Overview:
American Gladiators was a show that focused on “athletes” competing against some muscle bound dudes for the ultimate glory in television spotlight: 15 minutes of fame [for our entertainment]. Luckily, the great people decided to make a game for our entertainment which was anything but that.
Visuals:
American Gladiators [the Game] came out in 1991 and this game does not fucking look like it at all. You know what also came out in 1991? Super Mario World and compare that game to this trash and you’ll feel my plight.
The characters in this game look so ambiguous that it’s very difficult to tell if they’re a male or female [or BOTH?] and you don’t even get to pick just who the hell you want. You’re randomly given a character that is very depressing looking only to take on repeating enemies that adds more to the depression.
Audio:
To be honest I can’t remember the music from this game. I remember the sound effects and those were pretty abysmal at that too. The best effect is when you fall to your death giving you this very somber melody that sums up just what you are: a failure.
Completion:
This is going to be a different form of summary as I had to try out all the 5 mini games to see what was going on and lemme tell you, they were all shit.
– Joust
Unlike the Midway game, A.G.’s form of Joust is where you take two giant Q-tips and fight each other. You have a couple of moves where you jab, overhead attack and low attack. While playing, I got through the first three rivals just by constantly tapping A & B and wining each time. To make things go by faster, I offed myself a couple of times so I could try out the other games. BIG mistake.
– Wall
Oh man, Wall. Wall is a rock climbing mini game with your character trying to scale a wall all the while fending off competing gladiators. It’d work if only the controls and collision detection weren’t fucking garbage. You have to constantly tap A & B to move your hands while choosing the direction with the d-pad. Jesus Christ it is murder to the fingers. That wouldn’t be so bad though if it weren’t for you FALLING OFF when nothing is even close to killing you. Ugh.
– Human Cannonball
Here you take your gladiator, jump on a pendulum and jump at the right time to hit your rival off of a pedestal. Simple. This game wasn’t that bad, just timing.
– Powerball
Good god, if this were a real sport, it’d be the worst sport ever. Even worse than baseball. The object of this game is to take a ball from a goal, maneuver around enemies and place them in six “goals” littered around the “field”, then go to the opposite goal, get another ball and do the same thing. This game is fucking EASY. The enemies are retarded and hover around one of the six areas in a pattern that allows you to just waltz all over the place and drop balls into their holes [lulz]. I purposefully let the timer run out cause it just got too damn repetitive.
– Assault
While the other games, aside from H. Cannonball, were tacky, Assault is just a straight up vertical shooter game. You have to waltz along a field, collect missiles [?!] on the floor and shoot them at a moving target at the top of the screen while dodging enemy fire. It was pretty easy.