300: March to Glory First Look

Via IGN

One of the hottest trailers floating around the Internet right now is for 300, the film based on Frank Miller's take on the Spartan's war against Persia. The trailer is extremely stylish, both beautiful and brutal at the same time. It's the kind of trailer that men in the audience freeze upon and stare at the screen without blinking for two minutes.

Warner Bros. Interactive is bringing a tie-in game to the PSP, the release of which will coincide with the movie in March of 2007. Titled 300: March to Glory, the game doesn't follow the exact footsteps of the movie but rather quickly collapses the story and puts you right into the battle. It's a beat-'em-up to be sure, a throwback to the days of old arcade gaming where enough quarters would win you the day. Indeed, puzzle solving, exposition and all that has taken a distant backseat to the action, which looks to come aplenty.

You take control of King Leonidas and are placed almost immediately onto the battlefield to hack away at enemy soldiers. Instead of relying on story or drastic scenery progression, the game moves forward by offering you new moves, weapons and such to purchase. The Spartan warriors took a lot of pride in their kills, and it's this honor (dubbed Kleos in the game) that you'll spend to buy new attack combos, weapons and armor.

Once you have access to multiple weapon types, you're able to outfit yourself in whatever means you want. If you'd like to dual swords rather than a spear and shield, you can do so. You're also able to have multiple weapons at the ready, and a quick press of the Triangle button will swap between them. This is because some weapons will work much better against some enemies, while another might be ideal in other situations.

There are a few unique twists to using the weapons. You can use the shield offensively, for example, to toss back a large crowd that has surrounded you. You're also able to actually throw your spear and cause a massive amount of damage, but you won't necessarily get it back, so you need to save it for the most opportune times.

At certain points in the game you'll be able to control a phalanx, a "wall" of soldiers all equipped with spears. It looks as though you simply move forward or back while controlling the phalanx, and the entire wall will attack or guard at once upon your command. The short demo we saw of this scenario ended with an attack upon an elephant that didn't end very well. Let's just say that were it wearing shoes, it would have a bit of scraping to do.

One semi-cool twist to the gameplay is that enemy commanders will sometimes order volleys of arrows to be rained down upon your area. When this happens you'll hear a warning horn and must immediately move into a crouched position with your shield above your head to protect yourself.

We only had a chance to see one stage of 300: March to Glory, so we're not quite sure how much longevity is built into the title. We should be seeing more soon given its reasonably close release date. In the meantime, head over to the media page and take a look at the first screenshots.