Tournament of Legends (Gladiator A.D)

[Dante]

IGN - Gladiator A.D. Revealed

Next week the Electronic Entertainment Expo kicks off in Los Angeles, where hundreds of new games will be unveiled or shown in updated form. Development studio High Voltage Software, best known to Wii owners for its first-person shooter The Conduit, has not one, but two new games in the works for Nintendo's console. The first, revealed exclusively on IGN today, is called Gladiator A.D. and it's a brutal fighter that takes players back to ancient Rome to do bloody battle. (The other title will be revealed on IGN tomorrow, so stay tuned.) We caught up with High Voltage's CEO and founder Kerry Ganofsky, chief creative officer Eric Nofsinger and design director David Pellas to learn more about Gladiator A.D.

 

IGN: You're just wrapping up work on The Conduit. Tell us about the concept behind Gladiator A.D.

 

Kerry J. Ganofsky: Gladiator A.D. is our next step in filling the holes in the Wii's library. Players choose a Gladiator, each with unique attacks, behaviors, moves, and weapons. They then battle through a series of competitions, some one-on-one and some much more complex.

 

David Pellas: The concept for Gladiator A.D. is to recreate the brutal fighting and high tension of the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Rome. We are developing a game that is both fast-paced and tactical in nature. A lot of work into the art style as well as the AI systems to make a game that is not only beautiful to look at, but challenging and well-balanced for all skill levels.

 

Eric Nofsinger: Gladiator A.D. takes strategic combat mechanics and steps it up a notch with an RPG-light twist and more player options. Players take their gladiator into one of history's most brutal blood sports; the Roman Gladiatorial Circuit. After winning enough favor from the crowd, players can challenge the champions for fame, wealth, and in some cases, freedom stand waiting to the victor.

 

IGN: Who do you play as?

 

Eric: Players have the option of playing as one of many gladiators, ranging from the Dark Druids of Amesbury, to the daughter of an Egyptian priest. Special achievements will unlock new gladiators, such as the current arena champion and even the emperor himself. Each character has an intricate story, abilities, and motivations to encourage playing through the game with all the different gladiators.

 

David: We are going to great lengths to make sure that every fighter not only looks unique, but plays uniquely.

 

Kerry: We are offering many playable characters with different backgrounds and fighting styles. Each character has a unique storyline and interacts with the other characters in different ways.

 

IGN: What's the storyline and how are you telling story in the game?

 

Kerry: The story for each character revolves around the gladiatorial circuit culminating in the Coliseum to determine the grand champion. The characters all have unique motivations to rise to the top. The player can choose to be ruthless or forgiving, affecting the storyline of the character.

 

David: And the story line is different for each fighter. Some fight for honor, some for revenge, and still others fight for the pleasure of ending an opponent's life. We have a very deep story mode which includes many elements of traditional RPG games, but we are being careful not to bog the player down with endless menus.

 

Eric: Each of the selectable gladiators has his/her unique story, rival, and plot twists. These stories are earned by unlocking events based on player decision. Choosing to allow your rival to live, rather than putting him to the sword will cause later repercussions. These events are different between the gladiators.

 

IGN: The Conduit's Quantum3 engine pushes Wii tech. What about Gladiator? What's happening tech-wise with this project that you're proud of?

 

Kerry: We are using the Quantum3 engine for Gladiator as well. Improvements are continually being made to the engine and we are taking full advantage of each update. Being an arena-style game, we are able to push the graphics up a few notches. Our characters, environments and animations are simply amazing. The AI system is adjustable and flexible which will allow our designers to make each enemy feel unique and challenging.

 

Eric: Think of Gladiator A.D. as the distillation of everything that made Conduit what it was. With fewer characters in smaller environments we are able to get more detail. In addition, we are utilizing our imposter system to get the crowd reacting to the player's action. Watch them throw objects at the ill-favored gladiator, as well as stand and cheer with large hits, or boo and jeer when the player uses cheap tactics.

 

David: Gladiator A.D. features the latest version of the Quantum technology. Graphically, we have incorporated several very cool visual effects into the game that are beyond even The Conduit. All of the updates are not simply graphical though, as seen in our Imposter / Instancing technology. This technology allows us to feature a large number of characters on screen with no discernible framerate hit. This means that we can have hundreds or even thousands of models in the scene.

 

IGN: Is Gladiator a straight-up 3D fighter? What are the gameplay mechanics?

 

David: Gladiator A.D. is not a traditional 3D fighting game. It's more of a hybrid between 3D Fighting games like Bushido Blade and Boxing games like Fight Night. The action is intense, but the combat is strategic. You need to learn your opponent's weaknesses and think through your attack patterns to succeed. There is no button-mashing here.

 

Kerry: Our goal is to make the controls intuitive while providing depth to the game mechanics. Customizable weapons, armor and moves give the player a lot of choices of the arsenal to bring into battle. There are quicker, lighter moves that are difficult to block or dodge and slower, heavier moves that will do more damage. A well-timed parry will briefly stun your opponent. There are brutality moves that the player can earn by increasing crowd favor, which plays a big role in a player's victory or defeat.

 

Eric: Gladiator takes an over-the-should approach to bring the player right into the action. With the Wii-remotes representing the right and left hand, the player can accurately control his attacks, blocks, and dodges. The player has three directional attack; left slice, right slash, and overhead chop. As well as a slower, but devastating power attack for each direction. On the defense, the player can choose to dodge, parry, or block attacks. Holding block will soak a percentage of the incoming damage, but moving your shield or secondary weapon using the analog stick (while blocking) will allow the player to make perfect blocks, which soaks all damage, and causes his opponent to react, allowing for a retaliatory strike. We incorporate slow down of the larger power attacks, similar to the movie 300, to allow players a cinematic attempt to perfect block these attacks.

 

IGN: How do you control the game? Please be specific? Are you using Wii MotionPlus for anything?

 

Kerry: The controls use Wii motions with the Wii remote and nunchuck to initiate an attack. There are six basic attacks: Left, right or overhead, both light and heavy. The player can also block or dodge in any direction.

 

David: We are taking full advantage of the Wii Remote's motion-sensing capabilities for combat. We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish using just the Wii Remote. That said though, we are currently incorporating the latest version of the Wii MotionPlus firmware and will support it.

 

Eric: The Wii MotionPlus will be used to add variance to the attacks to break up what could possibly be seen as mechanical attacks. For example, depending on the orientation of the player's wrist when a left slice is initiated, the gladiator will attack his opponents right side from one of three angles, making it slightly more difficult to perfect block player's using the Wii MotionPlus. We are also looking into other applications for optional game-play with this peripheral.

 

IGN: Can you play the game using different control methods?

 

Kerry: We are all about customization and player choice. Of course!

 

David: We are evaluating every method of play, but right now we have been strictly focused on providing the best gameplay with the Wii remote and nunchuk.

 

Eric: Please understand that this does not mean we will not have alternate modes of control, it simply means that we are still evaluating the use of them.

 

IGN: Gladiators endured a lot of violence. Just how violent is this Wii game?

 

David: This game is brutally violent, but is not Mortal Kombat. There is no over-the-top spine ripping. Its authentic, not ridiculous. We do have finishers, which can get pretty nasty to watch though.

 

Kerry: We have execution, humiliation, and brutality moves on top of the devastating attacks. One humiliation has certain tender body parts being stomped on…repeatedly. The life of a gladiator is not always pretty.

 

David: The camera work is fantastic and really drives home the humiliation that is being inflicted, not to mention the pain.

 

Eric: While in development, if we don't get a wince out of team mates during the creation of some of the more brutal animations and attacks we take another pass. The player can use the environment as well to throw his opponent into spiked columns, fire basins, and in front of ravenous lions. Each gladiator uses a different set of weapons, some more exotic depending on the character's background and origin.

 

IGN: What kinds of weapons can you use? Will the environments play a part? And what about outside forces, like tigers? Hey – we saw Gladiator.

 

David: Did someone slip you an early release? The game has a ton of unique weapons.

 

Kerry: Each character specializes in a certain weapon style. We have the standard gladius and shield as well as a variety of more exotic weapons such as dual scimitars. The environments will contain hazards that will play into the brutality system.

 

David: Yes, the environments do play a large role into the combat and yes there will be outside forces that can affect the outcome of the fight. Lions are just the start...

 

IGN: The movie 300 presented its action very cinematically. Will Gladiator A.D. strive for the same kind of presentation? How so?

 

David: We love the movie 300 and it is safe to say that we were inspired by the movie. As to the exact presentation, we are looking to provide a very cinematic style of game but to maintain our own vision as to how that is going to be represented.

 

Kerry: Each arena will present a slightly different take on the overall coloring and lighting of the scene. The details in the characters and environments lend themselves very well to the art style.

 

Eric: The presentation is extremely important. In the development of this project, each fight needs to have a moment that causes the player to look around and ask, "Did you just see that?!" Whether it is a gladiator barely dodging under a horizontal power attack as the slow-mo kicks in, or when a gladiator is grappled, beaten and thrown into environmental hazards, the intent is to create something that spectators would cheer about, in-game and out-of-game.

 

IGN: We're included a few soundtrack samples in today's article. Tell us about the music for the game.

 

David: We want to engulf players in the atmosphere and music is one of the biggest ways to drive a players emotion. The game soundtrack is filled with epic orchestral tracks that are designed to be as much of an integral part of the game experience as the fighting mechanics themselves. We are taking music very seriously in this game. So much so, that we hired Emmy winning composer Jeff Beal to create our music. Jeff is the musical genius behind the music of the HBO epic drama series Rome.

 

 

The Pit (MP3 download)

The Tomb (MP3 download)

 

Eric: Jeff's authentic take on Rome and his use of exotic instruments brings the blood and sweat to life in the sands of the grand coliseum.

 

Kerry: I find the music exotic and captivating. Noah Jurcin, one of our sound designers, is working diligently to put the action together with the music to make it dynamic and adaptive.

 

IGN: We figure a multiplayer mode has to be in for a Gladiator game. How's it going to work?

 

Eric: We are implementing a split-screen mode for multiplayer. We currently have it running in either horizontal or vertical configuration for player customization.

 

David: We do have a full two-player mode like traditional fighting games. Each player chooses a combatant and the fight ensues. We have a ton of unique ways to beef up the experience, but unfortunately we cannot talk about those yet.

 

IGN: Is there online play mode? If so, how's that work?

 

Kerry: That certainly would be cool. [smiles] Seriously though, we are still solidifying our Wii network solution.

 

IGN: Will you have online leaderboards, etc.? Any other Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support? What about WiiSpeak support?

 

David: Now I am not confirming online play, but if we were to offer it we would certainly have some great ground work in place that was generated during the development of The Conduit.

 

IGN: How far along is the game in development and when do you hope to release it for Wii?

 

David: We are seven months into full production. We have nearly every environment complete and many of our fighters have been modeled, rigged, and animated. As to the specific release date, we are not announcing anything yet but we are very excited and eager to get the games into the hands of the gamers.

 

Kerry: The game is a lot of fun to play and our current timetable places us at a Q1 2010 release.

 

IGN: Any final words for Wii owners seeing the title for the first time?

 

Kerry: The team has been working very hard on making Gladiator A.D. a fun, brutal and beautiful game.

 

David: Gladiator A.D. is going to redefine the fighting game genre on the Wii. The game features an unmatched graphic fidelity, enthralling musical score, and strategic combat. This coupled with the familiar setting and intuitive controls are what sets it apart from anything ever released.

 

Eric: Just like with the Conduit, we want to hear what you have to say about Gladiator A.D. Feel free to drop us a note at [email protected].

 

Edited May 26, 2009 by Dante

[S.C.G]

*remembers back to when that first teaser screenshot was released and speculation was rife because we didn't know what it was* hehe... well it certainly looks promising.

[Owen]

Looks excellent and uses the motionplus! Another reason to buy that device as soon as possible!

 

IGN are revealing another high voltage game tomorrow too! (or even today, i have no idea due to time difference).

[dazzybee]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced by this at all. 3D fighting game....? 3 moves of attack......? I'm eager to hear more, and I know there'll be loads of game modes and a good online set up, but I aint excited by a long stretch

[darkjak]

Another graphical gem from High Voltage.

Nintendo better try to catch up!

[D_prOdigy]

Looking nice

 

Look at the types of weapons and armour in the game... then think back to the first Quantum3 video demo...

 

That's why I banked on an Oblivion-style WRPG. I was wrong...

Edited May 26, 2009 by D_prOdigy
Automerged Doublepost

[Ganepark32]

Well.... it's certainly not what I was expecting from them. I was thinking that they'd go down the RPG route as they had expressed interest in it, and technically they still may as they've another title to announce today. It looks good, which is obvious given that it's running off of the Quantum3 engine and it has decent potential. As long as they keep the game as customisable as possible in terms of weapons, armor, etc. then it should be fine as that will bring with it a sense of strategy.

 

We know that HVS are capable of making a great game, as The Conduit is showing us that, but this style of game is one that could easily go wrong so I'm eagerly awaiting more info on how it plays.

 

It now leaves us wondering, what the heck is going to be their other title?

[Owen]

Well.... it's certainly not what I was expecting from them. I was thinking that they'd go down the RPG route as they had expressed interest in it, and technically they still may as they've another title to announce today. It looks good, which is obvious given that it's running off of the Quantum3 engine and it has decent potential. As long as they keep the game as customisable as possible in terms of weapons, armor, etc. then it should be fine as that will bring with it a sense of strategy.

 

We know that HVS are capable of making a great game, as The Conduit is showing us that, but this style of game is one that could easily go wrong so I'm eagerly awaiting more info on how it plays.

 

It now leaves us wondering, what the heck is going to be their other title?

 

Could be a adventure game or a RPG i reckon! They have FPS and fighting covered now!

[Noku]

Sweetness. Hope you can claim parts of enemy's armour and weapons after you defeat them.

[Hero-of-Time]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced by this at all.

 

Same. I read the IGN stuff and looked at the screenshots and just thought meh.

[Jamba]

I'm sceptical as well. Does sound like a fiarly generic 3D action game and they really need to get the art sorted. It's looking like a med-high end PS2 game atm. Why oh why do devs keep on releasing media for a game when it's no where near the final product?

[Retro_Link]

Yeah same, not really interested in a game like this, atm anyways...

 

IGN: You're just wrapping up work on The Conduit. Tell us about the concept behind Gladiator A.D.

 

Kerry J. Ganofsky: Gladiator A.D. is our next step in filling the holes in the Wii's library.

Yes I suppose a Gladiator 3D fighter it is a hole in the Wii's library, but it doesn't mean it's one that needs filling!

[Kav]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced by this at all. 3D fighting game....? 3 moves of attack......? I'm eager to hear more, and I know there'll be loads of game modes and a good online set up, but I aint excited by a long stretch

 

It's the "3 types of attack" thing that has made me think; "meh" too! That doesn't sound very decent at all! I hope you can chain these 3 types in some way... varying combos etc, link into a finisher.

[Retro_Link]

Madworld has few attacks... mind you that got old quickly!

 

Though at least this has block and dodge!

[Shino]

I'm sceptical as well. Does sound like a fiarly generic 3D action game and they really need to get the art sorted. It's looking like a med-high end PS2 game atm. Why oh why do devs keep on releasing media for a game when it's no where near the final product?

 

That's a bit of a exaggeration no?

 

Sound interesting, graphically good, but I believe this will shadowed by Nintendo and Retro Studio in terms of graphics during E3, which might be the reason for them to prematurely shoot their load all over IGN.

[Noku]

It's the "3 types of attack" thing that has made me think; "meh" too! That doesn't sound very decent at all! I hope you can chain these 3 types in some way... varying combos etc, link into a finisher.

 

Thinks you're all overexaggerating a bit. It's got left to right, right to left and overhead. That's three. Heavy and light. That's six. Three different angles per side-swing. That's 12. Plus parry, dodge and block. Plus finishers. And the promise of it not looking mechanical. Seems ample to me.

[Retro_Link]

 

 

 

[DazzeL]

Looking nice

 

Look at the types of weapons and armour in the game... then think back to the first Quantum3 video demo...

 

That's why I banked on an Oblivion-style WRPG. I was wrong...

 

Another HVS exclusive tomorrow. Perhaps you will be proved right then! Though my bet is that the second game is WiiWare.

 

Graphics for this are nice, I can see them potentially being stunning in motion. I bloody hope this has an online mode though - this isn't optional for a modern fighting game imo. It's the only good way to really increase longevity and let's face it, you can't get more competitive than a fighting game really.

[D_prOdigy]

I can kind of see where people are coming from if they say it looks uninteresting, but I really do hope they give it a fair shake of the stick when it shows up in motion/playable.

 

Oh, I'm not going to get all moralistic about the spectacle of violence - I love me some splatter - but I do half-hope their next game revealed won't be an M title (unless it's some super badass sci-fi thang).

[Noku]

 

Oh, I'm not going to get all moralistic about the spectacle of violence - I love me some splatter - but I do half-hope their next game revealed won't be an M title (unless it's some super badass sci-fi thang).

 

Unless of course it's a reannouncement of Animales de la Muerte.

[D_prOdigy]

Unless of course it's a reannouncement of Animales de la Muerte.

 

Now you've said that, that could be a distinct possibility... They did confirm they were switching it to full retail, didn't they?

[Fused King]

The game looks pretty interesting due to the fact that they're using THE ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE. Something you don't see a vast amount off. Still, as the info comes flowing on the web, we'll see how much depth it has. They want to fill the gap in the wii-library with this and hopefully many more games to come.

 

As for the other game, I think it might be an RTS or a TBS of some sort.....Something the Wii is seriously lacking (No, Pikmin and Little King's Story don't count, the only thing that comes close is Swords and Soldiers, but that still has a viewingpoint from the side)

[mcj metroid]

They have become pretty cocky haven't they? I mean conduit is barely reviewed yet..

 

This .... I want to see a video but I wouln't say those screens are anything to write home about but again Ilm sure it would look better in motion

[Noku]

Now you've said that, that could be a distinct possibility... They did confirm they were switching it to full retail, didn't they?

 

They confirmed they weren't going for WiiWare :P

 

http://wiiware.nintendolife.com/news/2009/02/animales_de_la_muerte_officially_not_coming_to_wiiware

[Emasher]

Its looking and sounding good to me so far. But I'm really interested in Ancient Rome. I'm just hoping this doesn't include the part of the gladiatorial games where Midgets killed pregnant women.

 

Graphically its looking quite nice considering its probably not been in development that long.

 

Also, those screenshots that aren't of fights are interesting, they suggest that we'll be walking around outside of the coliseum and other amphitheaters. I'm guessing it will be a sort of fight up through the different levels of gladiatorial competition until you eventually become a star fighter in the Coliseum.