I expected something solid from the History Channel, but all that came was a broken product not fit for the shelves
But when I began playing, it was nothing like what I thought it would be. Instead of being fast paced, action packed and battle filled like I expected, the combat was boring, slow and completely unreliable. The fact you positioned your forces before the battle was well done, as it added strategy to the game, and in the back of your mind I always wonder 'Now what would the Romans do?'. I enjoyed this part of the battles, as it required you to have knowledge of strategy and tactics, and it encouraged you to think ahead to win the battles.
However, though this bit was interesting, the actual battles were ghastly. Looking like it came out of the factory half done, it seems they forgot even some of the basics for RTS. I found it difficult to give orders to my different units, as my orders would have no effect. They would ignore what I told them to do, usually leading them to ruin my battle plans. I thought this fighting aspect of the battles (the most important part!) was poorly devised, as the player is reduced to a mere spectator that has very little ability to control his or her own army - and the bit that you can control never seems to listen. Also the combat itself annoyed me as I to this very day do not understand how you win the battles. When the sides engage there are images of red and white crosses, hooves, jack boots and arrows, and they make absolutely no sense when you are in the midst of the fight. Whatever happened to health bars? I would have liked something like a morale meter, but all these icons confused me - especially since I was still trying to control my unresponsive army.
The battles themselves were also heavily repetitive, with the same half a dozen backgrounds being reused constantly and the enemies being indistinguishable from each other. The graphics are very poor (resembling a Ps1 game) which really irritated me. The units you could use ranged from crude skirmishers to war elephants and the praetorian guard, but no effort has been made to make them look original and interesting so that you get bored of these pretty quickly. The sound was good, but that too was really repeditive and so often I turned the sounds off to stop myself going mad.
There is no storyline present in the game, just battle after battle after battle with no break in between. There are some nice video clips that provide nice information at key points (such as the start of the Punic Wars) which are interesting and worth watching, and each battle has an intorduction so you know what the battle is about. I liked these parts because they taught you something, and it is probably the only good thing the History Channel contributed. But this is not a storyline, and the lack of this becomes evident as you are pulled into a vortex of endless battles until you finish the game.
Though I could talk about this game longer, it can be summed up as a great disappointment. If, like me you are interested in Rome then you should rent it because it does teach you about famous battles, but unless you have an interest in Rome you will find it boring and pathetic. If it was released to the Ps1 it may have been a great game, but a 2007 game has no excuse for the shoddy graphics and horrible combat. It took me around fifteen hours to complete, mostly because I found it so horrible, as I think someone could finish it in six if they tried. But it is just so bad that you get to the point where you do not want to play. The History Channel really let me down on this one, and I do not recommend this game unless you really want to play it, because frankly I think you are wasting your money.