"I went to EB last night, with a wad of money in my pocket, and I was looking for a game to buy. I was looking at the box for Ghost Recon, which my favorite PC Games magazine, PCGamer, deemed 2001 game of the year. The box of Gladiators of Rome caught my eye, it was only $19.99, so I bought it and took it home to see what was wrong with it (It wasn't until after I got home I noticed the publisher/developer was Activision VALUE). The contents of the box themselves were a little disappointing, a paper cd cover and one of those jewel case instruction booklets. I was expecting a game sort of like Rune or Blade of Darkness, and I loved those games, but when I looked at the instructions, I thought I saw why it was so cheap, there's like 10 commands in the whole game, and 8 of them are F1-F8. How am I supposed to play this? I loaded it up, expecting it to be a waste of $21, but I was surprised, this little puppy was addictive. The graphics, once set on high, were pretty dern good, and the battle movements aren't all blocky or sharp, like I would have expected. The music isn't bad, either. The gameplay is great, as long as you use the pause button frequently, otherwise it's practically unplayable. The music is great, makes you feel like a real gladiator (?). The first battles were extremely easy, and I had no problem plowing through 1/3 of the game. About halfway through the game, I made the mistake of using up all of my money on armor, and my gladiators all died. You can resurrect gladiators with money, but you need to have some first. I didn't mind a bit, though, because this game was a lot of fun. I played from 6:30 to like 1 am, only stopping for like 2 hours in between, I didn't even realize it. I beat it this morning right after I woke up, but I won't mind playing it over again a couple times. I suggest you go get this game." - Graz

"I thought this game was great. Short . But great... I loved buying slaves and weapons and armor for them. Combat was also great as long as you know how to use the space bar, as in Balders Gate. It would have been nice to just set a fighter on attack, and let him go but...for 19 bucks whadayawant...It also would have been nice to have more levels but again....All in all, it kept me playing till the end. I would love to see more of the same, with more open ended depth." - Tom

"What a waste ... no really." - Garth

"This game is not worth buying. The most dreadful aspect of the game is its controls. If you have a taste for quality games, don't waste time on this one." - Troy