Bad Habits - Colosseum: Road to Freedom - January 01 1904
Geeked
Five years ago, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe brought gladiators back into the public eye with a blockbuster hit about a Roman general-turned-colosseum star. Since then, a number of games exploring the genre have graced store shelves, though none of them have managed to rival the smash success of the movie. Koei's Colosseum: Road to Freedom — though sure to be popular with fans of the hack-and-slash format — is unlikely to become the exception. But while the game may not become the next GTA, it can still be a hell of a lot of fun.
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For starters, the game begins by allowing you to customize your gladiator. Rather than directly assigning points to individual stats, though, you customize your player by answering a series of questions. It's not ideal, but it's still a degree of freedom that far too many other games lack. As your gladiator gains experience, the customizing continues. Any days not spent fighting in the game's two arenas (which turn out to be about half of your time) is spent engaging in training mini-games.
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Success in these mini-games gives you points, which you can spend on beefing up your gladiator's stats. If you want to wear heavier armor and attack from behind a large shield, concentrate on increasing your strength. But if you want to play a lightly armored gladiator who relies on a two-handed fighting style to quickly defeat his opponents, then spend your points increasing your agility (for quicker movement) and vitality (to withstand the wounds you're sure to suffer).
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Colosseum's equipment system is another selling point for this game. Weapons are varied, and, like the actual gladiators of old, your character can select his armor piece by piece. For instance, since a right-handed gladiator is more likely to be hit on his left side (the side he leads with), you might wear heavy armor on your left side and none on your right, rather than wearing light armor on both sides. Or if you know you're going to be fighting against lions or tigers, you might wear heavy armor on your legs, where they tend to swipe you, and little to none on your upper body.
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For everything this game gets right, though, it has just as many shortcomings. Most noticeable is the combat system, which, though initially entertaining, quickly becomes repetitive. Sure, there are a number of different battle types — team, survival, battle royal, man-vs.-animal and one-on-one duels — but, considering that this game is all about fighting, you're going to be playing each of these types of battles over and over again. Eventually it will cease to make any real difference whether you're fighting in a five-vs.-five team battle or a 10-vs.-10 team battle, since the way that you fight really won't change.
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Another big problem is the drop in frame rate that occurs when too many combatants end up on the screen at once. Usually this isn't a problem — and when it is, it doesn't last long — but for a game solely dedicated to combat, you'd think the designers would use an engine that could handle the battles.
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Still, Colosseum is definitely enjoyable, especially if you're the kind of geek who used to salute his teacher with "Ave, magistra! Nos morituri te salutamus" ("Hail, teacher! We who are about to die salute you") before every Latin test. Of course, who that particular geek is will remain my little secret.
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WHAT'S COOL: Fun combat system; impressive-looking gladiators and a great variety of weapons and armor.
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WHAT'S UNCOOL: Eventual repetitive nature of the battles; inability to save between fights, and problems with frame rates with more than three or four gladiators on screen.