Spartacus Legends – Anything but Legend… wait for it

Fans of the Starz series Spartacus can find a free arcade game Spartacus Legends available via XboxLive (may also be on PS network). This game is far from legendary. In fact, if this game were a gladiator, he would probably be trained barely enough to fight in the pits and wagered to lose or sent to the mine because nothing can be done with him. As a fan of Spartacus, I am glad that this game exists and is free to play but it is pretty disappointing for a free game (I rather play this than Crackdown and people spent money on that, check out a previous post on that). Much like the show you are a Lanista, raising common dogs to the status of gladiator (translation: owning slaves and training them to fight and execute each other, awesome). Not as exciting as I thought because the game really has no story, the cut scenes seemed to be blurred images from the show, and the dialog is repetitive and annoying.  Not to mention the undesirable graphics and blood effects that look like an NES version of Mortal Kombat (here I thought it was 2013).Unlike the witty dialog used in the show, phrases seem to be triggered randomly and got really old after the first 5 minutes (after that 5 minutes is over you will wonder why you even play with the sound on).

The game play can be compared to that of Tekken (2D style with a 3D roll effect). The combat generally kind of sucks and will require some skilled button mashing (if that can even be done) to pull off certain combos. There is no practice mode available, so you are kind forced to risk the lives of your gladiators to find out what works (come on, as crappy as the button system is I don’t even get to attempt to learn the moves before battle).  The CPU cheese is uncanny and often times is able to dodge just about every attack or too strong for you to even have a chance (don’t try fighting Oenomaus unless you have a well-trained gladiator or you can cheese as good as the CPU). Taunts can be used during battle to gain crowd favor to pull of skillful executions but are sometimes difficult to pull off without taking some damage (they are useless otherwise, also if you button mash too much you won’t even get to pull off the executions). Speaking of executions, gladiators can die if executed and it will take some coin out of your purse to revive them (or just train another dog, i mean slave, i mean gladiator).

Online play is useless. If you like a laggy gameplay, mismatches that might not always favor you and the combined game bugs with people trying to cheese their way to victory, then online play is for you (unpredictable like the pits). This game also kind of follows the “pay to win” system, if you so choose. Buying extra coins for the best equipment will catapult you to victories (as better decked out gladiators seem to do better, regardless of your gameplay skill) if you have enough coin..and by coin I mean real currency. In my opinion, it will be a waste of money (and you will probably end up spending more than the game is actually worth, oh wait…it was free).

The most disappointing thing about this game is the lack of customization. Yes, that means no creating gladiators, customizing the equipment, or even editing the names (Spartacus was given his gladiatorial name buy his Lanista, so much for being based on the show). You would think you at least get to edit the colors for some matched or mismatched attire but no.

The only excuse I could think of for the developers putting out this crappy game is that it was free and is an arcade title (no, no excuses). As a fan of Spartacus the show, I think this game could be better and was only interested in either a fighting with gladiators from the show (imagine Solonius’ rating, not a gladiator but did fight in the arena) or creating my own to fight to glory (seriously, why cant I at least edit the name?). Overall, I give this a sideways thumb up because although this game is extremely frustrating; As a Spartacus fan, it is pretty awesome for a free game and way better than hunting down those 800 ridiculous orbs in Crackdown.