Sports Games

Game loft’s specialty has always been inspired by the classics of every kind and to re-propose portable versions, most often characterized by an excellent technical department but also by a new-factor dangerously low.

It happened pretty much any game for the French and we saw all kinds of mobile version of the inevitable 'Made in Game loft, "it was the first person shooter, football, free-roaming action, real-time strategy, and so on. Hero of Sparta II, which follows two years of a first episode of success brought on nearly every mobile platform (IOS, PSP, NDS, Android, Java ME), is no exception and is clearly inspired by the saga of God of War, by which incorporates many elements including the background mythology, the boss of considerable size, the furious battles (with lots of combos) and Quick Time Event.

Features that have already made ​​their appearance in the predecessor of 2008 and here we find good or bad equally, if not increased and better assembled under the new standards also touched by a God of War III. This time our hero has escaped from Hades Argos and Sparta meditates to win back his haunted by demons of all kinds. Unfortunately the plot, however, emphasized by the cut-scenes of exquisite, almost never fails to charm and is a mere pretext to tie their game levels, and neither player characters nor narrative developments say something new or interesting. Anyone who buys a title like Hero II of Sparta is not interested in plot or dialogue but the action and especially the fighting.

On this side of the new strain of Game loft has much to offer and the changes from the previous chapter there. A successful strike is mostly the variety of enemies (not as repetitive as before) and the inevitable boss, which also appear not only at the end of levels but also during the negotiations for short fights but always spectacular. To defeat these creatures is not enough enormous firepower of Argos, but you have to discover their weaknesses, and above all have good reflexes to press the skull-shaped icons that appear at various points of the screen, just like in a Classic Quick Time Event.

Nothing new or original, but these fights make good the enormous size of the bosses and even the use of QTE is not as invasive as we feared. Among other things, fighting in the "normal" sessions are short Quick Time Event to perform classic finisher against the dying of the enemies, but otherwise it's all a matter of button-smashing (or button-touching), however, made with some original touches.

The right stick dedicated to the action (only the left controls movement) can be moved in four directions (up, down, left, and right) and coupled to the other two commands to jump and fall. Excluding the extreme closeness of the icons, which at times can lead to attacks or unintended movements, the system works well and if nothing else, it all does not just touch one icon like crazy but it forces you to choose the right attack depending on the enemy. Pushing the right stick down, for example, we can break the shields of some enemies and make them so vulnerable to our attacks, while the stick left or right is useful when we are surrounded and we're obsessed with attacking shots 360 degrees. There are also defensive moves such as dodge and parry, but to be honest we have rarely used and there seem to be fundamental. Of course, the touch interface does not allow the precision and sensitivity of a physical controller and it is rare that you lose some input Argos attack in the most excited, but after all the fighting, which remains the focus of the game, offer a good balance between excitement and a bit of strategy, although their variety and the possibilities of attack remains very limited compared to any episode of God of War (but do not doubt).

Here and there, Hero of Sparta II puts us grappling with jumps, climbing and slides to overcome certain steps, but everything is too linear and inevitably "led", as you can never get out a moment from the designated route. The various levels, though as a pleasant settings and situations-like platform, are also ruled on a performance almost always the same, kill all the enemies to unlock a passage, it goes well and expects a new wave of demons to kill to open so the next block.

There are in fact variants of any kind, even if it goes on as Game loft have made ​​the twelve levels of the game rather rich of new and unreleased, or at least those that they do not always look the same. The same sector graph denotes a major step forward compared to Hero of Sparta, especially for the number of characters on the screen, directing attention to the effects and choreography. All this is still a little 'too square and "block" and can not keep up with God of War: Chains of Olympus, but played on the iPhone 4 as in our case the resolution offered by the Retina display really makes a difference.

Sin only for smooth and non-optimal in certain situations and for some "snap" that we would not have wanted to see the new flagship of Apple, also because (oddly enough) a number of opinions collected on the web it seems that the clicks and delays are less frequent on the iPhone 3GS. Remarkable, however, also the sound and in general the fact that Game loft continues to not disappoint when it comes to exploiting the potential of the iPhone. For the third installment of the series, which will not be long in coming, however, expect a game play less repetitive and derivative, but something tells us that it is unlikely that the French publisher will listen to our advice.