To say Gladiators is good would be… well, it would be a lie.
American Gladiators was released in 1991 following the huge success of the TV show, and like most TV-based video games it isn’t very good. Alarmingly similar to titles such as California Games, you partake in a series of mini-events, only this time they vaguely resemble that of their on-screen counterparts.
The five events are: Joust, Powerball, Human Cannonball, Assault and the infamous Wall. Each one requiring rapid button bashing, simple button combinations or basic joystick navigation. While one or two of them follow closely to the TV show, some of them have extra bits and pieces tacked on in an attempt to add variety, something they fail at. Joust, for example, sees you beating your opponent to a pulp with a stick, and then jumping across various platforms until you reach another opponent so the process can start again.
Despite the shallow nature of the games format and control scheme the game is pretty tough, so tough in fact that you will probably struggle on the easiest difficulty. The wall is probably the toughest of them all, as unlike others it requires more than the ability to transform your finger into a jackhammer. Here you must push the A and B buttons simultaneously and then wiggle your joystick left and right to the next free grip holes, similar to rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. As if that wasn’t enough you also have a 250 pound Gladiator chasing you at twice your maximum speed, a nervy experience even in a video game.
If you somehow manage to make it through the events you can advance to the Eliminator, which is essentially a collaboration of even more tedious button pushes, only this time they’re longer and harder than ever before.
To say American Gladiators is good would be… well, it would be a lie. Once you’ve played through it once you’ll be left thinking “what now?”, and the answer to that is a muscle spasm.