When it comes to both sound and graphics Ancient Wars: Sparta falls short of today’s standards. The sound was not bad in the sense that it did not glitch or cause incompatibility issues, but the weapon sounds were the same old clinging of forks and knives sounds that we’ve been accustomed with from former RTSs. The voices for the campaign mode were not bad per say, even if the lines they had to read were terrible.

When it comes to graphics best word that I can associate the game with is “yesterday’s”. They really are that backwards. The game looks like the Empire Earth series. AWS has a static environment; in another words the map does not react to player and AI actions (no craters, destructible battlefields or environmental changes). Older games such as Earth 2160, Company of Heroes and Faces of War offer better graphics then AWS.

Now I also want to point out that not everything out there caters to only top-end machines, and this is one of those games. AWS looks good; it has a crisp, clear and solid look that will enable even the people with older systems to enjoy a new release. However, if “eye-candy” is what you’re looking for, don’t bother to pick up a copy of AWS of the store shelves.