Previous Next

EA, like so many before, make a flawed bid for the cinematic strategy market

I've never thought the Romans were much cop. Dressing up in a leather skirt and sticking a feather duster on your head is a rather odd way of going about combat duty if you ask me. But, as history proves, it worked. By the 1st century AD they'd accumulated an empire stretching all the way from Britain in the north west down to Egypt in the south, and were duly bouncing up and down on their velvet cushions and scoffing lots of grapes to celebrate.

Not that you can afford to be so frisky in Centurion: Defender Of Rome. Oh dear me, no. This is all jolly serious stuff about a cocky officer chappy who wants to rise up through the ranks and become Caesar. A lofty aim to be sure - but one that's just about feasibly if you conquer enough countries on the battlefield, while at the same time making sure you keep the plebs happy so they don't get all crotchety and rebel against you. As a strategy game it's good; as an 'empire management' game it's not too bad; and as an arcader, well, it has to be said some of it stinks.

But first the good news - the battle arcade sequenes. Your legion is laid out beneath you in 'live it and breathe it' realism viewed from a 45 degree bird's-eye angle. You choose its formation and fighting tactic and then wait to see how the opposition line themselves up against you. At this point you'll probably suffer an initial attack of panic - your best idea might well be to interrupt play to check on the strengths of individual units and then alter the tactics of the ones on your side to compensate. And then you run for the hills.

It's a bit of a gas really, and once you've got the hang of which tactic to use where and when it should be enough to get the adrenalin pumping through your various vessels fast enough.

And now for the stinky stuff. One way of making sure your plebs don't get too rattish is to host games for them. Two of these are arcade sequences - the Chariot Race and the Gladiator Fight. In the first, you buy your 'cart', gamble a bit on the predicted outcome and then scootle off round the track. Only you won't have any inclination to do anything of the sort once you see how it works.

The overhead-view playing area is too small and follows your wagon up-screen, meaning that you can only steer left and right and your only gauges of speed and progression (aside from the indistinct circuit map at the top) are the other competitors. When they race ahead and disappear off the top of the track you really are a bit slumped - you haven't the faintest idea where you are or anything. A Supercars-style approach mightn't have allowed for such fine-looking wagons but at least you'd have been able to play it.

As for the Gladiator Fight, the less said about that the better. It's all about two blokes who clobber each other with all the enthusiasm of a couple of dead fish. Slow's the word, but there ought to be a better one.

The successful wargame-style strategy aside then, Centurion's a game that falls between too stools. It should either have been a much more engaging and complex management game (aside from throwing bread and circus parties, the only other thing you tend to do is collect taxes, and that quickly becomes all too simple and repetitive) or it should have done more on the arcade side.

One alternative option would have been to loosen things up a bit, take the action sequences up a notch and opt for a more jokey approach along the lines of North And South. And although it certainly looks very pretty, I'd dispute EA's claim that it's a 'cinematic adventure' like no other - there are just as many static picture postcard graphics here as I've seen anywhere. So, all in all, not half as much fun as a video of Caligula and £15 more expensive.

A good strategy game when it's out on the field, but let down by some dull empire housekeeping and a couple of real clinker arcade sequences.