blood stays on the ground, bodies stay on the ground, severed heads stay severed. If bodies disappeared, I didn't notice: I was too busy killing more guys.
(Said Stone Giant from Level 1)
Those are the graphics from a cutscene featuring the stone giant, although the graphics do not differ much from in-game screen-caps.
This is an in-game screencap, featuring your starting equipment. Shiny, no?
Throughout the game, as you do missions and side-missions, you gain God-Points to put into Health, Power and Magic, although the end result is the same. One of my gripes, there was not enough stat customization as I would have liked, although the game kicked ample amounts of ass to recoup that loss.
This is just one of the impossible situations you'll find yourself in. Cornered by guards, what are you going to do? Bloodbath, that's what. For every successful attack you make, your rage meter fills. When your rage meter is completley full, you do a Rage-Attack, which is good for clearing large amounts of Roman troops. My favorite involves twin blades and mass decapitations.
Say you're not landing any hits? Each weapon you have has a specialized magic attack used to kill large amounts of Romans, from the Medusa Shield (wonder what that does. Not only does it freeze more than one enemy, it freezes an upwards of twelve IN THE ENTIRE MAP) to the Hammer of Beowulf, each weapon has a magic attack that really helps you out in a pinch.
The boss fights, although tricky, are larger than life. The game works a fair shake of mytholgy into the game, from the Minotaur to the Hydra, you're gauranteed to find something to make your head against the wall from fun frustation.
If this is beginning to sound like God of War, make no mistake, they are two seperate games. God of War was a fun action-adventure-platformer, while this is a fairly straight forward beat-em-up with stat increases, and secrets out the wazoo.
Every stage contains treasure chests which either hold arrows, fire arrows, concept sketches or arena goodies...
Which brings me to another good point. Why play through a level when you could just drop yourself in a coliseum and kill things? In this game, you can. The coliseum bonus games are both wildly addictive and frustrating. Bonuses you pick up in game you can put in the arena to face wave after wave of enemies, from the standard grunt to a wave comprised entirely of fierce trolls... That section alone has at least six hours of gameplay before you make your way through all coliseum sets... Then you can concern yourself with getting the high-score.
Onto the gripes:
- The difficulty is incredible if you don't know what you're doing.
- There are 2 platforming sections of the game (that last all of one minute) that can be frustrating.
- I completed the game today, on a rental. I was also playing on Easy mode and the game still gave me a tough time.
Otherwise, an excellent game that I would reccomend to anyone with any cash to spare.
SPARTAN: TOTAL WARRIOR (Ps2, XBox, Gamecube)
Final Score:
9/10
A must buy unless you need food money more.
-
Mal
Comment