Lead your army and conquer neighboring villages and settlements in this reimagined version of a classic strategy game. Will you become the Caesar of your time leading your Roman empire to victory or will you go down in history as the Pharaoh of the Egyptians? Let’s have a closer look at the reimagined Praetorians has to offer us.
Gameplay
If you’re looking for a challenging RTS game then you may be a bit disappointed. Unlike other games in the genre, this game is more simplified in terms of classic RTS games where you have to manage resources and your troops at the same time. Here you just got your troops and army to manage, this doesn’t mean it’s not fun though! For people who aren’t the best at RTS games, like me, it’s a nice twist to just build an army, conquer settlements and build an even bigger army to walk over your foes.
Factions
You can play as 3 types of civilizations set around 40 B.C.: The Romans, the Egyptians, or the Barbarians. In my opinion, it lacks a bit of variety and the games become more repetitive. Unlike games like StarCraft 2 where you also have 3 factions. The difference is that the factions in StarCraft play completely different and makes for different play-styles, and the ones in Praetorians play mostly the same.
Modes
The game comes with 20 singleplayer missions and a multiplayer. The singleplayer missions aren’t too challenging but they are fun to casually play trough, and if you’re done with the missions you can always skirmish against an A.I. Multiplayer is a bit disappointing because of the low player base, which makes for long wait times to get into a server or have a proper skirmish.
Remastered Graphics
For being an “HD Remaster”, I find the graphics pretty underwhelming to today’s standards. I mean it is a good upgrade from the original game that was released in 2003, but it just doesn’t hold up to today’s graphics. It does give a more nostalgic kind of vibe that I’m a fan of, but I’m also a fan of details and more varied textures. It seems like the game stuck too much to the old graphics and just played it safe by upping the resolution and updating some of the models and animations.
Conclusion
It was a good game in 2003, but in 2020 the game doesn’t really hold up to the competition. The lack of variety, low playerbase, and mediocre graphics make for a bit of a letdown. All of this doesn’t mean that it isn’t fun playing trough, but it’s not really replayable or wants me to revisit the game like other titles in the genre. Overall I rate this game a 6.5/10.
