Production-wise, Gladiator really excels. It draws upon some of the most interesting aspects of Roman mythology, and those aspects permeate through the entire package. The narration is excellent, with a compelling story filled with mythological demons and monsters, that's moved along with strong voice-acting and immersive music. Gladiator also has some inspired visuals and is one of the few games that really pull off the whole Roman mythology thing well.
Gladiator throws around a lot of impressive lighting and shadow effects that add a surreal look to the game. Character models and environments are rendered a bit simplistically though they're nice artistically speaking , but still get the job done. It's too bad that Gladiator's gameplay can't live up to the standards of its graphics and audio. Gladiator is, for better or worse, a mindless button-masher. There are rewards for hacking off limbs with style, but with only two attack buttons to combo with and few defensive options, Gladiator fails to rise above mindless mashing.
It's not all bad as the action is fast, and can be fun, but don't expect anything deep. Palmyra orphanage. Legends of Eisenwald. Unusual Findings. JetX VR. Aeon Must Die! Bad Dream: Fever. Aritana and the Harpy's Feathe. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker.
Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Speaking of weapons, each one of them has different uses against different types of enemies. Be it with the sword, the gauntlet, or the axe, no two instruments affect an opponent in the same way. When facing a representative of the creepy race known as "The Lost", for instance, an Axe may be too ineffectual because of that particular monster's affinity for speedy moves; while the quickly-employed gauntlets aren't very useful against beasts such as the hulking Cyclops and its ilk.
Though you can definitely play through the game without switching weaponry very often, it's a lot harder to wade through the stages without constantly dying by doing so -- making the experimentation of using different offensive tools for different situations more important than it appears. The use for weaponry doesn't end there, as each available tool can be upgraded into more powerful versions through arena-like challenges scattered in each stage.
Breaking a certain amount of ceramic vases or defeating all the enemies in a given area before the time limit runs out successfully completes the challenge and rewards gamers with something new every time. Whether or not these rewards are more advanced weaponry, an increased health bar, or additional magic skills is determined by the type of challenge that you choose to undertake.
By the time Invictus reaches the end of the game, he'll be one bad-ass Roman gladiator. With fiery superhuman strength, electrically-charged thunderbolts, and a horde of undead spirits as just a few of the many skills he can use to overcome an enemy. Players will have to get a strong grasp on the benefits of magic and combinations pretty quickly too; as there are some truly difficult areas in Sword of Vengeance that will take a couple of tries to surmount.
Without earning some of the more powerful combo modifiers by putting together clever attack patterns, Thrax can find himself overwhelmed pretty quickly in the latter stages -- particularly in the home of Deimos: where swarms of bad guys seem to attack your alter ego at every opportunity. But once you come face to face with one of the boss creatures, it's another story entirely.
As it's with those situations where players must learn the patterns of a baddie and exploit one or two super powers at the right moment in order to make any leeway. Filling up your Herculean power and then unleashing it after the third attack by Phobos, for instance, is the only way you're going to hurt the bastard. Otherwise you'll be running around getting beat on for the entire lifespan of your confrontation.
The whole setup in this regard is definitely homage to the bit era of gaming, and is one that we certainly approve of. That said, Gladiator still isn't without a couple of nagging problems.
The most obvious of which is the straightforward stage design and slow build-up leading into the latter stages. Almost always moving in a straight line, Sword of Vengeance doesn't exactly typify the feeling of being in an open environment. Though the game is definitely in 3D and moves as such, the limitations of a particular level seem far more restrictive than they should be.
Think Pandemonium with swords and add a pinch of extra freedom and you'll get the right idea. On the flipside, the more action-oriented stages can get repetitive near the end of the game; especially when you're consistently running into the same groups of enemies over and over again between the puzzle segments. Also troublesome is the sometimes-dodgy targeting system -- as there are more than a couple of incidents where players will fail timed challenges or miss an important enemy only because what they aimed to do just didn't happen.
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