It was only a matter of time before Spartacus got it’s own game and to be honest it would have been good. Think of it, it would be one of the goriest gladiator games to ever grace the home console. But Spartacus Legends is far from legendary.
The player gets the take the role of a slave who has to train his was up the ranks to get to that elite gladiator status. Very simple. Throughout this journey you fight many low tier gladiators and some more known names from the tv series. Spartacus Legends has an in game market where you upgrade your gladiator with armor, weapons and perks. You have two forms of currency; sliver and gold. Silver is common enough, you win a few hundred after each battle, but gold is rare and precious. Of course you can buy some from the in game store with your Microsoft Points, 3000 pieces of gold will only cost you 12,000 MP.
(THAT’S OVER €140!!)
The tutorial level sees you play as Spartacus in the Colosseum, which you think would be amazing. Blood strewn sand, the open court, the emperor looking down on you and the fans shouting in the stands. Well it’s nothing like that, the audience look like cardboard cut outs and for some strange reason the developers thought it would be cool to add some “background defocusing” into the fight scenes. This is so unnecessary, the gladiators have some detail to them and it looks so crappy when you see these jagged blurry lines around them.
Other than that the graphics in the game are good, not amazing but still pretty decent. The gameplay is very similar to that of the Deadliest Warriors game, where the rounds are over quick and you need to time every block perfectly. There are three meters to look out for; your health, your defense and the crowds favor. The crowds favour is self explanatory, everytime you strike a deadly blow the fans get over joyed and want more. When you fill your crowd favor meter you give the crowd exactly what they want. Spartacus Legends takes the fatalities out of Mortal Kombat and simplifies the codes to one button each, but with all the gore left in. So far I have managed to pull a few off but the best one had to be Spartacus slicing the face of an opponent. (Which I’m pretty sure I seen happen in the show?!)
Spartacus Legends is an OK game, it’s nothing special just an average fighter with all the button mashing that you would ever need. The combo system is average, I find myself using the same combo over and over again, x x y! I’m sure fans of the tv series would like it a lot more than I did since they may get the references within the game, but for me it is just an average fighter with some Roman themes.
I like it, though there are some graphical errors that let it down but the gameplay is tense and the fighting mechanics are very well done. And saving the best till last, it’s free for Xbox live gold members! So go and download it and let me know what you think via my Facebook or twitter pages! All can be found on the left of the page!
AW!
Akroview 