No, thankfully it's nothing to do with the '80s TV show. The idea here, in what
looks like it's meant to be some kind of homage to the
Russell Crowe movie
is that the year is 106 AD and the Roman Empire is in decline, with you as the
only saviour up against great opposition.
Or rather, you have to defeat wave upon wave of baddies, hacking and slashing
them to the ground. Yes, it's that deep(!)
You enter the first arena, kill a baddie or three individually, move on to the
next one, do the same, move on again, then you'll get two at once - with the
option to strike each one individually at the press of a button. And as for
the end-of-level style bit, fighting ten blokes off at once is no challenge,
it's just tedious!
This game is linear, too easy, too much sensation over substance, i.e. there's
lots of background chanting from the crowd but no excitement to be gained.
You have to go on the set path and there's no way round that.
A lot of button-mashing will soon kill the other gladiators off. Sometimes
they'll consistently block your "slash, slash... slash" moves, that is two
quick slashes followed by one half-a-second later, but just stand in front of
them doing nothing for a second, they'll drop their guard and you can simply
gash them again!
It used to be that a lot of new games contained top-notch graphics, but were
severely lacking in gameplay and excitement. This also misses out the
graphics, as shown by the poor camera angles such as when my gladiator got
stuck behind a block and a pillar and I had to fight 'blind'!
Yes, just keep going from one arena to the next until you get too outnumbered by
bigger baddies, then get bored and switch off. And to cap it all, your gladiator
is voiced by Shane Richie, aka Eastenders' Alfie Moon, in his
"ITV Weather" sponsorship trail-monotone.
Just look at the picture on the cover and imagine him saying,
"Oi! Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance! No!"
GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
This game is linear, too easy, too much sensation over substance, i.e. there's
lots of background chanting from the crowd but no excitement to be gained.
You have to go on the set path and there's no way round that.
