Does anyone know this game? I had heard only vague rumors about it. I was talking today with a friend who’s not really into ancient Greece and he told me he’d been playing it today. He told me the developers have put quite a lot of effort into it to make it feel “right”, so for example the monuments on the Athenian Acropolis are painted in color as they were in real life, and in general they’ve made every effort to make it look like it should be and avoid anachronism. I was getting a bit excited by now, so to calm me down he said “you know, they did made some concessions to make it cooler for modern folks, like they put a huge statue on the acropolis next to the Parthenon!”. But as we know, there actually was a huge statue of Athena on the Acropolis.
I did a little research and I’m in luck, it doesn’t apparently work on Mac - I would have immediately bought it otherwise and would have wasted an immense amount of time. It’s not that I’d care some much for the game itself, which is probably idiotic anyway, but the scenery! (The fighting for example is apparently much closer to Zack Snyder’s 300 than hoplite warfare, but let’s not dwell on that).
Having just visited Delphi in real life, I definitely enjoyed watching their version of the place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-a7FwVEaKY The route taken to by the character to climb to the temple of Apollo is a bit unorthodox, to say the least - but oh my, it is impressive!
You can see their version of Athens and other places on Youtube as well.
I’ve never played it, but I have a student who cites this as one major reason he wanted to toke Latin, to learn more about the ancient world. He describes it in similar fashion, and told me there is a “tour” mode where you can “travel” through ancient Greece and even interact with historical figures.
In one Youtube video the player had a chat with a Herodotus… That feels somehow cheap to me, however the reconstructed sites are done very well. I haven’t played it either, I’ve only watched those Youtube videos.
I also watched a clip taking place at Olympia. What a strange experience - it looked very well documented as far as archaeology goes, but what happened was that the female protagonist was oiled and clad in bikini and had a pancration fight with a male champion on the stadium in front of a cheering audience. So not storywise, not very realistic…
I have played. I think it is a fun game (though I’m too inexperienced to have much of an opinion!) and really, really, hope it gets more people interested in the classics.
That said, I mentally file every professor I see praising its ‘realism’ in a list labelled ‘incompetent tax leaches’.
It is fun. It is a video game. In places the physical reconstructions are very well done. Let us leave it at that.
I will check and see if my computer can handle it and, if yes, I will give this a go. Speaking of which, are there any other games set in Ancient Greece that you would recommend?
It’s like an interactive documentary, with quizzes at the end of each topic, which is great: kids watching along and doing the quizzes learned a whole lot of new things, facts about ancient Greece and Greeks, as they ran around the Acropolis, the Agora, Delphi etc.: well worth it!
I played it a bit, my computer is a bit old, ordered Google Stadia to not depend on hardware, I’m more of a retro and casual gamer.
I found very nice that there was even a tourist mode where you can explore sites with guides and just stroll around.
Looking very much forward to spending more time with it.
