Heya:
I got Gladius for the XBox before the XMas vacation started and spent a ton o' time playing the game. Think a cross between the movie Gladiator and a game of Chess. Turn-based, so definitely a slow-paced game, but I found it tons of fun. Combat is usually in arenas with different shapes, chokepoints, boxes and rocks to get a height advantage, and so on. Classes include typical things like Centurions and Archers, and fantasy flavor stuff like Undead Summoners and Minotaurs. (Minotaurs totally remind me of that big fat guy with the fake minotaur head in Time Bandits, btw.) Realtime proponents probably won't dig the game (I've read a comment about it being the worst game of the year, which boggles), but for patient people it can be a blast. And, honestly, it's not even that slow, with one exception, especially since _your_ moves, at least, are as fast as you can choose an action, move the cursor to a square, and press a button. Easy. The exception for speed is the Channeler class. God, I hate them with a passion. They're powerful, when used correctly, but fighting them is an extreme chore. Their animations are way slow and their manner of gaining mana is, in addition to being slow, easy for them to use often. Ugh.
Couple other details: A bit of manual dexterity is required to succeed in the game which initially skeered me, but except for one exception (again) it's not too bad. Actually somewhat makes the game a bit easy and unbalances one aspect of it. The primary mode of attacking an opponent puts up a "Swing Meter" on the screen. This is a multicolored bar with a red section (critical hit), yellow section, and blue section (miss). A button icon ("A" initially, different ones later) moves fairly quickly across the bar. Press the correct button while it's in the red section and that's a critical hit, too early and it's a regular "hit" that might miss, too late and it's a miss (and any iterative attacks also miss). Speaking of iterative attacks, when Gladiators level up, they get skill points, which they can spend on a _wide_ variety of mostly cool skills. One series of skills is Combo Attacks. Combo Attack 1 is the same as having a BAB of +6/+1. Combo Attack 2 is like a BAB of +11/+6/+1. Etc. The more iterative attacks, the more the Swing Meter partitions in multiple colors. With Combo Attack 4 there are 5 eensy red critical sections on the Swing Meter. Also, the button letter changes for each critical section ("A", "B", "A", "B", "A", or "A", B", "Y", "X", "A", etc.). Once I got the hang of this, I got criticals (even with Combo Attack 4) over 80% of the time, perhaps more.
Another common dexterity-required attack is one where you have to press 8 or 9 buttons in 5 seconds or so (to get a critical). You're shown 2 buttons at random ("B", "X") and a countdown begins for starting. Then you hit the two buttons in order, it shows you three new ones, hit those, and finally 2 or 3 more, hit those, and hopefully get a critical on a Long Throw of a spear or some other special attack. Once I got the hang of this version, I got criticals definitely over 90% of the time, I just needed my fingers to remember button locations.
The bad exception to the dexterity-required skills is the button mashing ones. Grr. A ton of people on the only board I found discussing the game had the same problem: quickly alternately pressing "A" and "B" is just too hard. I never once managed to get a critical. After a while, I just gave up and didn't buy any skills using this method, and hid the skills using it on gladiators that started with the skill.
So... that was long and meandering. Anyone else play this game? Thoughts?
In other console news, I got a GameCube and for one reason only: The GameBoy Player. The best source of turn-based games seems to be the GBA. I got Fire Emblem (awesome game) a couple weeks ago, but the GBA is just too itsy bitsy. Playing it on my TV is much more relaxing and no need to recharge batteries. Next in line are Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Advance Wars (all very similar games).
Hmm, actually, I guess next in line _really_ is the Urban Chaos mod finally released for JA2. Anyone who is a fan of Jagged Alliance 2 should visit www.ja-galaxy-forum.com and at least check out the discussion. Hey, it's another turn-based game, what an amazing coincidence.
Take care,
Dreeble
I got Gladius for the XBox before the XMas vacation started and spent a ton o' time playing the game. Think a cross between the movie Gladiator and a game of Chess. Turn-based, so definitely a slow-paced game, but I found it tons of fun. Combat is usually in arenas with different shapes, chokepoints, boxes and rocks to get a height advantage, and so on. Classes include typical things like Centurions and Archers, and fantasy flavor stuff like Undead Summoners and Minotaurs. (Minotaurs totally remind me of that big fat guy with the fake minotaur head in Time Bandits, btw.) Realtime proponents probably won't dig the game (I've read a comment about it being the worst game of the year, which boggles), but for patient people it can be a blast. And, honestly, it's not even that slow, with one exception, especially since _your_ moves, at least, are as fast as you can choose an action, move the cursor to a square, and press a button. Easy. The exception for speed is the Channeler class. God, I hate them with a passion. They're powerful, when used correctly, but fighting them is an extreme chore. Their animations are way slow and their manner of gaining mana is, in addition to being slow, easy for them to use often. Ugh.
Couple other details: A bit of manual dexterity is required to succeed in the game which initially skeered me, but except for one exception (again) it's not too bad. Actually somewhat makes the game a bit easy and unbalances one aspect of it. The primary mode of attacking an opponent puts up a "Swing Meter" on the screen. This is a multicolored bar with a red section (critical hit), yellow section, and blue section (miss). A button icon ("A" initially, different ones later) moves fairly quickly across the bar. Press the correct button while it's in the red section and that's a critical hit, too early and it's a regular "hit" that might miss, too late and it's a miss (and any iterative attacks also miss). Speaking of iterative attacks, when Gladiators level up, they get skill points, which they can spend on a _wide_ variety of mostly cool skills. One series of skills is Combo Attacks. Combo Attack 1 is the same as having a BAB of +6/+1. Combo Attack 2 is like a BAB of +11/+6/+1. Etc. The more iterative attacks, the more the Swing Meter partitions in multiple colors. With Combo Attack 4 there are 5 eensy red critical sections on the Swing Meter. Also, the button letter changes for each critical section ("A", "B", "A", "B", "A", or "A", B", "Y", "X", "A", etc.). Once I got the hang of this, I got criticals (even with Combo Attack 4) over 80% of the time, perhaps more.
Another common dexterity-required attack is one where you have to press 8 or 9 buttons in 5 seconds or so (to get a critical). You're shown 2 buttons at random ("B", "X") and a countdown begins for starting. Then you hit the two buttons in order, it shows you three new ones, hit those, and finally 2 or 3 more, hit those, and hopefully get a critical on a Long Throw of a spear or some other special attack. Once I got the hang of this version, I got criticals definitely over 90% of the time, I just needed my fingers to remember button locations.
The bad exception to the dexterity-required skills is the button mashing ones. Grr. A ton of people on the only board I found discussing the game had the same problem: quickly alternately pressing "A" and "B" is just too hard. I never once managed to get a critical. After a while, I just gave up and didn't buy any skills using this method, and hid the skills using it on gladiators that started with the skill.
So... that was long and meandering. Anyone else play this game? Thoughts?
In other console news, I got a GameCube and for one reason only: The GameBoy Player. The best source of turn-based games seems to be the GBA. I got Fire Emblem (awesome game) a couple weeks ago, but the GBA is just too itsy bitsy. Playing it on my TV is much more relaxing and no need to recharge batteries. Next in line are Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Advance Wars (all very similar games).
Hmm, actually, I guess next in line _really_ is the Urban Chaos mod finally released for JA2. Anyone who is a fan of Jagged Alliance 2 should visit www.ja-galaxy-forum.com and at least check out the discussion. Hey, it's another turn-based game, what an amazing coincidence.
Take care,
Dreeble
