Boombit Games the developers behind skywalk, Crazy Truck, Police Chase Race and a fair few others have put their heads together again and come up with something a little different. They describe their latest venture, Tiny Gladiators as follows”¦
“What if Street Fighter, World of Warcraft and Castle Crashers had a baby? A cute, precious, bloodthirsty, feisty baby?”
Well, it certainly intrigued me, and as they were nice enough to let me have a sneak preview of the iOS version a few weeks before the release date. It’s only fair to share the wealth, so to speak.
So what is Tiny Gladiators? In short, it’s a 2D arena combat game. Simply create your character and choose your weapon then take out your opponent before he, she or it takes you out first. It’s a fairly simple concept, so you won’t have any issue getting into the bones of the game.
One of the first things I noticed about Tiny Gladiators was the artwork and animation style. It’s bright, and bold cartoon style delivers a truckload of cartoon violence without any form of apology.
You can choose your character from a number of looks, I went for the skeleton but there are other more human looking warriors to go for if you want. You also have to choose your fighting style, there’s spearman for distance, knight for sword and shield, assassin who holds two swords and colossus, which is an unlockable character who holds a mighty two-handed blade. I went for the spearman as I figured a bit of distance is always good against anyone trying to kill you.
You control your character by way of the on-screen buttons, a D-pad on the left and jump, attack and special move buttons on the right. It can get a bit frenetic at times, especially during the longer boss fights but the controls are never unwieldy.
However, don’t go thinking that the combat is all there is to this game. There are different weapons and armour to collect that will change your gladiators’ appearance accordingly. You can also use skill points you earn when leveling up to improve your class’ specific skills. For example, my skeleton spearman has picked up a spear throwing skill as well as adding a stun and more range to his attacks.
So far, I’m finding Tiny Gladiators fantastically entertaining, and would certainly recommend it to anyone who likes mobile combat games. It’s available to download from the Google Store now, but if you own an iOS device then you’ll have to wait a few more weeks until the start of March when it is released worldwide.
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
