It's been one bloody and barbaric week - first Beatdown: Fists Of Vengeance, then Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and now Colosseum: Road To Freedom. You'd think that beating the living crap out of people, with blood spurting everywhere, would get old, but it never does - at least not in a quality title like Shaolin Monks. Sadly this is most definitely not the case with Colosseum.

There's a nice little CGI intro that gets you in the mood for some arena-based combat; however, once into the game itself, the pace slows down to that of a tortoise and simply doesn't pick up again. You begin with some guy asking you a few questions, such as where you hail from, what path you will take, what you used to be before you became a gladiator and so on, which apparently have some bearing on the ending of the game. However, I'll be amazed if anyone can actually be bothered to complete it, as this really is a slog from start to finish, and not an enjoyable one either.

You are a slave, forced to pit yourself against enemies, with wooden swords for a couple of bouts and then a metal sword in your first fatal contest. The button mashing doesn't seem to make much difference, until you're sold off for a cool million to some rich guy with more money than sense, after which it's up to you to earn your freedom by winning money in arena battles. The tutorial is deathly dull, as you tediously learn each type of attack or move before progressing onto the main game. There's a reasonable range of attacks - quick, heavy, high, low, parries, counters, dodging, defending, plus you can even jump or duck to evade blows and throw your weapons at an enemy. However, the implementation of the fighting engine is very slow and there's no lock on system, so once you get into an arena with multiple combatants, it's very hard to battle stylishly. When compared to the speed and grace of Shaolin Monks, which is exactly what you want in a fighting game, Colosseum is left for dead. In fact, its spine is brutally ripped from its body and then used to choke its neck until its head pops off from the pressure. Sorry, too much MK!

So, you begin your life as a slave with a huge debt to pay off. There's no storyline or freedom, which is one of this game's biggest mistakes; you simply alternate your days between training to improve your various stats, and days out at the arena or colosseum, taking on as many or as few bouts as you like. On training days you can complete two of a series of mini-games, all of which are based around the precise timing of button presses. These aren't too bad I suppose, and you can pick the level of challenge, maximising the available points if you do well or losing them if you screw up. There's basic exercises like squats and sit-ups, where a series of one to three symbols come whizzing across the screen and you must press the corresponding buttons when they're into the critical zone of the display. Then there are games to attack enemy targets, where you must press increasingly long series of buttons as quickly as you can and finally throwing swords or dodging a rotating wooden bar. When you eat after your training, the kind of food you choose determines which stats you improve, from strength, stamina, endurance, speed and dexterity. This depth is a nice addition and it's an original idea for stat development, but not exactly breathtaking to play.

Along with your stats, there are a number of skills to develop, passive skills such as increased strength in certain body parts or active skills, of which you can equip four and use them on the battlefield to pull off special moves, like a shield charge where you knock an opponent down (or into a trap in the arena) or a double weapon spinning attack. As you level up in combat, you can increase the power of these attacks.

On the days where you get to fight in arenas, there is a limited range of battle types available. In Team Battle it's ten versus ten, where the objective is to take out the enemy team's general before all your team is wiped out, although there are only ever three per team in the arena at any one time, which is good, otherwise it would be total chaos. There are challenges where a bunch of gladiators face off but only one will survive, then there are timed Survival challenges where you must survive without dying for a set number of minutes. Hunting challenges bring a range of animals into the mix, and then a little later into the game, as your rank increases, you can go for one-on-one duels against increasingly tougher opponents and battle events, where you recreate historic battles for an audience, which at least throw in a bit of variety.

The trouble is, the clunky fight system makes any battle such a slog that it's just not any fun at all. The amount of times you find yourself swiping at the air because you don't quite aim in the right direction is very annoying, plus it's frustratingly hard to time dodges and evasion when you're being attacked by multiple enemies. The combat system is simply far too slow and delayed, which totally ruins the intensity and excitement that gladiatorial combat should have. The usage of health bars and numbers floating up every time you attack an enemy and reduce their health also takes away a lot from what atmosphere there might have been.

Graphically Colosseum is competent but not in any way spectacular. The arenas and scenery are dull and lifeless, while the interaction between enemies is poor and the animation is stilted and not particularly lifelike. The graphics and animation are okay, but they just don't scream realism like a game such as this should. The sound effects are also average, the sound of weapons striking shields is okay but the sound of sword hitting flesh is just weird and there's very little to remark upon, with mediocre and limited voice acting in the dull cut scenes. The arena music is okay but this is certainly no Gladiator.

If you actually enjoy the gameplay, which is unlikely, there is a huge amount to do - literally endless bouts of combat with a variety of match types on offer, even though they all boil down to killing, with plenty of nice weapons and armour to collect, skills to upgrade and special moves to learn. But, and I keep coming back to this for a reason, the core fighting engine is so stiff that it reduces what should be bloody and satisfying combat to one big chore. I found myself repeatedly whacking combatants to death with charged blow after charged blow, taking my frustrations of the slow gameplay out on my unfortunate foes.

Colosseum: Road To Freedom is a disappointingly dull game. The complete lack of storyline reduces it to a never-ending cycle of training and gladiatorial bouts, the graphics and sound barely rise above mediocre and the presence of varied battle types and a range of collectibles and skills cannot compensate for the woefully slow and clumsy combat. There are plenty of games around at the moment that do things far better than this, and if you fancy a historical setting, you'd be better off looking at Shadow of Rome, God of War or Spartan: Total Warrior before you consider checking this one out. After an hour of play with this, you'll soon realise that the quickest road to freedom from Colosseum lies on the front of your PS2, in the form of that little button with the glowing blue light…

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).