Battle For Troy

In Battle For Troy, you can take control of either the Trojan Army or the mighty Greek Alliance. This was released back when the movie, Troy came out and it is kind of odd that it has nothing to do with that movie. Instead, this is going for a more historical telling of the classic story. It is an RTS style of game and if you have an interest in Greek mythology/stories and so on I am sure you will get a great deal out of this.

Two Sides Of The War

One of the coolest things that Battle For Troy has going for it is that it gives you two campaigns to play. You can play as the trojan army or as the Greek empire and both have a very different point of view when it comes to the conflict. You are supposed to start with the Trojan campaign as this serves as the game's tutorial before it throws you into more difficult situations. Each campaign gets brutally difficult towards the end and I found myself getting more frustrated than having fun. If you play as The Trojans then you are defending your walls from the invading Greeks. On the flip side of this, playing as the Greeks sees you needing to invade and take over the city of Troy.

Straight To The Point

I have to say that as far as RTS games go, Battle For Troy is a rather simple one. You do not have as many units to build and make use of here as you would think. Also, you level up by just straight killing people. Plus, you collect gold by killing enemies and gold is what is used for pretty much every aspect of the game when it comes to improving your forces. This simplicity makes the game very easy to figure out and get into.

I liked how you had more “magical” elements such as the healers who can use god spells to aid you. In all, it is not the most in-depth RTS I have played, but sometimes I like that as far too many are overly complex to the point where all of the fun is taken away.

Getting Impaled On A Difficulty Spike!

One of the strangest things about this game is the difficulty spike. Both sides of the campaign ramp up the difficulty from the second stage to an almost unbearable level. The number of enemies thrown your way is merciless! The game has rather simple mechanics, so I feel a much tamer difficulty would have made it far more fun. I can see why so many people got turned off by Battle For Troy after just a few hours as I would wager many people had to do the second battle, many, many times.

Buzz, Your Girlfriend, Woof!

I have to say that the presentation of this game is very, very basic. At the time this was released in 2004, RTS games were really coming into their own in terms of the visuals. This game feels like it is at least two to three years old in the way that it looks. I would not say that it is a bad looking game, but it is a very unappealing looking game. Another game bearing the name Troy (which I think was based on the movie) was released around the same time and it looks a million times better than this.

It would be so easy to pass this off as a bad game, but that is unfair. I do feel that Battle For Troy has some good qualities. I liked the more scaled-back kind of RTS action that this game is offering. As there are two campaigns, you get to experience this famous war from both sides which is pretty cool. I can even get past the rather dated-looking visuals. The main issue for me is that difficulty spike which makes the game more of a chore than fun. If the difficulty was not what it is, I probably would have scored this half a point higher.

Pros:

• The game tells a great story
• You can play the campaign from two sides
• It is quite clever how one of the campaigns also serves as a bit of a tutorial
• The gameplay is simplified
• Great if you love these kinds of stories

Cons:

• The difficulty spike is horrible
• The game is rather ugly in terms of its visuals

This is apparently the first in a series of games designed to bring realtime strategy to the market at a price point typically overlooked by other publishers.' Why do they overlook' this budget price point? Possibly something to do with the fact that creating a good RTS takes a certain amount of time, money and effort.

All of which would seem to have gone amiss in the construction of Battle For Troy. If it's half the price of other releases, it displays a third of the production values and a quarter of the imagination. Lamely rolled out on the back of the film, it's one of those strategy games where you have an overwhelming urge to stop playing after three or four near-identical missions. With its cutesy visuals and elementary gameplay, Troy is aimed at a younger, less critical audience. Consequently, the interface is wholly unhelpful, and the tactical options are threadbare. Mostly, over the two puny eight-mission campaigns, you simply have to clear the map of enemies, picking up all the booty you can find along the way. Battlefield tactics are a classic case of select all and attack' with notions such as Al, pathfinding and unit formations as mythical as the saga the game depicts.

The visuals are vaguely passable, as is the sound, but there's simply no reason a seasoned gamer should bother with this, other than to shut up a Brad Pitt-idolising nephew for a few hours.