It's always nice when someone brings in a game that surprises you a bit. Those little refreshing moments of 'Hey, what the hell is this? It looks pretty decent,' just kind of make your day a little more doable. That's what happened today when came in to show off their foray into the world of strategy gaming being developed. It's definitely a switch from the publisher's usual offering of adventure gaming titles, but based on the early build that we saw and had the chance to mess around with, things are looking good on both the tech and gameplay fronts.
Is trying to combine the tactical strategy of Myth with the fast paced gaming goodness of Counter-Strike. Sure it may sound a little strange at first, but get your RTS head out of the sand and have a look at something a little bit different for a minute. If nothing else, you'll sure think it's pretty.The game is set in a campy sort of science fiction world that hearkens back to the oh so entertaining universe of Flash Gordon. The art reflects that as well as the humor and style of writing. Or so they tell us. The intro was still in French, so it all sounded funny to me, (I'll trust them that the content is good as well), and the intro was in a nifty comic book style approach using flash animation a little bit similar to some of the Freedom Force cutscenes. The story goes a little like this.
In the 1970's, the US military was behind a top-secret space shuttle project that was to study the black hole phenomenon that happens throughout space. Callahan, a major in the Marines was chosen to lead the mission after the shuttle was complete. Off they went into the blackness of space towards the closest of the black holes. Low and behold, Earth lost contact as the shuttle approached the destination and no word was heard back. Callahan was lost. He and his crew woke up after being knocked unconscious by some science fiction mumbo jumbo only to find a gigantic space ship closing on them.
As all aliens are likely to do, they walked into the shuttle killing all of the crew with the exception of the only military personnel onboard. Callahan was saved only to be executed and used as an example to others not to stray into the empire. But as all good stories have a twist, so does this one. It seems the princess (a nice blue number with crazy hair and some pouty lips) found Callahan's story intriguing enough to help him. It seems that the Emperor died leaving the throne open for some discussion. Two others are vying for the throne making the courts rife with backstabbing and controversy.
So the people, or whatever you call them, decided that the new emperor would be chosen through the beloved past time of these peaceful peoples: the Deathbowl. The emperor's daughter and the regent have then have to pick their own champion for the event to compete against those of the challengers. Guess who that is? Even though the background of the game follows the exploits of the wayward marine Callahan, gamers will be able to play through 6 different missions for each of the champions trying to claim the throne for their benefactor. The three different races are different in terms of fighting style, units, and technology as you might expect. You'll have the human Callahan's forces, the galactic Maximix forces, and the magic Fargasse's forces mixing it up out on the field. Being on the playing field itself will undoubtedly be one of the more interesting parts of the experience.
Instead of taking place out on some distant planet as usual in this genre, battles will take place right in front of a huge crowd in the biggest stadium ever created. You'll actually hear and see the crowd react to the events happening in your match. As I said before, they idea behind the actual gameplay in is to combine the tactical strategic elements in a game like Myth with the pace of a game like Counter-Strike.
In order to do this in the single player mode, you'll always start out with units on your side and work your way through the map. Along the way, you'll find power up types of icons that will give your troops a boost, your champion special abilities, and allow you to warp in some new units. The controls in The Gladiators will be pretty familiar to any RTS fan.
Double click a unit to select all of the same types, hit ctrl + (any number) to group units and so on. The interface on screen is pretty slick looking at the moment, even if it is also very familiar.
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But along with the general GUI features will be some new tallies in the upper left hand corner showing your time and your score. Arxel Tribe hopes that this will work toward the replayability of the game in single player as well as work to mark your rank in the multiplayer games. Your object of course being to rout the other side and make them look like the tactical schlubs that they are.