Hero of Sparta iPhone/iPod Touch App Review

I was relatively skeptical upon my first glance of Hero of Sparta. It seemed as if Gameloft was simply trying to jump on the bandwagon that is Sony’s God of War series and the blockbuster film “300″. However, instead of schlopping together aspects of the two franchises and relasing a sub-par clone Gameloft released a great action adventure game that pushes the envelope for iPhone gaming.

The game opens with a cinematic of your protagonist King Argos awakening on a desolate beach to find his ship in tatters and his crew missing.  But, make no mistake while there is a mystery to be solved instead of sleuthing Argos takes up his sword and shield in order to solve things the way any true spartan warrior would, by killing any Greek mythological creatures he sees until the problem is resolved.  There is no shortage of monsters to cut down, either. The Oracle’s Island, and the several stages the follow it, are crawling with Minotaur, centaurs, and gorgons just to name several of the enemies you will encounter.

When you kill monsters, you collect colored orbs that serve various purposes. Green orbs restore health while red orbs are accumulated until you can level up your weapons, just like you might find in the God of War series. It’s a nice touch, since it keeps you from just running past enemies. Sure, you may want to avoid a few battles when your health is lacking, but skipping too many means you cannot purchase the best upgrades and attacks and that will make some of the bigger battles much tougher.

In addition to collecting orbs, you also earn special equipment such a larger shield that unlocks a slam attack, a bigger sword, an axe, and more armor. The game is smart about doling out these improvements as it keeps you playing to see what you can earn next, keeping the game fresh throughout its entirety.

The control system is rather generic for this genre but still effective. You hold your device horizontally. There is a virtual analog stick in the lower left corner of the screen with the attack and defend buttons appearing in the lower right corner. I had very few problems controlling Argos, and those that I did encounter, were in the beginning of the game while I was still familiarizing myself with the inputs. The attack and defend buttons are always responsive and using them to unleash special moves and combos is easy. For example, when you get your shield upgrade, you can use it to push enemies back through a special move by pressing the defend button and then dragging your thumb up. Right away, Argos will release a shock wave that pulverizes nearby attackers. Gameloft’s virtual controls deserve to not only be looked at but imitated by other developers considering their own action games.

The 3D graphics in Hero of Sparta are top-notch. The world around Argos is richly detailed and painted with an impressive number of colors. The texture work on Argos, the monsters, and the environments is stellar. Hero of Sparta is illuminated by excellent light effects, too. Slowdown is rare. The soundtrack is as loud and bombastic, as you might expect for a “300″-style game.

At a budget price of $.99 its hard not to recommend Hero of Sparta to any action fans. This is a thrilling action game loaded with cinematic flair. The controls work exceptionally well and it’ll last you a good 6-7 hours of play time to finish up the adventure but you may go back just to find everything.

There are several different weapons (such as this bow) for you to dismiss foes with.

The cinamatics and top-notch

Gotta hate gorgons.