Gladius
Overall: 3.8
Gameplay: 4.0
Story: 3.4
Customization: 3.2
Gladius, the baby of Lucasarts and Activision, is one of the more modern games I've reviewed, but I still consider it to be a glanced over gem of its era. It was released for the PS3, Xbox and Gamecube and received amazing ratings and reviews, but yet it never quite caught on with the general public. I could speculate as to why that was the case, but I won't. The important thing for you to know is that a copy of this gem will only run you about 9 bucks on Amazon, so I'd really suggest you'd take a shot on it. This game is considered a "Tactical Role Playing Video game", but as many of you already know, I argue that this game could be considered one of the predecessors to the arena RTS genre. The game is a turn based strategy game, where you and your gladiator school go into different arenas to gain enough prestige to be recognized all around the ancient world as champions. There's two things that make this game so good. A well placed, unstructured storyline and strategy mechanics that reward skill and present a challenge. Let's start with my forte, story.
Now, you might be looking at that 3.4 and wonder why I consider the story of Gladius to be a positive aspect of the game. That's because even though Gladius' story isn't amazing, it does its job. In the beginning of the game, the player gets to pick two different starting characters (one is more difficult to start out with than the other). The characters essentially correspond with two different story lines. The easier difficulty is that of Ursula and her brother Urlan. They are the prince and princess of the Barbarian nation, that just finished establishing peace with the imperial nation (essentially a Rome look alike) just to the west of them. Apparently Ursula is a part of a prophecy where she must fight an evil force to be determined later. That very evil force is what apparently caused both of the countries to stop fighting in the first place. This sets up the preoccupation of "what does one have to do for the sake of peace". While, Ursula and Urlan fight through their country, they eventually get good enough to go into the imperial nation, where they meet Valens, the character who represents the second story line and also the advance difficulty level. If a player starts with Valens they will be given a back story of a dead father who apparently has left Valens the remnants of his amazing school (a school which conveniently has little to no good fighters). So he saddles up with his buddy Ludo and they continue to do the same thing Ursula and Urlan are trying to do in the barbarian nation. Well, as time goes by, depending on what storyline you choose, one of the schools will absorb the other in a show of good faith (and primarily because they cast the other main character as a failure) and the main character you didn't choose will join your crew. This is symbolically meaningful because only through the combined efforts of the Imperial school of Valens and the Barbarian school of Ursula can the characters find their way to winning the high tournament. Oh by the way, Ludo abandons you guys at some point and joins an evil legion of people that are somehow connected to the aforementioned prophecy, but ignore that, symbolism!
But, that's just the storyline. The great thing about Gladius' narrative is the little nuggets of story you can get by just going the extra mile in the game (and with a good guide). As you recruit more people into your school, there will be certain gladiators that can be acquired through special matches and outside encounters. These matches tend to be high risk and have higher difficulty, but as a result you get to come across some interesting gladiator. From a yeti who doesn't want to be a gladiator to an undead summoner that will give you relationship advice later in the game, these characters, while being completely pointless in the long run of the story, have meaning because they're your comrades! You chose them specifically and you guys win and lose together. There are also some other main characters you get later, but I ignored most of them because while they were cool, they were actually pretty useless in the arena. I'm unsure if I've explored every single gladiator in the game, but you feel as if each one has its own story. And you end up remembering the name of even the useless javelin thrower you purchased as a level one, that you were forced to let go because you needed to get an archer. These are some of the intangibles great games need to be great.
Time to switch gears, game mechanics in Gladius rewards skill as most attacks are done through a swing meter. Also, tactical positioning is something a player gets better at with experience. One feels they are learning the art of gladiator battles while playing the game and that feeling can only be described as bad ass. There's also multiple ways of going about battles, but each stage and gladiator configuration makes it so that there are optimal strategies one can take. As you get better in the game, you recognize optimal strategies quicker and begin to feel accomplished at your level of mastery. Then after you've mastered optimal game mechanics skill (i.e. getting good at swing meters) and optimal strategy, you feel like a god in the arena, quickly infiltrating enemy positions and taking advantage of weaknesses to the fullest extent. Games like Gladius are addicting because they are fun to play and require skill. I've easily dropped 8 hours on Gladius in a day, just powering through entire arenas just to get to the next land.
However, with all games there is criticism and Gladius definitely has one huge flaw. There is drag and a lot of it. At a certain point gameplay will become repetitive. That's because by the time you've reached your fourth land you've pretty much acquired all the gladiators you'll ever need to be successful. Also, all that tactical prowess that was needed in previous territories diminishes as you'll find your characters have essentially unlimited range with unblockable attacks, making any challenge disappear. Even the tough battles become more trivial than anything because the tough battles don't really reap the reward of a new gladiator, so any player who doesn't care about full completion just decides to skip them. It isn't until you reach the final tournament where you'll face truly formidable foes again, but by then it's too late. Most players would have either checked out or started a new save.
Gladius is a good game. It's actually really good. This is definitely worth any avid video gamer's time. It's super cheap and has plenty of playing hours in it so you will get your bang for your buck. I wish all of you good fortune in the arena.
Overall: 3.8
Gameplay: 4.0
Story: 3.4
Customization: 3.2
Gladius, the baby of Lucasarts and Activision, is one of the more modern games I've reviewed, but I still consider it to be a glanced over gem of its era. It was released for the PS3, Xbox and Gamecube and received amazing ratings and reviews, but yet it never quite caught on with the general public. I could speculate as to why that was the case, but I won't. The important thing for you to know is that a copy of this gem will only run you about 9 bucks on Amazon, so I'd really suggest you'd take a shot on it. This game is considered a "Tactical Role Playing Video game", but as many of you already know, I argue that this game could be considered one of the predecessors to the arena RTS genre. The game is a turn based strategy game, where you and your gladiator school go into different arenas to gain enough prestige to be recognized all around the ancient world as champions. There's two things that make this game so good. A well placed, unstructured storyline and strategy mechanics that reward skill and present a challenge. Let's start with my forte, story.
Now, you might be looking at that 3.4 and wonder why I consider the story of Gladius to be a positive aspect of the game. That's because even though Gladius' story isn't amazing, it does its job. In the beginning of the game, the player gets to pick two different starting characters (one is more difficult to start out with than the other). The characters essentially correspond with two different story lines. The easier difficulty is that of Ursula and her brother Urlan. They are the prince and princess of the Barbarian nation, that just finished establishing peace with the imperial nation (essentially a Rome look alike) just to the west of them. Apparently Ursula is a part of a prophecy where she must fight an evil force to be determined later. That very evil force is what apparently caused both of the countries to stop fighting in the first place. This sets up the preoccupation of "what does one have to do for the sake of peace". While, Ursula and Urlan fight through their country, they eventually get good enough to go into the imperial nation, where they meet Valens, the character who represents the second story line and also the advance difficulty level. If a player starts with Valens they will be given a back story of a dead father who apparently has left Valens the remnants of his amazing school (a school which conveniently has little to no good fighters). So he saddles up with his buddy Ludo and they continue to do the same thing Ursula and Urlan are trying to do in the barbarian nation. Well, as time goes by, depending on what storyline you choose, one of the schools will absorb the other in a show of good faith (and primarily because they cast the other main character as a failure) and the main character you didn't choose will join your crew. This is symbolically meaningful because only through the combined efforts of the Imperial school of Valens and the Barbarian school of Ursula can the characters find their way to winning the high tournament. Oh by the way, Ludo abandons you guys at some point and joins an evil legion of people that are somehow connected to the aforementioned prophecy, but ignore that, symbolism!
But, that's just the storyline. The great thing about Gladius' narrative is the little nuggets of story you can get by just going the extra mile in the game (and with a good guide). As you recruit more people into your school, there will be certain gladiators that can be acquired through special matches and outside encounters. These matches tend to be high risk and have higher difficulty, but as a result you get to come across some interesting gladiator. From a yeti who doesn't want to be a gladiator to an undead summoner that will give you relationship advice later in the game, these characters, while being completely pointless in the long run of the story, have meaning because they're your comrades! You chose them specifically and you guys win and lose together. There are also some other main characters you get later, but I ignored most of them because while they were cool, they were actually pretty useless in the arena. I'm unsure if I've explored every single gladiator in the game, but you feel as if each one has its own story. And you end up remembering the name of even the useless javelin thrower you purchased as a level one, that you were forced to let go because you needed to get an archer. These are some of the intangibles great games need to be great.
Time to switch gears, game mechanics in Gladius rewards skill as most attacks are done through a swing meter. Also, tactical positioning is something a player gets better at with experience. One feels they are learning the art of gladiator battles while playing the game and that feeling can only be described as bad ass. There's also multiple ways of going about battles, but each stage and gladiator configuration makes it so that there are optimal strategies one can take. As you get better in the game, you recognize optimal strategies quicker and begin to feel accomplished at your level of mastery. Then after you've mastered optimal game mechanics skill (i.e. getting good at swing meters) and optimal strategy, you feel like a god in the arena, quickly infiltrating enemy positions and taking advantage of weaknesses to the fullest extent. Games like Gladius are addicting because they are fun to play and require skill. I've easily dropped 8 hours on Gladius in a day, just powering through entire arenas just to get to the next land.
However, with all games there is criticism and Gladius definitely has one huge flaw. There is drag and a lot of it. At a certain point gameplay will become repetitive. That's because by the time you've reached your fourth land you've pretty much acquired all the gladiators you'll ever need to be successful. Also, all that tactical prowess that was needed in previous territories diminishes as you'll find your characters have essentially unlimited range with unblockable attacks, making any challenge disappear. Even the tough battles become more trivial than anything because the tough battles don't really reap the reward of a new gladiator, so any player who doesn't care about full completion just decides to skip them. It isn't until you reach the final tournament where you'll face truly formidable foes again, but by then it's too late. Most players would have either checked out or started a new save.
Gladius is a good game. It's actually really good. This is definitely worth any avid video gamer's time. It's super cheap and has plenty of playing hours in it so you will get your bang for your buck. I wish all of you good fortune in the arena.
No comments:
Post a Comment