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Spartan: Total Warrior for PlayStation 2
Spartan: Total Warrior for PlayStation 2 places you in the middle of battles between Spartans and an advancing Roman army. You control a nameless warrior who defends his city with help from the Greek gods. Allies and enemies fight around you, but your own sword, shield and bow determine where the breakthrough happens. The story mixes antiquity with mythological monsters and supernatural powers, so do not expect an accurate reconstruction of a historical war.
The combat system distinguishes between focused attacks against one opponent and sweeping blows against groups. Your shield does more than block hits: you can also use it to push enemies away and create space when surrounded. Divine powers and accumulated rage provide heavier attacks. Meanwhile, objectives ask you to protect allies, eliminate important opponents or defend a position. You must therefore keep choosing between a danger right beside you and an objective farther away on the battlefield.
You play alone with one standard DualShock 2. The soldiers beside you are computer-controlled; you do not give them army orders and there is no shared campaign for two players. Alongside the story, Arena offers additional battles against waves of opponents. Here you practise selecting weapons and attacks without the same sequence of story objectives. Your position remains important both in the arena and during the campaign: getting trapped between enemies calls for a different response from a direct attack on their front line.
Region and language
Our PlayStation 2 games are PAL editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
Spartan: Total Warrior for PlayStation 2 includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of Spartan: Total Warrior
Sega released Spartan: Total Warrior in 2005 for PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. The British studio Creative Assembly developed the game at a time when it was mainly known for the Total War strategy games on PC. Here, the developers chose a different perspective on large battles. Instead of looking at an army as its commander, you stand among the opposing sides as an individual soldier. The scale of the fighting remained important, but the player's role changed completely.
During development, lead programmer Clive Gratton explained why the team placed attacks against one enemy and against several enemies within a consistent control scheme. The challenge should lie in choosing the right action, not memorising long button sequences. The shield therefore also received an offensive role. A shove could create an opening that an ordinary sword strike could not. These design choices connect the large numbers of soldiers directly to the decisions you make during each fight.
In interviews, Creative Assembly emphasised its deliberately free approach to history. Mythical creatures and impossible war machines gave the designers room for different enemies and situations. The studio worked with separate programming teams for the three consoles while sharing the game content. The team also explicitly chose to focus on one player. Arena grew out of the desire to keep playing the combat separately from the story missions. This PS2 release is therefore a standalone action adventure, not a console version of Rome: Total War with the same army controls.
Similar games for PlayStation 2
God of War shares Greek mythology, violent combat and divine powers with Spartan: Total Warrior. Kratos, however, follows a route with plenty of climbing, mechanisms and separate combat spaces. Spartan more often focuses on a battlefield where allies and enemies move at the same time. You therefore assess not only which attack will hit an opponent, but also where you are needed when an objective elsewhere threatens to fail.
Dynasty Warriors 4 likewise lets you fight among large numbers of soldiers as a powerful warrior. It tells its campaigns from the perspectives of different factions in China's Three Kingdoms and gives you many officers to choose from. Spartan follows one hero in a story featuring Greek gods and Roman enemies. Focused and sweeping attacks, the offensive shield and specific mission objectives determine how you work your way through the crowds here.
Shadow of Rome also takes you to a violent version of antiquity, but divides its story between gladiator Agrippa and the stealthy Octavianus. Weapon wear and the crowd's response matter in the arena. Spartan keeps its focus on one supernaturally strong warrior and battles alongside an army. Here, you do not have to sneak around as a vulnerable investigator between arena performances to solve a murder conspiracy.
Shadow of the Colossus uses enormous scale for battles that mainly involve observation and climbing. You seek one giant's weak point and try to reach it. Spartan instead fills its battlefields with many smaller opponents and fighting allies. You also have to understand the situation there first, but the solution usually lies in your position, weapon use and handling tasks across the battlefield, not in climbing a moving creature.
ICO combines an ancient, mysterious setting with a hero who has to protect someone else. That similarity highlights the difference in approach: Ico searches for a route through a castle with Yorda and defends her with simple weapons. Spartan instead lets you use extensive combat abilities to make room for fellow soldiers. Where waiting and carefully preparing a passage matter greatly in ICO, the battlefield here regularly demands immediate action among several threats.
