by Sarah "invisibelle" McKeever
Gladius is an RPG with gladiators engaged in turn-based combat.
That pretty much says it, folks. If you're looking for a preview written by someone who knows what they're talking about, stop reading now and go to Gamespot or IGN.
Gladius is basically, from what I can tell, several Gladiators standing around facing each other in little squares performing moves and spells on each other. They travel in schools (or "posses," as I like to call them). This isn't Mojo's kind of game.
We asked about the story of the game, but I had already forgotten most of it by the time he finished talking. I think it had something to do with the main guy's dad, like he gets killed, and then they have to go fight the people that did it for some reason or other. Take-home message: story not memorable.
"Poor Gladius guys," you're thinking. Even though I didn't think this was our type of game, I did enjoy one aspect. Apparently you can start one person's move and then you have a certain amount of time before you can start someone else in your posse doing something else. I don't know how to describe it. There's this little green arrow on the ground, and the first part is how far you can move before someone else is able to interfere with your move, and then the rest of the arrow points to your final destination. Melee. My guess, unfortunately, is that this has already been done before in another game. (If I'm wrong about this, kudos to Gladius team for originality.) I think this might be a cross between strategy and roleplaying, in that respect. It would theoretically be sort of cool to have 4 players and all of their posses playing at once, except the idea of having 4 people together that like this sort of game makes me want to run screaming. I get the impression that, to be really good at this game, you'd have to have approximately 3 official game guides for it with tons of charts and maybe 2 legal pads to jot down other things. Snore.
This game's spells reminded me of Final Fantasy, but the characters don't look nearly as interesting. Gladius also had elements of Britney's Dance Beat (there are combos where you mash buttons in the right order), Links golf, Street Fighter, and a strategy game. But with gladiators.
Negatives: Potentially bland characters, setting, and story. And gameplay. And game.
Positives: Potentially interesting gameplay. We couldn't really tell. Also, the guy told us it has great replay value because it has 500 different something or others. Something about fighting gladiators. I believed him.
Overall: I have no idea what I am talking about. I don't even own a console.