When launching Spartan Wars: Empire of Honor, it should remind the AndroidPIT fan and user of the Galaxy Empire app, which was just recently tested by us. This is no coincidence, since both Spartan Wars and Galaxy Empire come from the same company tap4fun and both games share a bunch of similarities. Despite these comparable features, Spartan Wars doesn't have that mass-produced feel that you get when playing Galaxy Empire.
This is immediately noticeable when starting the app. After a short tutorial, which can be skipped, of course, the player can take their first steps in their own Spartan village. One big difference noticed between Galaxy Empire and this one, is the importance of the worker's enslavement. This is important in the expansion and building of huts. The acquired slaves are distributed among the many workstations and by means of this, you can name the slaves with the term ''energy factory'', which is a well-known traits about MMOs. This focus on the individual lines of production give the whole game a certain tactical aspect, especially at the beginning of your gaming venture.
The more you forge forward in this game, the more you'll notice the solid execution and presentation of its functions. The first few hours of playing the game are spent building and expanding individual buildings, which you've tactically positioned. Just like you probably know from other MMOs, this takes almost no time at all to take care of, especially since the building time is fairly quick. Later on in the game, you'll have to wait an hour or two. It's at this point in time that I need to pay a compliment to the notification function. It's often the case that the buildings are already done being built and you lose precious minutes and don't react in time. With the notification system, which they are built into Spartan Wars, the user will be notified that the building process is complete and can then promptly react. This is a huge advantage in comparison to other competing games, having already mentioned this with Galaxy Empire. It also makes a difference in this app's final rating.
The game's story can be summarized by saying it has many layers. It offers many alternative paths. For one, you could chose to have the expanded warrior city, which attacks and pillages neighbouring enemy cities. On the other hand, you could take more of a ''Sim City'' approach, where you expand the city's production and manage military missions. Another possibility is the cooperation with other gamers/users. That being said, one recognisable trait of an MMO is the teamwork with other human players, where you can create alliances and fellowships. All these ways of playing are many from which the player can chose and at the end of the day your actions and choices show whether you go down the path of the warrior or the peace-keeper.
Despite all of the freedom and the well-made functions, there are also aspects that compromise the gamer's overall experience. These aren't just comprised of the limited waiting line and the long building duration time in the ''End-game''. There are 2 other main points that I need to criticize.
- Just like in Galaxy Empire, the player can't decide at the beginning of the game, in which ''game world'' they would like to start. The fact that you are missing the choice, in which world you begin, means that you are placed in an already distributed world. Strong alliances have already been forged , huge riches have already been collected and all the small fish in the ocean have already been devoured. This might seen harsh and might be targeted at every gamer, but it might happen that your own game account will turn into some sort of farm and that constant attacks from stronger players will have the consequence of no gaming fun at all. This could be avoided by the developers integrating new game worlds, so that new players have a starting chance. This is a critical point, which I've already noticed when playing Galaxy Empire.
- A much more critical aspect is the fact that investing money in this game has much to much far-reaching consequences. I personally don't have anything against in-app purchasing, which holds a lot of advantages. AT the end of the day, the developer just wants to make money and the server doesn’t pay for itself. However, there should always be certain level of fairness involved. Purchasing shouldn't have too much of an impact on power in the game, but this is exactly what happens in Spartan Wars. Money will buy you, among other things, resources and other advantages, like a protection against attacks or the acceleration of the building duration. What this really means, is that having money will give you more advantage than those with little money and will give them more speed in the game. Something like this should always be kept under close watch, since without money, you tend to be discriminated against.
Bottom Line
Spartan Wars is fun and its game-construction makes it a very good game. It's very similar to Galaxy Empire (which I also testing, as you can see on AndroidPIT) and just like this game, it has a few points to criticize like the missing gaming worlds and the in-app store aspects, which means a lower rating.
For those who like MMO games and who choose to play with other human gamers without needing to invest too much time, Spartan Wars might be the one for them.
After having talked to those responsible, they've informed me that the app database requires some time in order to get synchronized with the latest versions on play store. It will be available in the next days. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.