The basic set-up of The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome is a pretty standard RTS, supposedly based on real-life battles between Rome and other armies. As either a Roman or Barbarian army, you're presented with a series of battles to fight through, gaining experience and unit types as you progress. Before each battle you can check out the terrain, select and equip your army, set them pre-determined commands (such as 'charge into battle' or 'circle the enemy') and then start. While in battle, you have a 'commander' who can change your orders on the fly, but only to a limited extent (which differs depending on the unit type), using a currency called 'command points'. Upon winning or losing, the opposing side flees and the game progresses (or doesn't, in the case of the latter). It's a pretty simplified real time strategy game, so is quite easy for those new to the genre to get into, but it's very clumsily handled. The battlefields are very small, and the commands are so simple, that there's only ever really time for one or two major maneuvers before it's all over. And in reality, you only ever need to get each unit into the appropriate position and you'll win. Terrain only seems to affect ranged attacks, and even then not by much.
There are a decent variety of unit types, but most are unnecessary
Controlling your units in battle is a struggle both physically and metaphorically. Real time strategy games have never been particularly intuitive on consoles, and The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome is no exception. You scroll through your unit types with R1 and L1, control the camera with the right stick, and move the selected unit group with the left stick. Which sounds fine in theory, but the controls are unresponsive, and you'll need to hold and make sure what you want to happen happens before you can move on. Otherwise you have to rush back and send them on their way again, like rounding up chickens in a pen. Eventually, you'll end up stocking up on powerful infantry or cavalry and simply charging the enemy wherever possible, as it usually works and such a simple command helps you avoid using the clumsy interface and messing anything up. It seems the most important statistics in battle are just numbers and strength of your units, so you can brute force your way through almost everything, which, while it removes any frustration, becomes boring very quickly.
Graphically, the mediocrity continues. The battlefields and units are rendered in decent but no-frills 3D, and initially it looks like the game may be passable graphically. There's very little in the way of lighting or effects, but the ground textures are ok, and your units are rendered in decent detail. Alas, it's not to be. The framerate stutters the instant anything happens, or even if you swing the camera around too quickly. And little can prepare you for the limited, jerky animation of all units. Not only are individual units poorly animated, but whole platoons follow the same routine like a well rehearsed dance team. When contact is made in battle, animation improves somewhat as some chaos breaks out, breaking up the alienating synchronisation, but it never looks attractive. On the plus side, the visual simplicity helps you keep track of everything easily, but by the time any battle gets complicated it's near decided, so it's a moot point anyway.
If you're lucky, the armies might actually face each other!
The lone bright spot of The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome is the presentation. Between rounds, there are professionally produced documentary-style cutscenes that offer some light Roman history (particularly about, you guessed it, battles), and are entertaining enough that you won't skip them – ironically the 'educational' part of the package is far more entertaining than the game part. Obviously it's highly likely the cutscenes have simply been cribbed from a History Channel documentary, and if anything it would simply be easier to just watch them by themselves. But the pairing does work, as they do match the game's battles somewhat, it's just that the gameplay is letting its end of the bargain down. The game also has a decent soundtrack of 'Gladiator' inspired grand battle themes.
The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome is a budget title in every sense of the term. Designed with the 'edutainment' angle as a selling point, possibly to parents or teachers, in the end it offers little educationally that you couldn't learn from just watching the cutscenes, and the basic, easy and broken game just gets in the way. Unless you're some sort of Roman history nut who just has to take the opportunity to play through some historical battle situations, it's a title that's better off avoided.
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