It just does not deliver.
The game starts off in where the Romans have besieged Sparta. You are the Spartan, who will soon become a fabled warrior with the help of Ares, the God of War. Right at the beginning of the game, you are put in a fight with Roman legionaries, who have horrible AI (but I shall talk more about that later).
I have mixed feelings about Spartan Total Warrior. I think they have copied from God of War in many ways; one of the most prominent things would have to be the Orbs. Like in God of War, there are Green Orbs for Health and Blue Orbs for Magic. They also have a few God of War bosses like Medusa and Hades Minotaurs.
The combat in this game could have been a lot better. The combat revolves around using X and O, which can get very repetitive, as you cannot string together combos in this game. You have a shield, which can block every attack, and I find that very disappointing because it means you can just hold your shield up forever and avoid being hit. You face quite a few enemies in Spartan Total Warrior; which include Romans, Barbarians and Gladiators. Unfortunately, all these enemies seem to use the same three or four moves when they fight, which makes the game very boring and repedative.
The enemy AI is horrible. They have no strategy at all, and they basically run to you and get killed. They have no sense of direction at all, and all you need to do is walk behind them and they will get confused. Your own Allied Spartans also have horrible AI, and many a time I have encountered a glitch where they seem to pace back and forth in the middle of a fight. When the Spartans and Romans fight each other it is pretty pathetic, an AI fight in this game consists of each of them hitting each other over and over until after a few minutes one of them drops dead at a weird angle. So in short, the big gory sounding battles basically become pathetic little duels with nothing really happening. I found this a great disappointment.
There is absolutely no historical accuracy in this game. I feel I must mention it because it is so obvious. The Romans had barely built their city in 300BC, which is the time you are fighting in. In addition, the Romans used to fight in tight formations, but when you face then in Spartan Total Warrior, they fight in isolated groups with no one leading them. You fight in the Colosseum when you reach Rome, but the Colosseum was not built until AD80, about 250 years away. So technically, in Spartan Total warrior you fight in a place that does not exist.
The Characters in this game could also be better. The main character (The Spartan) has the least original name ever, and while I think that was to give a sense of mystery, it just succeeds in making the Spartan seem mediocre. The Total Warrior crew brings in the Spartan sort of God of War style, which is that you know absolutely nothing about him until you get further into the game. This was actually pulled off pretty well, and made me want to play the game to learn about the Spartan. But again they could have made the Spartans character original like God of War's Kratos; but instead they made the Spartan an epic legend which I think was to predictable and chichi. You also get to know other characters in the game, like the famous Castor and Pollux, and even Electra the warrior princess of the Amazons. However, all of these characters appear as shallow souls and it seems they were just put in to give the Spartan company and for nothing else. So overall, the characters were just shallow and extremely boring.
Nevertheless, aside from all the bad things about the game, at times it can be strangely fun. You feel an odd sense of pride when you charge with a few hundred other Spartan Warriors in their last stand; you feel happy when you win a huge battle, and you feel happy when you kill enemies in brutal ways. Spartan Total Warrior does have a few battles that are very well done (not graphically but spiritually) where you are playing and you cannot stop because you want to help out the Spartans.
Overall Spartan Total Warrior did not deliver what it should have. What could have been a great and epic game became a shallow, broken mistake. It had real potential to be as popular as games like God of War and Prince of Persia but instead it seems like the Total war crew just gave up and gave us a half finished product. But if you are a fan of the Spartans and wish to try out the game then take this advice, rent it, don't buy it; because it is not worth it.