X-Box | Spartan: Total Warrior

Before I start my review proper, I’m gonna give a big shout out to Lauren Kozak and the team at m80 who somehow discovered my Blog and decided to send me this game to review. You guys rock.

Ok, on with the review. Spartan is made by the creators of the PC based Total War series, so to start off I though this was going to be a cool strategic war game. What an idiot I am. Read the title; Total Warrior, not Total War. This was to be a 3rd Person action fest.

You get to play a dude named Spartan (no middle names or surnames, no, you just go by the very cool name Spartan), a young untrained warrior based in the last town in your country that has yet to be sacked by the mighty Roman Empire.

That’s the good news, the bad news is that the entire forces of the Roman Empire have surrounded your city and want to get in and kill you, your girl friend, her mother and your great Aunty (you get the picture) and it’s up to you to stop them.

Well, not you alone, ‘cause you’ve got the Spartan army and a few close buddies on your side.

Thus starts your hack and slash adventure. What hits you first, besides the beautiful visuals, is the sheer volume of characters on the screen, the Spartans rush forward to meet the Roman army and you run to join the fray. There’s so much going on its amazing that there’s no screen jitters, its all smooth in this battle scene as you spray Roman blood all over the battle field.

Oh yes, there is blood, this is an R-16 game designed for mature players, and if you're not careful, it’ll be your blood on the ground. Button mashing will only get you so far, master the combinations, and mix offensive with defensive attacks if you want to get any where in this game.

And trust me, you will want to, ‘cause the game is huge with many varied and interesting maps, with different missions to complete.

Upgrades, new weapons and unlockable treasures to find keep the game from getting too repetitive, whist adding extra challenge.

Epic in scale and atmosphere, this is a great game for action and adventure fans who are looking for a new twist on an old genre. On the down side the cut scenes are bland and the music choice is odd at times.