I, Gladiator [Game Review]
Game: I, Gladiator
Genre: Hack-and-slash
Developer: Steel Monkeys
Publisher: Next Dimension Game Adventures Ltd.
Copy supplied by developer
I, Gladiator is a port of the iOS action hack-and-slash game set in Ancient Rome developed by Steel Monkeys and published by Next Dimension Game Adventures Ltd.
STORY
You play as Rufus, a gladiator who is brought back from the dead after dying to be the champion of the god Hermes. You're goal is to win all the battles in the Arena and to become the ultimate gladiator while also achieving fame and being loved by the audience.
GRAPHICS
The game does not look terrible for an iOS port, and there are some video options that don't make much difference. However, there are various clipping problems and a couple of items some items where unreachable because they spawned inside rocks.
GAMEPLAY
You use the mouse buttons to hack and slash, Spacebar to block and F to kick your enemies into traps. Unfortunately, the response time is really slow and some enemies take ages to be killed.
There are four chapters, each with 20 levels. In each level, your goal is to kill all the opponents. There are side objectives that grant you with additional experience and gold, which will be respectively used to upgrade your character and to buy extra items.
Multiplayer is not balanced at all, and you will find many people with better equipment and stats than yours that will kill you instantly.
CHALLENGE
The game is not very challenging: you spend most of the time hitting enemies, running around to recover your stamina and than starting over. Multiplayer is not fun and the game is only fun in short sessions (20-30 minutes max.)
SOUND
Nothing exciting: typical "epic" music and sound effects that are pretty poor and repetitive. I do like that in the few cutscenes of the game, the characters speak actual latin.
REPLAYABILITY
There are many Steam achievements and side objectives to complete that will keep you hooked for many hours.
Overall, it is not a bad game for a mobile port. However, the unresponsive controls and the frustrating combat (both in single-player and multiplayer) really don't make this worth buying at full price.
Story: 4
Graphics: 6.5
Gameplay: 6
Challenge: 7
Sound: 7
Replayability: 8
ENJOYMENT: 5.5
FRUSTRATION: 8
