The Gladiators: The Galactic Circus Games Review
The Gladiators is a strategy game that is heavy on action and light on strategy - at times playing almost like an arcade experience that will evoke memories of Smash TV. The game's three campaigns place you in the role of a hero (or antihero) who must make his way through a series of "rings" which are combat arenas created for the entertainment of a galaxy's worth of bloodthirsty aliens.
The game's poster boy, and the central figure in the first campaign, is Major Greg Callahan. Callahan is a stranger in a strange land, an astronaut sent from Earth to pass through a black hole. He emerges from the black hole in another galaxy where he is immediately captured and imprisoned. His saving grace comes in the form of a princess who chooses him to fight as her champion in the arenas in a contest to succeed the recently and mysteriously deceased emperor.
Once in the arena, you'll see that The Gladiators does not play out as your typical strategy game. Your primary unit is your gladiator. He has a powerful attack and can also make use of the various power-ups found on the game maps. These can be health boosts or temporary attack upgrades, for example, or special joker cards. The joker cards are probably the most important of the power-ups, because they are what amount to resources in the game and can be used at special generators to create new troops. Creating plenty of troops is key to surviving a level, because attacks come often and when they do they are fast and furious.
Your main goal is to get your gladiator from one end of the map to the other and you will face numerous obstacles while attempting to do so. Your primary obstacle will be the attacking hordes of enemies whose assaults tend to come in waves that head right for you and your units. There are several different types of attackers with weapons of varying range, but they primarily fall into two categories: ranged and melee. Strategy comes into play in the need to concentrate your fire on the current greatest threat to your units, but there's not a lot here in terms of unit interaction and counters. The ability to hold off rush attacks is far more important than unit balance and combined arms considerations. This can certainly be fun and exciting, but there's not a lot of depth here.
While there's no building in the game, some maps include bases with defensive structures such as towers and bunkers that add a defensive bonus to units garrisoning them. The 3D maps' terrain can also provide benefits; there is a distinct advantage to holding the high ground, and trees and other terrain features can hide units lying in wait to spring an ambush. This gives the game a puzzle-like quality as you must secure the best positions to fend off attacks and use a smart approach to potential ambush spots. As a result it can take you a little time to make it through some of the levels even though the gameplay itself is pretty simple.
