Coliseum Demo

In case you are tired of managing basketball, football and soccer teams, there are plenty of other choices out there when it comes to video games. Gladiators are definitely among the most interest and weird ones, although one can see how it would be very lucrative to work with fighters that give it their best in the arena in order to avoid being killed for good.

Coliseum is a simulator that allows you to see whether you’ve got what it takes to be at the head of a gladiator team and help the fighters achieve their dreams of glory and riches. In essence, you just have to match them against other participants and hope that your fighter can fare better during the confrontation, but there are many other mechanics that come into play along the way.

One of them is the fact that your roster must be closely managed at all times, otherwise you risk losing the gladiators and losing the competitions you enter. Although you start with three of them from the get-go, you can check out the market for something better, as well as hope that they will sign with you even if you do not have the required experience. After a while, it becomes easier to lure other fighters to your team, whether thanks to your fame, or the massive amounts of money you make.

Since realism is not very emphasized by the game, you can add certain enchantments to your roster and benefit from a variety of bonuses, such as increased stats, or various other useful skills. Speaking of which, the gladiators do not have to die in the ring in order to lose the match, which is really a good thing to hear, otherwise it would be quite awful to lose your best player after a long streak of victories.

Graphic-wise, everything is text-based, so there isn’t anything to talk about. Some artwork can be seen here and there, which is nice, but it really doesn’t have any kind of effect on the atmosphere and you are mostly reading stuff all the time anyway. A good soundtrack would have been nice, but it lacks entirely, which is quite the same.

Coliseum can turn out to be very addictive on the long run, as long as you do not mind the simplistic looks and the slightly awkward user interface. There’s plenty of excitement to be had with it, on the other hand, especially if you put some effort into your fighters and help them reach their peak.