Game Reviews

Hero of Sparta

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Hero of Sparta
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| Hero of Sparta

[This review is taken from a two-part feature published in July, which rounded up nine of Gameloft’s iPhone to Android game conversions. You can read part 1 here, and part 2 here.]

Hero of Sparta is a relative iPhone oldie (coming out on the App Store in 2008) but a goodie, with its potent mix of Greek myth and intense action making it the closest thing yet to a full 3D God of War on a phone.

The Android conversion, though, really doesn’t do the source material justice. On our test unit (an HTC Desire) it was consistently sluggish, with hero Argos plodding around like a pensioner and his ‘evasive’ roll laughably slow.

In fact, going back to the iPhone version felt perversely fast for the first few minutes. Then it clicked and we remembered that this was how it was supposed to be.

Bizarrely, while the main action is horribly slow in the Android conversion, the text scrolls way too fast, to a point where we couldn’t keep up with the (admittedly nonsensical) story.

Meanwhile, the controls are down there with the worst of Gameloft’s recent conversions, consistently failing to register attack and defence commands until you release the virtual D-pad.

It may appear to have nice graphics (and a lot more blood than the iPhone version) in the screenshots, but you should be aware that this is something of a Trojan Horse. Inside it’s most unfriendly.

Hero of Sparta

A poor conversion of a fine action game, Hero of Sparta on Android suffers from crippling technical and control issues
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Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.