Ancient Empires

A watered down Advance Wars, with neat graphics and smooth animations.
Review By Nynt.


Everyone has heard of Advance Wars, and I would bet that most people have played it. It is a turn based strategy that sees you trying to annihilate the enemy and capture all of their buildings by sending out various troops. This was the game that came to mind while playing Ancient Empires. As I have an NEC e313 on ThreePay, I don't know how much this game costs for other people, or if it is even available for other people, but for me it cost five British pounds.

GRAPHICS: The graphics are nice and tidy, and the troops are easily distinguished from one another. The enemy are a different colour to your own troops, and there are simple borders telling you where you can and can't go or attack. The buildings are simple enough to tell apart, as there are only houses and castles. The terrain is relatively well varied, with water, grass, road, bridges, mountains, and hills as well as forests, and again they are simple to tell apart. The attacks are the high point of the graphics, they really are amazing. When using soldiers they jump forward and hack at the enemies up close, wizards launch plasma balls, and golems throw themselves at the opponants. Very cool. The flaws are that the graphics are occasionally skippy, and whenever a text comes through on your phone it stops for a couple of seconds before continueing. Also, sometimes the cursor box continues to move after you stopped trying to move it. This is annoying, but it can be ignored. All in all, very good effort.

SOUND: The sound is tinny and annoying. But there is a way to turn it off, which is good. Nowhere near as good as the graphics, but oh well.

CONTROLS: Aside from the already mentioned cursor moving on its own on occasions, the controls are really good. There is a simple introduction to each of the troops, and an intro to the games controls itself. Nothing life changing, but good.

STORY: Cheesy. You basically control a king who is trying to beat his brother. Thats about it. Each of the missions has its own story, but I won't spoil it for anyone.

GAMEPLAY: It is just advance wars, with less levels. Aside from the story missions there are two levels to just play, and they are all varied. There are numerous troops to buy and attack, and loads of ways to use them. However, there are some problems with it. I know for a fact that my phone sometimes randomly restarts, and as there is no autosave, this resarts my game too. Also, if you press C to pause the game, if you tap it again it closes it again, without saving. There is a save option though, so as long as you save often you'll be fine.

OVERALL: Incredible gameplay and nice graphics are let down only by occasional glitches and terrible sound. But its a mobile game, so what can you expect? I would reccomend buying it, as I personally do not know of a way to rent it.