Spartan: Total Warrior

GameCube, Spartan: Total Warrior (2005) game

Hack and slash, slash and hack, hack-slash, slash-hack. Hackerty-slasherty, slasherty-hackerty… There aren't that many variations in this style of game, and after a short play I began to think I might have made a mistake in getting it, but I was pleased to discover that, while it's not a deep game that will absorb for long, or one that I'd go back and replay, it did have a little more to it than the average hack-slash-fighty game. I remember back in the days of the GameCube's lifespan playing one of 'The Lord of The Rings' games with someone who'd brought it along for me to try, and it was all very brown and all very samey, and my overriding memory is of jabbing buttons until that group of orcs had been dispatched, then running over here to activate a catapult or something, then going through the same formula over and over again. I may be unfair to the game as I didn't play more than a level or two, but neither did I want to, with no inclination to keep playing, despite the antics of a two-player experience, where a fellow human can make it a little more fun. What I'm getting at is that I rarely felt bored with this game, even though it's of the same oeuvre. For one, the locations and graphics were better, with some nice environments and wide open spaces, or the detailed workings of an entire network of city streets to explore. However, there remained a feeling of being led by the nose down a predetermined path, but it felt slightly less constraining thanks to the breadth of the levels.

The sense of scale was impressive in such an old game, and immediately it felt polished, right from the menu screen and cutscenes to the detail of the character models, the opening titles and sound effects boding well that this had been done by a good team, as you'd expect with the Sega name on the front (I was pleased to read in NGC Magazine that the development team had originally ported Amiga games to PC, and as an Amiga user myself that added a little extra respect from me). When you're in a group rushing towards an attacking enemy on the battlefield you really feel like part of a battle rather than the only soldier that matters, even if, in actuality, you are. But there's a good mix of storming the battlements, or defending your own walls; taking on missions deep in enemy territory, or commanding a task force of attackers intent on a purpose. And yet… From the people that brought you the 'Total War' series on computer, I'd have liked a little more of that depth and impression of control. I've never played the series, but from what I've seen of it, and playing other games like 'Age of Empires,' I always love that feeling of controlling an army, not just one character. A console game was always going to be simpler and more immediate, that's a given, but why did it always have to be that way? Could there not have been a way to control your allies (in the 'Rogue Leader' games you had a simple control wheel of options on the D-pad to get your wingmen to form up or go off alone). It seems a console game must have a strong focus on a single character, advanced by the story.

Except the story was never a strong point in this game, consisting mainly of continuous scenes of 'let's show these Romans what we're made of,' turning into a travelling story of you, Spartan, and your band of warrior mates. But it was so slight, and really just an excuse to get to the next action sequence. Did I ever care about any of the characters? No, not even when one of them gets killed near the end. The Spartan did have a voice, unlike, say, Link in 'The Legend of Zelda' who is you, so doesn't ever say anything, to protect the thoughts you're having, as it were and integrate you more strongly with the character. Somehow they had much better stories in the 'Zelda' games, despite that. The game is reminiscent of 'Zelda' in some ways, with combat very similar to Link's swordsmanship, the internal sound sometimes harking back to those classic dungeons of yore, the treasure chests, and the fact you even have to fight 'yourself' at one point! Other games it brought to mind were the 'X-Men Legends' titles (though without the depth of story, or the RPG elements of upgrading parts of yourself or building up a team), 'Minority Report' and 'Enter The Matrix' - action fare where you follow a predetermined path for the most part and hammer the buttons until the hordes are defeated. I like a bit more to my gameplaying experience.

Fortunately, this game did have a little bit more, certainly than those last two games: the combat system. This is what saved it from being a completely average game. Graphics are all well and good, but it's what you do within them that matters most. At first it did seem to be the usual hack and slash, jamming buttons as fast as you can to take out the opposing forces, which can get quite repetitive. But there was a noticeable difficulty curve and towards the end you really needed to master the Spartan's catalogue of moves to stand a chance of getting by: I had become a bit lazy, tapping buttons and rushing off to the next mob, but you eventually come up against more worthy opponents that can't be taken down in a swipe or two of your sword and need careful attention. You had to learn to fight properly, button-bashing could only get you so far. Whether it was rolling on the ground to put out flames if you caught fire, using the different strikes and shield attacks correctly, or knowing when best to use your secondary 'magical' attack, it made the game a little more thoughtful than it at first seemed. And when your health is low, and there are few top-ups around, you have to play it carefully, while also knowing when to boldly strike out. The long-knife-wielding assassins were among the most annoying enemies opposing you, often able to block your sword swipes, so you needed to stun them with your shield to be able to get a stab in. They could often block that too, so my tactic was to repeatedly push them up against a wall in order to keep them stunned enough to get an effective window of opportunity to strike.

There were also irritating archers who'd sap your health from distance, larger warriors you needed to expend some careful consideration on, and all the while you'd be taking out lowly Romans that were more like ants underfoot, though if you gave them an opening they'd chop at you like any other enemy. You might have to deal with a whole group of these mixed enemies requiring different tactics and some thought (or at least reaction and instinct), had to be applied to keep yourself from becoming poked and prodded to death. That was all very well, but you might also have to protect an ally! One of the scenarios that took me longest to complete was in the busy city streets, preserving the intensely irritating Archimedes from harm - not since Natalya in 'Goldeneye' had such an annoying ally been under my protection, squawking and whining, you almost wish he'd die! But it was also quite a fulfilling experience, because in spite of being another of those 'travel A-to-B, fighting,' you had to learn to improve your abilities, using every advantage to slay the attackers and assassins before they either took you out or Archimedes. It was thoroughly satisfying when you eventually did successfully make it to the end. Similarly, I felt the game worked best when you had to protect something from the onrushing hordes, my other most satisfying experience protecting the grain towers from continuous attacks, then taking out Gigantes giants who needed other tactics entirely (the best way I found was to get them to charge through fire at you, giving you time to get in a few blows while they recovered).

The bosses, too, could be a challenge, even early ones such as Medusa and Crassus were tricky, and it was quite addictive to keep trying until they were defeated. There were often little tactics you had to learn to defeat them, while also taking on their minor soldiers here and there, sent to distract you. And you were sometimes confined in the space you had, such as in the fire-walled Beowulf battle in which he comes at you with a massive hammer. One thing that was a disappointment to me, and it may have been just me not realising how to do it, was not being able to choose which of these beaten warrior's' arsenal you could use as your secondary option. Granted, Medusa's Shield was probably the best, with its ability to rain down rays of stone-making power that converted all soldiers on the battlefield into unmoving statues for a time, giving you a free hand to run or destroy as you saw fit, but it would have been nice to have the option to use Beowulf's hammer, or the other weapons you collected. But as I say, it might just have been me not knowing how to select between them, though I couldn't find anything about it in the manual.

One thing I really liked was the heartbeat sound effect which occurred when things became fraught or you were on a roll - listening through headphones I at first thought it was my own, as the fighting could get you pumping when you had multiple things to keep track of! The game was rated 15, and I suppose it was quite violent for a 'Cube title as you decapitate and slice your way through, but because it was done so fast and in the usual console-game style of flashes, bangs, and a swirl of lighting effects, it never felt realistic, and you couldn't really make out the details in the fury of battle - perhaps in that respect it was true to life? Apart from the action there isn't much else to it, though you could try to find all the 'secrets.' These were a bit weak, limited to locating chests on the battlefield rather than any real degree of exploration or interaction with the environment. Very old-skool, it could almost be 'Gauntlet,' without the charm. These so-called secrets would consist of concept art you could view in a gallery, or pieces for Arena mode, simply an extra game where you could fight enemy waves for a high-score, very much in the old style of gaming. Not a bad addition, and I had a go, but I've never been one to play games much where the idea is to repetitively try for a high score. The art was a bit basic a thing to unlock, and I'd have preferred Archimedes' diary had been readable rather than being another piece of unlockable arena object or art. Still, it was a reasonable array of extras, games at that time starting to get more into unlockables and bonus content (and I even recognised Jason Isaacs in the credits as Sejanus, so they were also starting to get known talent for the voice acting!).

The aspect of the game that stopped it being anything more than a solid experience, was that like so many games, you rarely felt in control of your environment or the way you could interact with it. They were detailed, and, for the time, pretty vast, but with generally duller colours in the worlds you went through, coupled with bright slashing effects and so many bodies on screen it could sometimes make it difficult to see your character. And yet it could feel fairly epic at times due to sheer weight of numbers and size of battlefields, and all with good motion capture, seen best in cutscenes. The option to replay levels was appreciated - in some games you could only replay by starting a new game file, having saved over your file to progress, but in truth I never went back to find the secrets I'd missed or for the fun of it. As much as I'll have some good memories of hard-fought battles I can't imagine going back to it, just as I couldn't with the other 'Cube games I mentioned. I said there were no RPG aspects to the game, but you could upgrade health, power and strength at the end of each over-level, and once all three meters were maxed out you'd go up a level to a new hero, though that kind of makes the option to choose where to spend those credits redundant - it could have done with more development. The ending was weak: defeat Ares (shock twist: he's the guy behind it all!), then the game stops and it's off to the credits, but I like the title's synergy with its parent brand, especially as I could see it as a spinoff series with multiple 'Total Warrior' games like 'Total War,' though I don't know if they ever did make it a series.

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