Matrix Games

Publishing Deal Signed to Bring Spartan Sequel to the United States Matrix Games is pleased to announce that it has secured the rights to publish Slitherine Strategies’ (www.slitherine.co.uk) new turn-based empire-building and ancient battles game, Gates of Troy, which is scheduled for release in Late October, 2004.

Gates of Troy is an epic turn based strategy game that covers the Trojan Wars, and lets the player take control of mighty heroes such as Achilles and Hector and allows you to assault the Gates of Troy and build the Trojan horse. Gates of Troy is a sequel to Spartan, which covered warfare between the Greek City-States, and includes many improvements and enhancements on the Spartan game engine.

David Heath, Director of Operations at Matrix Games, said “Gates of Troy is an addictive simulation that combines map level strategy and civilization management with the ability to set up and watch your tactical battles unfold. It has all the elements of a great explore, expand and conquer game along with a well-researched period feel. Gates of Troy is perfect for war and strategy gamers who are looking for an under-represented genre that provides plenty of excellent tactical and strategic challenges.”

Gates of Troy includes 6 campaigns, 19 heroes, over 50 units and a number of great features not available in Spartan. In addition, while Gates of Troy does not require Spartan, if Spartan is also installed it will allow you to play all the Spartan campaigns with Gates of Troy.

J.D. McNeill of Slitherine Strategies commented, “Matrix Games are a great fit for us, not only because of their experience in general with strategy and war games, but because of their interest in the ancients genre.”

A demo of Gates of Troy is available at the Slitherine Strategies site at www.slitherine.co.uk along with links to some great reviews from the European release.

List of Features

• Three interactive Tutorials
• Six Campaigns
  • The Trojan Wars
  • The pass of Thermopylae
  • Greek Colonization
  • Pre-Historic Greece
  • The Ionian Revolt
  • Grand Campaign with Rome & Persia

• Beautiful zoomable 3D campaign map
• Full 3D battles with battle setup, formations and free zoom and rotation during battle execution (Optional 2D for slower machines)
• Land and Naval warfare, including Naval Invasions, Sieges and Assaults
• City and Empire management
• Vassalization of foreign nations through diplomacy
• Diplomacy and Trade (Improved)
• Research and Construction
• Improved AI
• Auto Resolution of Battles (Improved)
• Mission objectives, Historic Events and Capital Cities
• Extra mod features

System Requirements

2D Minimum:
Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP
Pentium II 233 MHz MMX or fully compatible
128 MB RAM
500 MB Hard Drive Space
DirectX Compatible Graphics Card with 4 MB VRAM
DirectX Compatible Sound Card
DirectX 8.0 or higher

3D Minimum also requires:
Pentium III or fully compatible
16Mb DirectX Compatible 3D Graphics Card

ABOUT SLITHERINE STRATEGIES

Slitherine Strategies is part of Slitherine Software, an independent UK developer.  They are a small and highly talented team who have been in the games industry since the early 1990's.  They are dedicated to bringing highly playable and approachable strategy games to the mass market.  Two of the founding members are also world champions in tabletop wargaming, giving them an incomparable insight into the workings of strategy games.  This combined with their experience of working on high profile entertainment software ensures that their games are both highly addictive and historically accurate. Legion, Slitherine's first game, sold over 150,000 copies worldwide and is still selling.