With so much interesting stuff going on in the RTS world, it's really a shame that some people will pick The Spartans up because of either a low price or they like the theme or they like the artwork. This is a bad RTS and a bad bargain. Not only have things not improved from Ancient Wars: Sparta, things have barely changed at all. There are a few neat ideas in this template, but none are carried far enough to count as truly interesting and all are saddled by poor technique.
Chris Holt writes:
''It was around the twelfth time my hero character casually wandered into an incoming barrage of arrows that I realized Great War Nations: The Spartans might be some kind of historical commentary on Spartans. Is the game's AI so dumb because the developers were intentionally depicting the Spartans as bumbling fools?
In Great War Nations' campaign mode, you command the armies of the Spartans or Macedonians (with the addition of Egyptians and Persians in multiplayer, if you can find an opponent). A problematic difficulty curve and lethargic pacing, accompanied by bad voice acting of a poorly translated script, make the seven missions in each campaign tedious. The first mission alone takes several hours to complete, but not because it's difficult - the most formidable enemy is boredom as you gather enough gold and lumber to raise an army.''
Ricky Tucker reports:
''Generally speaking, Great War Nations: The Spartans looks and sounds really good. Units are brightly colored and feature a number of little standout details like shield symbols. This level of detail really plays into the game's strongest suit, the ability to edit which items each of your units march into the battlefield with. The animation is smooth; units react rather well to their surroundings and battles tend to look pretty good. Except for the rare instances where there are large numbers of units on screen at once, the framerate is solid.
Music has a nice deep, war time tone to it that really helps to convey the mood the game is trying to produce. This blends well with the other battlefield sounds, which actually make some battles feel a little more vicious that they probably are. The only item that is likely to annoy anyone is the voicework. While not horrible, most of the voicework is a bit over-the-top in some areas. It isn't enough to ruin the presentation, though it will cause you to wince once or twice.''
Micromanagement is the only memorable aspect of Great War Nations: The Spartans, and not because it's a good thing. This base-building real-time strategy game from developer World Force is a paint-by-numbers production in every way, except for the extra steps that give you greater control over the finer aspects of researching technologies and equipping troops. However, each of these amenities is of questionable value, and they're so finicky and out of place in such a simplistic game that you'll quickly grow tired of all the fussing around and long for traditional RTS production lines.
