Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance Hands-On Impressions

Today we had the opportunity to take a look at Xbox and PlayStation 2 builds of Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance, an action adventure game set in the Roman era that puts you in the role of a champion gladiator named Thrax. Thrax has fallen victim to a trap laid out by Emperor Arruntius, who plans to demolish Rome and build a new city fashioned after his own image. After his death, Thrax finds himself in Elysium, the afterlife for renowned heroes. Thrax is then accosted by Romulus and Remus, two twin boys who are characters from the founding myth of Rome. Thrax is charged by Romulus and Remus with a mission from the gods to remove Emperor Arruntius and restore the honor and power of Rome. However, this can only be achieved by defeating Phobos and Deimos, the children of Mars who have gone astray and helped Arruntius in his rise to power.

Gladiator's gameplay revolves heavily around a pretty basic form of hack-and-slash combat. In the first level of the game, Thrax has to get through the streets of Rome on his way to take part in an event at the Colosseum. However, the entire path to the Colosseum has been transformed into a makeshift battle arena, where enemies seemingly pop out of nowhere. Thrax starts out with some pretty basic moves, and you can string together rudimentary combos by pressing the slash buttons in rapid succession. There is also a lock ability that lets you lock onto an enemy by pressing the R trigger and switch between locked enemies by pressing the L trigger. When you're locked onto enemies, you can make Thrax dodge and dive around them by pressing the jump button, allowing him to attack from behind. As the game progresses, Thrax will learn new abilities and gain new weapons through tests laid out for him by the gods. These tests take place both in Elysium (which also acts as a hub level before missions) as well as in designated points in each mission, and each test usually involves destroying an onslaught of enemies within a certain time frame.

The world of Gladiator appears to be modeled after a mixture of the Rome seen in the Ridley Scott film Gladiator and the mythical Rome found in the more fantasy-inspired Hercules films. Aside from the usual slew of sword- and ax-wielding gladiators, Thrax will also have to take on a multitude of monsters, ranging from skeletons to minotaurs and cyclopes. Each form of enemy will have its own champion-class enemy, which is much more difficult to defeat, but doing so allows you to perform an execution. Executing an enemy is a fatality-like move--the game will cut to a special cutscene, and you can see Thrax dispense with the enemy in a gruesome fashion. There are more than 50 different killing moves in all.

When it comes to visual presentation, Gladiator seems to be coming together well, but not without some notable hitches. The game uses a cinematic camera system that can be adjusted by moving the right analog stick forward and back, letting you zoom to your preferred view. For the most part the system works well, though there were a couple of spots where the camera seemed to lock into an unforgiving angle. Graphically, the game has a pretty nice look to it, with solid character design and some very cool effects used throughout each level. The Elysium level looks especially nice, with impressive moving grass textures and excellent lighting designs. Between the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game, the Xbox build seemed to outperform the PS2 version significantly. Frame rate woes and some serious texturing problems were prevalent throughout the PS2 version, as well as what seemed like an overall slower pacing and a much darker look. Hopefully some of these issues will be resolved for the PS2 version before the game ships.

Currently, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance is on schedule for a late-September release on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC. We'll have more on this game in the coming weeks.