Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance has a very cinematic feel about it, a fact that becomes apparent as soon as you start up the game. The angles, the lighting and especially the graphics convey a sense of watching a movie rather than playing a game. This can be interpreted as either a blessing or a curse, since a lot of gamers would rather be playing than watching. Thankfully, the cinematic scenes flow smoothly into the actual gameplay, and more than once I was left standing there thinking I was still watching a cutscene when I should have been defending myself.

The sound and music run along much the same line. There is no magnum opus, but the score does convey the feeling that you're pushing along the story of a movie instead of some small time hack-and-slash game. The effects are about what you would expect as well, with plenty of clangs and crashes, grunts and death rattles. All in all, a nice little assortment of bells and whistles.

If it looks like a movie and sounds like a movie, nine times out of ten it will play like a movie. Long and drawn out with little input from the user. Unfortunately, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance is one of those nine out of ten games that follow the lowly trend of 'interactive movies'.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth a little bit of entertainment. The story isn't all that clich ridden, a rarity in games like this, although it still capitalizes on the current craze for gladiatorial games. As the champion of Rome, you are called upon by the gods to stop the threat of the current emperor from causing the total collapse of the great city and all its accompanying regions. Ok, maybe it is a clich.

Once you get past the first initial tutorial level and the subsequent cinematics, you are thrown into the meat and potatoes of the game. This is where the movie part quits and the game part picks up. Unfortunately, this dish of meat and potatoes is a little undercooked.

Ninety nine percent of the game is taken up with you running around the level and mashing your attack buttons as you hack away at your enemies. The levels aren't laid out all that badly, but there just isn't anything to do in them except find a key, unlock a gate, kill some people, do it all over again. It seems that little effort was put into changing things around during the game. The biggest puzzle you'll face will be trying to find an item in a room full of breakable jugs.

The worst part of it all is that there is nothing else to do. Little reward is given for completing the game, and there is no Two-player mode or optional challenge modes. Once you get bored of the single player experience, the game will just collect dust because there is nothing else to do.

Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance does actually offer a challenge despite all the button mashing you have to do. It is by no means an easy button masher. Instead, timing must be employed during fights, as well as target evaluation. That's about as far as it goes though. If there's a part of the game you're stuck at, you're probably just going to have to go back and mash harder.

For the most part, Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance is all about the attack. You have two attack buttons at your disposal, and you can perform any combination of a three hit chain with them. Each combo looks different, but doesn't do much more than vary the monotony of attacking. There is no block button, which is a little frustrating, but you can dodge either left or right or lunge back and forth.

At least the designers had the sense to throw in magic spells, helpful items, different weapons and a remotely cool execution move that you can perform on enemy champions. Besides that, there isn't much else to it. You really don't have any freedom to try to go where you want on each level because the only action you can perform aside from fighting is running. No jump, no climb, so if you reach a chasm or wall, you hit an action button and the computer takes care of it for you.

Sword of Vengeance is a button masher's wet dream. However, anyone interested in playing a game with a little depth instead of watching a movie and then beating the hell out their controller will want to steer clear of this one.