Released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, Shadow of Rome stands alongside Doom, as one of the best games that rewards you for brutally murdering people in the most horrific ways possible.
So, you cut someone’s arm off with your sword? The fun doesn’t end there; You can pick their severed arm up and beat them to death with it! Fun, right? Alternatively, you can throw the arm into the crowd of spectators watching your fight in exchange for points and their favour, which may lead to them gifting you more amazing weapons to kill people with.
You can also crush people’s heads with maces, impale people with spears, swing around a halberd like a God-damn helicopter blade and cut people in half, as giant red text flares the words “RED VOLCANO” in your face, and the corpse of your foe fires blood into the air like fireworks. It’s a fun time.
All of the combat is a fun time. It’s so easy to control, basic and simple that there is absolutely nothing alienating about it; Anyone can jump into this game and feel confident about their ability to throw a scimitar thirty-feet in the air and into an opponent’s skull. What adds the perfect balance to the combat, preventing it from becoming too easy or too hard, are the three basic enemy types; Big enemies who act as tanks, small enemies who are agile and weak, and medium enemies who are a balance between the two. Coupled with the fact that you are a bit of a glass cannon, who takes damage pretty fast but who can dish out an ungodly amount of death to those around you, and you’ve got a pretty good combat system.
That said, unfortunately, the game has a series of some of the most easy boss-battles to grace gaming, who can easily be defeated by never engaging in close-quarters combat, in favour of just throwing an infinite amount of weapons at them from a distance. That said, these boss battles are few and far-between, so it isn’t a constant drag on the flow of the combat.
More unfortunately, however, the main plot of the game is bought together by a string of stealth missions that are a whole lot-less interesting. It isn’t that they are bad, or poorly designed, but rather that they are severely out of place in this gruesome combat game. Their inclusion seems to be because the story couldn’t be told entirely from a Gladiator’s perspective, so they strung it along with some other guy who sneaks about and listens to the characters who can deliver all the exposition.
Speaking of plot, Shadow of Rome is in no way borderline plagiarism of Ridley Scott’s famous movie, Gladiator; Both of which follow a respected soldier who loses his family to a corrupt politician, before being sold into slavery where he becomes a Gladiator and fights his way up the ranks to get revenge against those who wronged him.
But I suppose it doesn’t really matter since 99% of everybody playing this game in 2019 isn’t exactly going into this for the intrigue plot, and instead just wants to wreak havoc within the walls of the Coliseum.
All in all, Shadow of Rome suffers from a weak, watered-down copy of Gladiator’s plot, all strung together by slow, troublesome set of stealth missions. That said, the intensity of the combat, which dominates the majority of the game, and the satisfaction of all it’s systems, which still hold up today, make Shadow of Rome a game that I thoroughly enjoy and would recommend to anyone still interested into games of that time.
Take note that this game is only available on the PlayStation 2.
Alex Jordan 