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Wasted potential

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 28
Date: July 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

before i played the demo of this game,i thought it would be awesome,like a better version of rune from the ps2,but alas,i was sorely disapointed.I was looking forward to the fast paced action that made the movie gladiator exciting to watch but this game is turn based.Turn based!what were they thinking.I know there arent that many turn based games around so its a change of pace from the norm,but why on such a cool looking game?i was sorely disapointed.

A Huge Disappointment!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: November 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This being one of those more anticpated titles, I must say I probably had too high hopes for this one. Alas, they were more than crushed when I actually started playing...

First of all, the storyline/acting bits are ridiculous. Imperia? Come on, real historical names/places would have made it 100 times more enjoyable.

Second, and most important, the fighting is TURN BASED! What a stupid idea; your character stands there and basically does the same move, then stands there and takes a shot from the other guy. Then it has this whole complicated movement system that is totally unbelieveable and even more un-fun.

Don't waste your time with this one; I gave up after about 45 minutes and popped Madden back in the console. Good thing is was only a rental!

Yawn...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 45
Date: September 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game should be in the Platinum Hits sections. No, make that the Old Copper Penny section. Paying anything over 10 bucks for this game would be a mistake. Only hardened RPGers will like this game (you know the type--the guys who sit over by themselves and even the computer nerds won't talk to them). After Sudeki, Fable & Jade Empire comes out, Gladius will be relegated to the Bargin Bin right next to Pong. Anywho...this game is about as much fun as visiting a friend's dying grandmother in an old folks home (unless of course, you enjoy that sort of thing).

Gladius? Blah

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: July 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game started out great. During the first half of the game I thought I was playing one of the best turned based strategy games ever made. The character classes were unique, interesting, and fun. Unfortunately, that did not last. The last half of the game is an exercise in boredom. The caster classes enter the game during the last half and proceed to use the same abilities over and over. Wonderful animations such as "steal affinity" or "summon power" were used so many times the sounds and animations have been etched in to my brain. Surely, the developers and play testers found this to be rather mind number and annoying too, this would have been an easy problem to squash, and really detracts from the game. The casters are bad, but they are not the worst part of Gladius.

The absolute worst part of Gladius is the totems on the arena floor. These wonderful objects get one turn per round and do the same thing each and every round. Very bad and very boring. The later tournaments have as many as 8 totems on the arena floor. You will spend more than half of your playtime watching a totem spin and spit out some form of magic. It is painfully boring and completely pointless. After playing a series of 2 vs 2 gladiator battles with 8 totems on the arena floor I completely lost interest in this horrid and extremely boring game.

I would sooner scratch my own eyes out than finish this game.

Like losing?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 10
Date: February 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Gladius plays like FF Tactics and Ogre Battles except for the fact that you start out every fight with a massive disadvantage. You will never get the first turn, the enemies will always get 2-5 turns for your one. It gets to be very frustrating losing simply because the other team is getting 4x more attacks than you. This game is not hard because you have to think or plan out a strategy its hard because the deck is stacked against you in every fight.

Mediocre at Best

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: October 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are very good, there's no doubting that. However, you do the same think over and over and over. There is no real plot until much later in the game. It gets boring after an hour or two of playing. You march from arena to arena fighting the same fights (very little variance). It is misleading to think you can create your character. You cannot. You must choose one of two preselected characters and recruit various different people/creatures.

Such potential, but it falls short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: June 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Gladius won't be released until August 2003, but here's a review of the demo they've recently released in gaming magazines.

First, the premise. After years of warfare, the lands are peaceful. The only combat remaining is in the gladiator rings. Your brother-sister team, Ursula and Valens, bring together a small team of fighters to gain glory on that field.

In essence you're playing a turn based combat strategy game, a la Final Fantasy Tactics. The graphics are reasonably good, with the cut scenes showing far more polish than the actual gameplay. I would have thought a brand new XBox game would have better in-game graphics, but the graphics reminded me of an old Playstation Final Fantasy, with little bursts of blood-mist when someone hits, and non-exciting backgrounds.

You have nice arrows indicating how far a character can move during a given turn, on a large arena which easily exceeds your screen width. You can sneak around an opponent and hit them from behind, giving you a bonus. You have options of various attack styles and learn skills as you go.

Unfortunately it's exceedingly easy to mis-click and there's no going back when you do. It's easy to loose track of where people and opponents are with them being off-screen from each other, and when it's someone's turn the focus does not move to them, so you have to scroll around to hunt them down.

Usually music and sound don't bother me one way or another, but I have to say the background music for this game was REALLY annoying to me, and began to wear on me quickly. This is really quite unusual, because I happen to *love* the Gladiator soundtrack, have it on CD and play it constantly. So if anything, I should be a person who could play Gladiator-themed music 24 hours a day. To have this music drive me completely insane so quickly was quite a feat.

In general, we weren't very impressed with this. It was so awkward to move around and get through a battle that by the end, when the trio of judges gave their mild polite clapping as your "winning moment", we were really just happy to have it over with.

It might get much better as they finish off the game for its true release, I guess we'll see! Being a huge strategy fan and a lover of the Gladiator genre, I would REALLY like this to end up a wonderful game.

A dying genre...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well I remeber playing many many turn based games on my PC when I was younger...now everything is RTS or just pressing lots of buttons mindlessly. Its hard to find any turn based tactical/strategy games anymore...that why I picked up Gladius.

Gladius is all about combat and character development. As stated its not for kids looking for button mashing killing madness. There is some degree of planning necessary to win battles - although I did find it to be somewhat too easy. Even so, this game will keep you busy for a long time and has a nice amount of variety built into its combat system with an amazing amount of weapons to choose from and an interesting group of characters to recruit for your gladiator school.

On the negative side, it does get repetative fairly fast. There are a few side quests, but this game is centered on combat in the arena. The in game dialouge to get to the side quests is very lengthy and not worth reading page after page after page...

An overall good tactical game that will give you your moneys worth in time spent completing this game!

Good fun, but not enough choices!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was looking forward to playing this game for some time... and when I finally did, I was pleased with the graphics and the voice acting was certainly much better then in most games. But I was disappointed with how little variation there was in the game, regardless of which characters you played.

SPOILER:
If you happen to be "lucky" enough to obtain the Hell's Gate skill, turn it off. You can run through the end of the game using this skill once, and I mean once, on everyone and everything. No fun...

Mediocre at best

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: August 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As I said in the title, this game is mediocre at best. In the beginning it starts off fun, but once you immerse yourself into the "expansive" lands, you find that there isn't all that much you can do other than participate in these games that get outrageously repetitive. The weapons are accurate, but the shields are horrible, and there's too many attempted "twists" in the plot that just become annoying and can even screw you over, for example, losing 30 hours of gameplay in less than 5 minutes.

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