All things Greek have suddenly become rather trendy what with the latest Hollywood blockbuster Troy, and the Olympic games returning to their place of birth it would seem now is as good a time as ever to release a game set in Ancient Greece. Unfortunately, this turn-based empire building strategy game falls short in most areas.
The gameplay should be familiar to those of you brought up on healthy does of Civilization. Build cities, research new technologies, recruit armies then either trade or fight your way to world domination. There are plenty of resources that can be produced but after a while the micromanagement required to keep on top of the trading part of the game becomes dull and tedious.
For most players the resource management is simply what has to be done to create a huge army capable of walloping anything it comes across. Those of you looking forward to commanding your troops through many strategic battles are going to be very disappointed indeed.
The game gives you practically no control over the battles other than deploying your units and giving them a solitary order along the lines of ‘charge’ or, surprisingly, ‘hold’. It’s hardly rocket science and once these basic issues have been ordered you have nothing to do other than sit back and watch the battles unable to step in and change the course of battle should things not be going your way.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the battles themselves were impressive, but they’re not. What we have is a rather dated looking 3D engine where the troops all rush into the middle in one huge swarm of swords and sandals with little in the way of tactics going into the thinking. It was rather like a swarm of Millwall football louts at the end of a match.
Subsequently, this makes the whole game a pointless and limited experience with little motivation to carry on playing much beyond the first few hours of gameplay. With so many better games on the market there seems little reason to part with your hard earned cash.
Lacking throughout
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