Spartans are cool - or so Hollywood would have us believe with the recent offering of the film 300. It reminds us of true historical events - some of the most remarkable warfare in history in fact - and of what a truly unique culture Sparta enjoyed. As glorified as that celluloid image may have been, it portrayed ancient Sparta with the kind of character that it truly deserves, with astounding skill in combat and tremendous courage being just a fraction of their many talents.

But then along trots a game like Ancient Wars: Sparta, which paints a completely different image to the one that Hollywood just ingrained into our minds. Is it trying to cash in on the success of a remarkable movie, or is it genuinely trying to replicate some of the most exciting historical wartime events that have taken place on our humble planet? Let's have a wander through and find out.

Ancient Wars presents you with three main campaigns, allowing you to play as the military might of either Sparta, Persia or Egypt. This is where history buffs might start rubbing their hands, salivating over the military differences between all three sides and the potential for how their individual strengths can be utilised. Unfortunately, those differences and strengths have been liquidised into a mushy pulp. Sure, each civilisation has some unique units, but they all play pretty much the same and there is little to distinguish any real unique fighting style for each nation.

Warfare should be an exquisite ballet of grace and finesse, but here it resembles a playground brawl; everyone dives into the melee and the side with the most fighters wins the day. Tactics? Strategy? Forget about it! Within seconds of starting a battle, your available tactics are refined to the finer nuances of precisely whose big bashy things can do the most damage. With such rudimentary insight into warfare, you would hope that other game elements disguise this loss with astounding features in other departments, but this is sadly not the case, as the AI is as bright as deranged monkey, the graphics are the epitome of mediocrity and the sound is frankly appalling.

Okay, the graphics aren't too bad in actual fact; they serve their purpose well enough. The problem is that they don't deliver anything that discerning gamers would class as up to date; 3D graphics are all well and good, but the camera is needlessly restrictive and you can't zoom out very far, meaning that army management is clumsy. Ancient Wars is pretty, but unimpressive in light of what we have come to expect from modern games. As for the sound effects, I present a gold medal to anyone who can tolerate the dreadful voice acting and grotesquely repetitive sounds of ordering your units around; hearing the same camp voice clips whenever you order a unit to a location gets very tiresome, very quickly.

Unit pathfinding is not as bright as you might like either, with soldiers taking ineffective and illogical routes at times. The enemies meanwhile do not think through their actions at all, nor do they use any tactics more complicated than 'Charge!' The multiplayer offers relief from retarded AI, but then with RTS games dripping out of our ears, Ancient Wars simply offers nothing more than any other game and indeed falls far short of the kind of experience offered by the big genre contenders. Although, in an attempt to rescue a small shred of dignity for the game, it must be noted that sea battles are quite pleasing to play, offering a nice change from land-based combat.

The three campaigns on offer, where you fight as one of the primary factions, are moderately well built, with a little bit of variety to discover as you progress. However, you soon fall into old routines of resource management, base building and churning out the warriors. Your army will grow with all the speed of a legless sloth, thanks to the interminable build times and the general sluggishness of the game mechanics. This is acceptable if you enjoy taking your time, spending many hours on some battles, but most RTS devotees are used to more celeritous affairs, testing their nerves and quick-wittedness.

Most importantly, ancient Sparta and Persia were not just common fighting forces. They were trained war machines, both unique and highly effective in what they did. Their leaders were cunning and clever, using mixed force armies and innovative tactical stratagems to accomplish their aims. The history books are full of astounding tales from these nations and Sparta in particular deserves an amazing game conversion after such a successful film adaptation - I'm sure many developers are out there right now, dreaming of exotic and wonderful ways in which to digitally realise the full glory of Sparta and its awe-inspiring people. Yet playing Ancient Wars, you get no such feeling; it's as bland and by-the-numbers as any other generic RTS.

Will you gain much enjoyment from Ancient Wars: Sparta? That depends on whether you play it for a simple RTS fix, or for the value of the civilisations and subject material it covers. For a brief play it serves a purpose well enough, but if you really want to get the most out of this exciting period of ancient combat then you'll want to wait until something more inspired comes along, because Ancient Wars is just a bit too spartan to give you the experience that you are hoping for.

Reviewed by Adam Shirley for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).