We said it never pays to get too excited about movie tie-ins during our preview of this one and, unfortunately for Ubisoft, we were right.

The movie's flop obviously hasn't helped, but developer GSC seems to have cut a few unexpected corners in the latter stages of developing Alexander, with the result that what promised to be a stirring title turns out to be fairly average after all.

The basic RTS elements are solid enough, and things certainly look OK on screen, but little use is really made of the engine that made Cossacks such an engaging game. Players hoping to emulate Alexander's battlefield genius will be very disappointed with the simplistic tactical options (just group everything and charge), and the enormous number of spectacular units onscreen is let down by an awkward control system and inconsistent AI.

The environments are certainly a high point, and some of the smaller scale actions are great fun, but without Val Kilmer face and Oliver Stone's name on the box Alexander would be a very routine RTS.