Reviewed by: Belshy
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

To quote my favourite sport: 'It's a game of two halves!'

Yes, in true Capcom style we have another 3rd person adventure that's pretty much been divided in two. Devil May Cry 2 did this quite literally, by giving you two different playable characters, one on each disc. Onimusha 3 let you play through the game by taking turns with two different warriors. Shadow of Rome continues the trend by having one half of the gameplay as a gladiatorial beat 'em up, and the other as a stealth game that's pretty much 'Metal Gear Toga', if you like.

Both styles of play help to glue together the excellent story line while telling it from two very different perspectives. The main playable characters are Agrippa, a one time commander of a Roman legion who is now a gladiator, and Octavianus, Agrippa's far less brawny friend who is more skilled in the arts of diplomacy and generally sneaking about the place. The storyline documents the chain of events following the assassination of Julius Caesar, a murder for which Agrippa's father, an ageing centurion turned Roman guard, has been framed. The tale starts with a brief gladiatorial bout in Agrippa's present, then jumps swiftly to a time before his arrest, when Agrippa was fighting the Germania campaign in inclement European forests against the barbarian horde. This section of the game isn't just a CGI cut scene fest. You're able to fight and sneak about Germania in a way that eases you into the combat/ stealth model and also places you firmly in this antiquated setting. You play a variety of short quests both as Agrippa and Octavianus that take you right up to date with Agrippa fighting his way to the end of the gladiatorial tournament to meet his Mother's killer in combat, while all the while Octavianus sneaks about trying to unearth the conspiracy behind Caesar's brutal slaying.

All this sounds very ambitious, and Capcom have pulled it off remarkably well. Rome has never looked so lavish and authentic in a video game before. The storyline is augmented with beautiful cutscenes, atmospheric music, and generally excellent voice acting. The telling of the tale through two diametrically opposed gameplay styles (all out brutallity and tip toeing stealth) is a brave experiment, and for the most part Capcom have succeeded very well, especially in the sections of the game where you play as the noble, yet utterly homicidal Agrippa.

Combat is Agrippa's speciallity, and for the bulk of his yarn you'll be enagaged in savage extravagantly bloody bouts in sandy arenas, while the crowd whoop it up and throw you various trinkets depending on your performance. In order to make your progress easier in these battles you have to keep your 'salvo' bar healthily topped up, while avoiding getting too badly mauled by a variety of increasingly outrageous oppononets/ events. It is to this end that the game actively encourages you to be ever more savage and merciless while all the time showing off to the crowd with triumphant gestures. These earn you showers of petals, roses, hunks of bread/ cheese/ meat (the only way of topping up your health is to eat) and best of all newer and bigger weapons. It's often the case though that you have to manouver yourself to a relatively calm spot in the arena to make use of these objects, or fight a clearing around yourself before you can even pick them up...a great dynamic that along with a bewildering array of combos and finishing moves available to Agrippa makes combat a very rich and deeply satisfying part of the game. Having to renew your current weapon as it breaks from over use is another novel twist to the combat, and encourages you to play to the crowd in return for a newer meatier blade for your next killing spree.

Each new gladiatorial spectacle should come as a surprise to the player, as you move from the city arenas, to the northern sector of Europe, complete with falling snow, to the dusty deserts of Africa, and then the Great Arena itself. While you always start off in a holding cell, and must pass the daunting spiked club carrying masked man (the gate keeper, and executor of failed gladiators) in order to fight, you never know quite what you're going to be letting yourself in for once you're in front of the crowd. There are 'every man for himself' free for alls, team-based capture the flags (well, smash the statues) events, invariably glorious one-on-one boss battles, wild animal hunts, chariot races, and even a scenario where you have to rescue a hostage and ferry him back to the exit unharmed, while fighting off dozens of enemies. Occasionally an event will be forfeited if you haven't accrued the required salvo pints, meaning that you have to do it again but this time far more brutally in order to impress the crowd. You're rewarded for mixing up the combos, severing opponent's limbs, pulling prone foes to their feet for a fresh bludgeoning, throwing enemies over your shoulders to their death, and generally being a proper show off by getting attention at the peak of a salvo bar boosted by a dizzying variety of moves.

All of this utterly reprehensible (but oh so fun) mayhem is brought to life with blurring/ light bloom effects as Agrippa's frenzied state grows, plus showers of gore and petals, huge flashing written slogans of encouragement taking up half the screen, and the glorious sounds of the crowd roaring over the metallic clash of crimson steel. While occasionally the camera can get a little wayward with the sheer volume of foes charging at Agrippa from every which way, it can be quickly brought to heel behind our hero and so is never really a huge problem. The game controls very much like Onimusha 3, which is to say extremely well, and with no option to jump. Like the Samurai series, grounded combat is the focus of Agrippa's campaign, and is definitely the best part of this game.

Then there's Agrippa's weedy civilized little chum, Octavianus. Octavianus can sneak against walls, crouch and walk when crouched, hide in large urns, climb, peep, eavesdrop, hide objects behind his back, whistle to distract/ attract attention, knock out (with blunt objects) and choke unwitting opponents...and if all that fails, he can run like the wind! What he can't do however, at least when under your control, is withstand any damage from a centurion's blade/ weapon. In fact his deaths come so violently, suddenly and messily, that you'll surely want to put all your skill into keeping the fragile brains of the Octavianus-Agrippa partnership firmly and safely inside their cranium.

The stealth side of the game is generally very good, and a welcome change in pace/ rhythm from the chaotic bloody battles. It isn't, however, perfect, with some daftness rearing its head occasionally. For example, the game sports an alert gauge, complete with throbbing dual analogues to simulate a pulsing panicked heartbeat, which goes off when you're spotted. In the prison level near the beginning of the game, Octavianus is spotted by 3 guards, and his only way out of it is to climb a low-ish wall and crouch down. The alert guage wavers between 100% (red) and amber/ green, while the centurions buzz around the wall, all able to see him at some point and from some angle. So you keep moving him around the top of the wall to different corners, while crouched down. After a while, if you get it right, the alert guage disappears, and the centurions calm down and go back to barracks. Panic over. Amnesia was pretty common in ancient Rome, obviously. :) Being trapped in a wardrobe with a centurion repeatedly opening and closing its door (ad infinitum) from the outside, until you brave a dash to the room's exit (or reset your console) also sticks in the craw a tad!

Also you'll be able to walk (running and sneaking will alert guards and mean certain death) around a suspicious guard forever, as long as you don't break into stealth mode, and he won't accost you. He'll just keep going 'Hmm? Hmm?' and look all quizzical at you. Enemy dumbness like occurs from time to time, but with Octavianus being so defenceless I feel it's a necessary evil that while playing as this non-combatant character I certainly grew to understand, and actually enjoy the sometimes slapstick humour of certain devices like throwable rats/ banana skins, the latter of which had questionable usefulness in one of its scenarios. Crazy things also happen, but even less frequently, in some of Agrippa's less combat-heavy levels. In one of Agrippa's stealth levels in the game's opening he was carrying a torch, and this survived going under a waterfall, because it was still needed as a secondary weapon. Not being the biggest fan of artifice in games (no, really?) these instances would really begin to pall on me...if they weren't so thankfully scarce.

By using the map (as kindly provided for all stealth missions by the ever considerate Capcom) you prevent the large majority of blundering into situations that then require a kooky resolution as in my first example of hiding atop a wall from 3 soldiers. Capcom have at least catered for such blunders by allowing the game to continue once the panic is over, even if you're left feeling like you shouldn't really have survived...but this isn't the best way to negotiate a level in true Shadow of Rome stealth style. With the map you can see all enemy placements on that floor, all helpful pickups/ bonus items, useable doors, and save points...plus of course the whereabouts of your main objective. The game then becomes a very measured and strategic use of Octavianus's skills and current inventory. This isn't to say that you won't slip up, or the game won't throw up a scripted mishap to keep you on your toes. What it does mean though is that the stealth mechanics really begin to seem logical and natural within the confines of the game, but without the player ever taking his safety for granted. One is still very much aware of the possibility of a noisily bloody demise, or mission-ending discovery of your prescence waiting just around the next corner. Seeing where guards are placed means that if you knock out one guard near a group of guards, you'll soon learn to drag the prone chappy to another part of the map, so he's not discovered and then awoken by a cohort later on in the game. Using the map wisely saves a lot of painful repetition of certain actions!

The slower pace of these missions, plus their more varied locations outside the confines of the gladiatorial arenas, also mean that Shadow of Rome's extremely rich story gets told throughout the game, a potted history lesson is learned, and the attention to detail that Capcom have lavished on the Roman setting can really be appreciated. Kudos to Capcom for creating one of the most immersive and convincing historical game worlds I've ever had the pleasure to explore.

Having played the Onimusha series, masterminded by Shadow of Rome's creator, I automatically looked upon the inclusion of contrasting stealth sections as a 'palate cleansing' device, similar to the use of the quiet contemplative puzzle sections interspersed among the intensely homicidal slashery of the 'Musha games. On that level it works brilliantly, because as inventive and varied as Agrippa's gladiatorial events most certainly are, such constant cacophonous death and brutallity would undoubtably wear even the most bloodthirsty player down eventually. But to anyone who hasn't made that connection between Shadow of Rome's and Onimusha's uniquely schizophrenic gameplay style mix, or who is comparing SOR's stealth to its combat sections (and the quality of the stealth genre as a whole) it may possibly seem a bit on the weak side. This, unlike the duallity found in games like Onimusha (especially the 3rd in the series) where the two characters always performed similar tasks but in different times/ places, means that if you don't like what Octavianus has to offer, you're going to have to grit your teeth through a significant part of the game. Luckily I enjoyed his sections a great deal, and they improve in complexity and inventiveness as the game progresses.

It's a pretty big game, with about 20 hours gameplay available, and there's always something new to discover, in each playing style. My personal opinion is that Shadow of Rome would have benefited with unifying Agrippa's/ Octavianus's abilities a little more, so that moving between them wasn't so jarring, or even disappointing for detractor's of the stealth segments. Where this game's ancestor Onimusha 3 succeeded was in providing the variety for each character with puzzles, exploration, training based mini games, and of course peerless grounded combat which was as exquisitely tuned for one as it was for the other. Shadow of Rome feels a mite unbalanced because as much as I personally liked the stealth sequences, a more demanding stealth aficionado may come away feeling a little jaded with its artificiallity/ simplicity, and be relieved to be steeped in Agrippa's world of blood 'n' guts when those sections arrive again.

Still, for an intriguing take on Ancient Rome, with stellar visuals, great storyline and absolutely incredible gladiatorial fighting sequences, Shadow of Rome is the game to own. With a little more care taken on deepening the stealth part of proceedings, it would be an out and out classic. As it is it's a very solid, sometimes inspired action game that will keep you busy for hours, and you may just find that you like using banana skins to trip up unsuspecting guards as much as I did. :)

Presentation	9
Big bold characters stomping around in a lavish depiction of Ancient Rome. The frantic action hardly skips a frame, and the dust and giblets fly around with utter conviction.
Gameplay	8
The weaker stealth side of Shadow of Rome doesn't obviate the benefits given to this unique title by a truly majestic fighting engine. The best 'gladiator sim' evah!
Value	8
It's a long old game. It might feel longer if you don't like Octavianus's levels though.
Benchmark	7
Well, there's certainly very little else like it in terms of stealth/ action mix 'em ups, but perhaps its experimental nature may be a little too much for the casual gamer. And while it's a top drawer action game, hard core stealth fans may be left feeling a tad dissatisfied.
Score	8
Capcom's brave experiment in crafting a novel game firmly aimed at a western audience has largely succeeded, due in no small part to the marriage of a divine combat model to an equally excellent storyline.

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