Beware games that are devised as movie tie-ins, especially if there's even a hint that they are being rushed out to match the film's release date. Apart from the occasional notable exception (like The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay) it's rare that such games live up to anything like the promise of their film counterparts. Alexander, alas, falls into exactly the same trap.

Although the developers - the Ukrainian firm GSC Games who invented "Cossacks" - have begun to establish a reputation for stylish and graphically engaging strategy games, here they seem to have lost the plot.

In single player mode you have the usual campaign, single mission and skirmish options as well as a multiplayer option. The campaigns begin with Alexander the Great, where you fight for the Macedonians against foes both within and without. If you complete this, then three more campaigns open to you, commanding the Persians, the Indians and the Egyptians.

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Nothing wrong with any of this until you enter the actual gameplay. GSC obviously felt a great selling point was to have frequent bursts of actual footage from the movie and while this is entertaining enough it also highlights the contrasting shortcomings in the game. The worst of these is the lack of real strategy. Too many missions can be solved by simply churning out hordes of units, grouping them together and sending them en masse at a section of the opposing army. As they are being besieged, the remainder of the enemy simply sits and watches, so you can then go on and defeat them piecemeal.

Although the capability is there to plot different formations and to position infantry and siege weapons to best advantage, most of this becomes irrelevant when a full scale mass charge brings instant triumph. There is some attempt to influence the outcome by awarding bonus points and skills to heroes that can be used to increase morale or attacking powers of the troops.

It's also a relief to have so many troops on screen at the same time so you can try to capture the scale of Alexander's battles. But yet again the controls are haphazard. Sometimes units may refuse to move or stand their ground and they have an annoying habit of travelling at different speeds.

On the plus side, the graphics are impressive with a great amount of detail to a wide range of buildings, and the 'fog of war' for once truly lives up to its name. Wind and rain effects and satisfying destruction images enhance the war scenes, though the sound of neighing horses and agonised groans rapidly becomes repetitive. The dialogue and script comes from the Ham school of acting, underlining once more the casual attitude to perfection that mars what should have been at least a passably good RTS.

Alexander the movie has been criticised for being anything but an epic and unfortunately this hastily thrown together strategy game suffers from the same delusions of grandeur. Instead of a royal feast to rival Rome Total War we're left with a limp and ragged Greek salad.