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By Steve Kilpatrick As American as overpriced apple pie... I'm sure everyone has seen the show, "American Gladiators" by now and become familiar with its heart pumping, fast paced competitive action. Well, I hope you don't like that sort of thing because you won't find it here. There is a bit of action but much of it is so boring and frustrating that you won't even play some of the games. There are a few bright spots, but there are also a lot of things missing. Leave it to America to release a cheap licensed game just to turn a profit. American Gladiators? American Capitalizers. The Gladiators... Sadly none of them have the style or wit of Russell Crowe, but they do have one thing that he doesn't… a poor videogame representation of themselves. I have to be honest, you never really know who any of the gladiators are when you're up against them, and even in the cutscreens you only get a small glimpse at the stars of the game. I really don't care enough about the gladiators to really lament this problem, but you would think there would be more showcasing of the games title characters. All of them look the same, and your players aren't the tiny little ants that they should be when compared to them. In fact sometimes they look bigger. The Arena... Ok, here's how it boils down. You are a lowly contestant trying to overcome a mass of men and women trying to knock you down and make you look silly. To win you have to complete 5 grueling events and then you have to face the dreaded (or coveted) ELIMINATOR! There are 4 levels of play and each one plays out exactly the same. Preliminary, Quarterfinal, Semifinal, and Final rounds await you. Sadly, you only get the same 5 events in each round and the multi-event ELIMINATOR at the end of each. The only difference in the levels are the difficulty of each. Some of the games are annoying enough in the first round. Unlike the Gladiator TV show, you aren't judged by how well you do in each event as compared to another player. On the show, even if you don't finish you are allowed to move on to another event. Not here. You still get a score, but it doesn't even count if you don't beat every single match. The only way you get to the ELIMINATOR is by finishing each event. Even in two player mode you don't go against the other player directly, you only take turns picking events and watching the other play. If that's exciting enough for you then I guess you won't be disappointed, but I was personally hoping for more head to head action. The Events you are about to see here are lame and not for people who like fun... Well that isn't really fair. I did like a couple of the events, but there were a few of my favorites missing and the ones that were here we're less than disappointing. The events that are included are the Joust, the Wall, Human Cannonball, PowerBall and Assault. To round it all off they threw in the ELIMINATOR which includes four mini- events of its own. The I-Beams, the Hand Bike, the Conveyor Belts and the Zip-line are all included. Most of them control about the same with a slight variation. Just to break down the basic events, in Joust you try to knock a series of opponents off of some platforms, in the Wall you try to scale a wall as quickly as you can without being knocked off by gladiators, as a Human Cannonball you launch yourself at Gladiators in an attempt you knock them from their podiums. In PowerBall you are playing a mixture between rugby and basketball as you attempt to put little balls into a series of buckets. This game is the single departure from the norm because you don't have to "win" to complete it, but for every time you dunk in the five buckets you get an extra life. Finally with assault you avoid tennis balls being launched at you while you fire back yourself. Of all of those my favorite game is the Wall. I don't know why, but it's just more fun than anything else to me. Assault was really dumbed down to the bare minimum and the Human Cannonball seems sometimes impossible when you get to the last pedestal. Joust is just a bunch of random tap, tap, tapping until you or your opponent falls to the ground, and PowerBall is merely a simple diversion until you're forced to play another boring round of Joust or the others. The Eliminator has none of the charm of the real ELIMINATOR and frankly if you play through the Prelims then there is no real point in bothering with the rest of the game. Somehow though I can't stop playing. The one thing it does have is the arcade feel that keeps making me play, "one last time" until I've unknowingly spent half an hour longer than I planned. That has to make up for some of this crap. The sights and sounds of the coliseum... The game looks ok. It isn't anything to write home about, but it gets the job done. I do wish there was more distinction between the gladiators. Oh, and sometimes I would be playing as a female athlete and not realize it. The sounds all sound like something stolen from other games. The theme song isn't even very dominant. For an arcade style game everything is adequate, but if I hadn't picked this one up in a package deal I wouldn't twist any arms to get a copy. I'm also not willing to get rid of it either. This game puzzles me. Bottom Line... I wasn't impressed with this title. Nothing was above par and most things were below par, but I still like to pop it in between other games for a quick romp up the wall. The controls are the best thing about the game, so frustration usually stems from boredom or timing rather than control. There isn't enough to make me want to recommend it, but it will have a place in my library despite the flaws. It's like an uncle who drinks too much, sometimes he's good for entertainment when he throws up in the cornchips... My Score: C |
© 2001-2003 Stephen Maiorana (RoyalRanger)
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