Review: XBLIG: Colosseum

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This review originally appeared on XBLARatings.com.
I have to admit, Colosseum was the first “Indie Game” I bought from Xbox Live – and for full disclosure: I bought it on accident. I intended to download the trial version and wasn’t paying attention to the dashboard when I magically bought the game at it’s original 800 Microsoft Points price point.

Still, after playing the game, I was absolutely hooked. The control system is unique, and works very well. You use your left analog stick to move your character around the screen and the right stick to attack. And yes, while this sounds like Robotron: 2084 or Geometry Wars, think of using that control scheme to play a game like Dynasty Warriors.

Graphically, the game is a treat. Using cell shaded effects like those you would see in Crackdown or the more recent Borderlands, the games art is crisp and stands out beautifully above many other Indie Games on Xbox Live. Cell-Shading, contrary to some people’s beliefs, is not a way to cover up bad graphics: it is merely an artistic and aesthetic choice which, in this case, pays off in spades.

The sounds in the game are also outstanding. I don’t know where the captured the sound effects from or if they bought the rights to a package of sounds, but they got a lot of them dead on. If I had to file one complaint, it’s probably just that there is a lot of reading to do, but a story unfolds as you play the game and it doesn’t often bore you to death with walls of text – but the game could benefit from some voice acting added in for effect. It seems like such a high quality production anyway, the guys at Shortfuse should be very proud.