In the last few years I avoided playing ‘freemium’ games, because they usually require a certain amount of money to play at a reasonable pace without investing your entire life into unlocking everything. When I played Sparta: War of Empires for the first time, it was immediately clear that I was able to play at a comfortable and challenging pace even though it was played for free. The game, Sparta: War of Empires, was developed by Plarium who has so much experience in MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) style games that have been popular ever since the debut of the now mainstream Worlds of Warcraft. This game is highly recommended by so many players around the world for being able to bring any player into a medieval world with amazing details.
You do need an account but this game can be played through a Facebook account as well as through signing up on the Plarium site that has a simple registration process. I found that the game can be set up quickly without having to go through various tedious installations. My first reaction was that I enjoyed the robustness of the menu – running down the full screen with the buttons accompanied by various icons at the bottom. Able to quickly dive into the game I soon received instructions from King Leonidas of Sparta. At the beginning of the game, I just needed to check out some quick instructions, notices and click any area designated by the big flashing arrow telling me where to click and where to go. The interface was very intuitive which made it easy to get to the fun.
I was brought to my city screen to review the various options provided as various units were supplied to click. There were a variety of choices to open but the options were easy to understand and after cycling through a few menus I was good to go to battle under the command of King Leonidas! The king commanded me to defeat the Xerxes’ army and to do so; Leonidas came up with various plans, encouraging me to go on a more orthodox way, for example by attacking a neighboring town. The attacks on the neighboring town were critical to my ultimate goal of attacking the Persian army. I found that the command of Leonidas became more gradual as the game continued, replaced with some standard texts and notification, leaving me free to make my own decisions and confidently command my army as I saw fit – thanks to the initial guidance of Leonidas.
The Graphics
The Graphics displayed stunning scenery, by showing each city with a zoomed-out isometric perspective equipped with an iconic interface. Unfortunately, your city does not present an interactive menu as you are restricted to specify some aspects, such as placing the building and town planning. It seems that Plarium makes Spartan: War of Empires not look like Sim City. This game is a war game and not exactly like a city simulator so don’t expect to design a city! In fact there are many beginners in Sparta: War of Empires who think that they can design their city in more detailed way.
The War
The main aspect of Sparta: War of Empires is the war itself. The war begins with the election of all units to attack or besiege the cities. I found that offensive statistic was greater than the defensive stats so I doubted that the war strategy is really needed in this game.
You can control the battle well because you always are given a written report about the outcome of every single battle, especially the victims and all the goods you have looted. Overall I really enjoyed Sparta: War of Empires and I felt that this game can really help me in expanding my management skills and it has a high replay value that keeps you entertained for hours after you have mastered it.