American Gladiators (video Game)
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''American Gladiators'' is a
video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
developed by Incredible Technologies and released in 1991 by GameTek for the
Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...
. Ports were published in 1992 for
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
and
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compatible operating systems, and then in 1993 for
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and
Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...
, by Imagitec Design. It is based on the 1989 television game show '' American Gladiators''.


Gameplay

The NES version varied greatly from the others as well as the game show itself in that the events were morphed into side-scrolling and overhead mini-levels which only partially resembled the real-life events. Each joust event involved four different gladiator battles atop platforms, with a series of joust platforms to be jumped across in between battles. Human Cannonball also required four gladiators to be beaten with perfectly timed leaps off the rope while the gladiator's platform moved up and down, making the task more difficult. In this event and the Joust, gladiators screamed gratuitously (and often humorously) as they were knocked off the platforms. The Wall featured numerous screens full of handholds and footholds with various obstacles, walls and floors. It also featured the occasional treacherous stretches with empty spaces that included very few handholds to navigate in order to advance. The gladiators were plentiful and attacked at different points in the wall level. They also moved twice as fast as the character. The wall was a particularly tough event due to its difficult controls that involved repeated rhythmic tapping of the A and B buttons with the directional pad to simulate the movement of the left and right hands to different handholds. Assault featured a battle with a gladiator in a moving target at the top of the screen (unlike the stationary gladiator in the television series) which took between three and six successful hits to subdue, while the player's character could absorb three before being defeated. The most accurate representation of any event in the game was Powerball, an event where the player could not lose a 'life' like in the other events. The player can even gain a 1UP if they evade the three gladiators and score a ball in each of the five baskets. (Players could also earn two more extra lives if they accomplished this task again in the same time limit, which decreased between levels.) The Eliminator consisted of I-beams, in which a player jumped from one shotgun-like platform to the next, with different platforms varying greatly in height and length. Medicine balls were constantly arcing up from the bottom of the screen towards the player, attempting to knock them back and possibly off the I-beams to the ground below, thus ending the run. The player then jumped to a handbike and had to navigate back and forth around more medicine balls thrown through the air. This continued after the first handbike as the player then was made to run and jump across many straight and acutely angled conveyor belts while the medicine balls continued to stream down. This made being hit more difficult to recover from because the direction of the conveyor belts often added to the force of being hit with a medicine ball. After navigating a second handbike, the medicine balls cease and the player drops onto a zipline moving down and across the screen to the right. This zip line crosses a second zipline going in the opposite angle where the player must perfectly time his release to land on the next line. This pattern continues for several more successive lines, each moving faster than the previous, until the player finally lands on a platform after grabbing the ninth zip line, signifying victory. By the time ''American Gladiators'' was released for the SNES, Amiga, and Genesis, the developers had changed the game to a more faithful copy of the television series. The game offered a two-player mode that switched between simultaneous and alternating play based on the event. There was also a tournament mode where up to 16 players (8 male and 8 female) could face off, with any missing slots filled in by computer players. The events from the previous game were joined by Atlasphere, and were always played in the following order: Assault, Human Cannonball (not available on the Genesis version), Atlasphere, Joust, Powerball, and The Wall. Although the game was a more faithful interpretation of ''American Gladiators'', adjustments were made as they had been in the NES version. They were: :Assault: 1 point per weapon fired, 5 for hitting the outer rim of the target, 10 for hitting the bullseye (although a player could never see what part of the target they hit) :Human Cannonball: One swing against one gladiator, 10 points if successful :Atlasphere: 1 point awarded per goal :Joust: 45 seconds, object was to drain opponent's power completely instead of knocking them off the platform :Powerball: 60 seconds, 1 point per outer cylinder goal, 2 points per center cylinder goal :The Wall: 30 seconds, contender had a five-second head start against gladiator The Eliminator in this game combined elements of the first two seasons' courses. The treadmill run and handbike were the first two obstacles, followed by a run across the balance beam through a gauntlet of what appeared to be blocking pads (mimicking the first season course's attempt at the same thing, but using medicine balls instead). The
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climb and zipline were next, followed by the choice of a door which may or may not have had a gladiator behind it. The player had 60 seconds to complete the course, and any fall immediately deducted 10 seconds from whatever time the player had left at that particular point. The player that reached the finish line first, regardless of time penalties, received 10 points and the second place player received 5. If an Eliminator ended with a tie score, the players ran the course again to break the tie.


Reception

Generally, the Sega Genesis and SNES versions were heavily covered, whereas other ports either were barely reviewed or not covered at all. ''
Amiga Action ''Amiga Action'' was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996. After its closure, it was merged into sister ...
''s Steve McNally scored the Amiga version 80%. While acknowledging how limited the gameplay was, writing "the events seem to last for about ten seconds as the Gladiators wipe the floor with you", he concluded that the overall product worked as "a simple, no-nonsense all out action game", considering it especially fun when playing with other human gamers. The Swedish magazine '' Datormagazin'', on the other hand, scored the Amiga version two out of five. The Sega Genesis and SNES version received overwhelmingly negative reviews. It was rated 16% by an August 1993 review from UK SNES magazine ''
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'', the lowest rating yet, surpassing the SNES version of '' Pit-Fighter'' (1990) and GameTek's other game show adaptations like '' Jeopardy'' and '' Wheel of Fortune''. ''
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'' writer Chris, rating it an extremely low 6% and calling it "complete crap", argued the controls were "universally tragic and make the game even less enjoyable". The most common complaint was the lack of skill required, amounting to nothing more than just mashing buttons. ''
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'' also found the gameplay awkward in addition to being too simple, criticizing the control setups that were so odd and unlike the real experiences a player would have to read the manual to figure them out. The magazine stated Atlusphere and Powerball were the only two events with any real difficulty. Steve Keen of '' Computer & Video Games'' wrote "the gameplay is repetitive and rapidly dulls the brain", his only positive points being the ability to switch perspectives in Assault and the variety of obstacles in Eliminator. While Jeffrey Tschiltsch of '' Video Games & Computer Entertainment'' felt that the easy learning curve and the support for up to eight players may make a good multiplayer experience, Chris blasted the requirement to play with AI opponents in order to play with humans. Even Arnie Katz' positive review from ''
Electronic Games ''Electronic Games'' was the first dedicated video game magazine published in the United States and ran from October 15, 1981, to 1997 under different titles. It was co-founded by Bill Kunkel, Joyce Worley, and Arnie Katz. History The h ...
'' claimed the product could have used more features, such as more close-ups of the Gladiators and a practice mode: "The inability to concentrate on one event at a time to perfect technique is frustrating". The graphics and sound were also criticized. '' Nintendo Magazine System'' and ''Nintendo Power'' thought the presentation stayed true to the television series, ''Nintendo Power'' comparing its source material likeness to that of
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's '' WWF Super WrestleMania'' (1992). Conversely, '' MegaTech''s Radion Automatic and ''Super Play''s Jonathan Davies argued it lacked the source material's tongue-in-cheek, "showbizzy" atmosphere. He panned the identical look of the Gladiator sprites, as well as the wobbly animation of the sprites in general. Keen called the visuals unfathomably bad for the SNES and "the biggest pile of crap we've seen since
King Kong King Kong, also referred to simply as Kong, is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. The character has since become an international pop culture icon,Erb, Cynthia, 1998, ''Tracking Kin ...
was half way up the Empire S te Building and fancied a cack!". He spotlighted the "dreadful" sprites and their animations, and claimed the digitized pictures of the Gladiators at the beginning were the only good parts of the graphics. He, as well as other critics, called the sound to be some of the worst they heard, particularly the soundtrack. Jonathan Davies condemned the SNES version's absence of sound effects and repetition of a "dreadful tune". In a favorable review of the Sega Genesis port, Katz found it to be the best version. In addition to the absence of Cannonball, he found the events to be better in the port than other versions. He considered this true even for his least favorite event, The Eliminator, which he otherwise found to be a "fairly humdrum side-scroller". He praised the game's ability to have easy-to-learn controls while including enough complication and variety to keep the player hooked. He described the events as "so exciting that many will wish there was a way to just play epic-length versions of each". His review was not without criticism, however. He condemned the small sprites and active areas of Powerball and Atlasphere during two-player mode, feeling they hindered the flow of the gameplay and made moving around the space harder. He also criticized Joust for being too limited in strategy, moves, and sprite animation.


References


External links

* {{Gladiators 1991 video games Amiga games Atari ST games DOS games GameTek games Imagitec Design games Incredible Technologies games Mixed martial arts video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Sega Genesis games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Video games based on game shows Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Barry Leitch Video games scored by Ian Howe American Gladiators