Dash ‘n slash – thy name is Spartan: Total Warrior.

Creative Assembly, those rascally genre-defining rascals that brought us such genre-defining titles as Rome: Total War and Shogun: Total War (sensing a theme yet?) is back at it, but this time they have something different up their sleeves. And with SEGA in the publisher’s driver’s seat, this Xbox title steers away from the strategic and historical richness of the other Total War titles and instead plunks gamers into the role of a single warrior, skewering and slashing his way through an historical period.

Think of the game as a dash of Diablo, with a splash of Dynasty Warriors while integrating the graphical lushness and AI of the Total War franchises. You have hundreds of warriors filling the screen – hacking, slashing and bashing at each other – and yet they all seem to be working independently.

Pull the camera back for a long view of the battlefield, and use the radar map to chart your target’s location, or the location of your mission objectives.

The levels play out with clearly defined objectives. As you begin, you are in a town besieged by the Romans (hey, weren’t they the good guys in the last CA game?). But what the Romans do not have is a killing machine known simply as ‘Spartan.’ The Romans have some towers besieging the city. Step one – kill the centurion marshalling the troops near the towers. Then guard the lone bomb-carrier as he plants huge, ignitable bombs near the towers, light them and then run before they explode, taking the tower and all nearby warriors with them.

There are hidden items in each level. Open a crate (X button is the object-action button) and you may find arrows. Call that an added dimension to the combat. Instead of merely kicking them, slashing them to reduce them to a shower of blood, or shield-bashing them, you get to stand back and impale them with rapidly fired arrows.

Make no mistake about it, the Spartan is death on legs. Pray at a mini-shrine to recover health and then return to the slaughter. Just walking into the midst of the enemy, laying waste to their numbers not enough? Hit the B button for a short burst of speed that is akin to a bull’s final charge. You will dash in and be rewarded with enemy bodies flying away, dead before they can hit the ground.

After disposing of the towers, it is on to the outer yard where the Romans have amassed a legion or two. The mission objective? Kill them all. No convoluted sub-plot or secondary missions here.

Of course, Creative Assembly didn’t just want this to be a game where you ran through levels, annihilating every breathing thing and leaving a trail of dead bodies in your wake. The AI is actually smart and you will have to throw a modicum of thought into your attacks. The enemies will circle, block and generally try to avoid being butchered.

And this is only at the beginning of the story. As it evolves, you will be able to improve your Spartan’s equipment as well as boosting stats. The story has several stages with four chapters in each of the acts. As imagined, as you progress through the story, the challenge ramps up.

If the story mode is not to your liking, you can always hop into the arena to take on a bevy of progressively more difficult foes.

Graphically this game does a terrific job of not only putting a lot of warriors on the screen at once (more than 160), but maintaining a smooth framerate through it all. The camera not only rotates, but can zoom in for those tight shots of the gore, and some of the better moves are performed in slow motion to highlight the devastation. Get a mythical item and the effects become so good that you will, no doubt, howl with laughter and have that little kid “do it again!” expression on your face.

There are approximately 15 trigger-button combos available, with simple attacks and rage attacks. You can also unleash a magical attack if there is a shrine in the level. One attack per shrine though, can’t be greedy here.

Where the game starts to falter a bit is when you are given several objectives to accomplish at once. You will have a legion attacking a city gate and be tasked with defending the gate and guarding the king, who happens to have wandered off alone and is surrounded by enemies. If you rush to defend the king, there is a good chance the gate will fall, and you will fail the mission. If you defend the gate, there is an equally good chance the king will be killed and the mission is lost. Boss battles can also be a test of patience amid the chaos that is thrown in your Spartan’s face. And the AI of your comrades seems to falter at the most inappropriate moments.

While the musical portion of the soundtrack is as brooding as your Spartan, the voice-overs leave a bit to be desired. There is repetition as they call out alarms, like – early on – “they are attacking the gate,” or “the king is under attack,” and this can get annoying. After all, you are surrounded by about eight to a dozen enemies, all intent on doing to you what you have done to their comrades, and it feels like your Spartan is the only one capable of saving the day. And no, there is no command that has you yell out, “tell the king to deal with it, just a little bit busy here!” Instead you go into a rage attack, the action slows, you do a great spinning attack and suddenly all those foes are headless and you can rush off in another direction.

Which presents another minor problem with this game: yes, it is great that the action is so fast-paced, but it leads to reflexive gameplay when the control scheme is figured for thoughtful, and fast, attack decisions. You can roll, block, jump and generally outmove your opponents, but in the levels where you are beset from all sides and expected to be in a couple of places at once, it can be too much.

Spartan: Total Warrior is one full of hack ‘n slash gore, it is violent and fast paced. But it also is full of eye candy and one gets the feeling that you have just passed the most delectable candy store window in a car going 80 miles per hour. No time to enjoy the treats on display. And that is, perhaps, the biggest disappointment here. The engine is great, the action is phenomenal, but you don’t really get a chance to enjoy it because it whirls by so quickly.

That said, Spartan is still a great gaming experience that delivers action at such a frenetic pace you may be lured to replay it just to see it all again.

Gameplay: 7.8
The control scheme is terrific and while the camera does rotate and zoom, at the pace of the battles, you are often too busy button-mashing to try to manipulate that right thumbstick more than just a bit occasionally.

Graphics: 8.5
The action slows, your Spartan rears back and puts his sword right through a breastplate, then kicks off the dead enemy and whirls to attack more. It is a violent graphical experience, full of special effects, mythological creatures and weapons, and eye-popping action that can be missed at the pacing.

Sound: 8.0
The voice-overs will have you wanting to tell them to ‘shut it!’ while the music propels the game along wonderfully.

Difficulty: Medium
Several settings here that boost the difficultly of each level.

Concept: 8.1
Unlockable content, a great engine and action-packed gameplay combine to allow this title to raise the standard for the hack ‘n slash genre.

Overall: 8.0
Yes, the game has a few stumbles, and is perhaps too fast-paced for its own good – but in the sense that it does not allow you to truly enjoy the combat and action as much as you would like – but Spartan: Total Warrior is a different take on the action genre and it succeeds in bringing a chaotic, evolving level-by-level button-masher to glory in a very graphically compelling way. If you want a good action title, you won’t go wrong with this one.