2016 Gladiators Slot Review

When we think of gladiators, we think of ancient Rome and Greece, back to a time when men were skimpily dressed as they competed to become a winner. Nowadays we refer to such competitors as Olympians, with their fitness seen as the pinnacle of what the human body can achieve. 2016 Gladiators brings together the two in this 3×5 grid, resulting in a modern day ancient Olympics design.

This is an incredibly modern title and so we were expecting lots of flashy animations and techniques, yet what we got was a primarily 2D interface; flatter graphics aren’t bad, but they certainly lack depth. The real question however, is whether this depth is lacking elsewhere and not just in the imagery, and so we need to properly test our skills to find out.

Setting the Stadium Ablaze

The burning flames from the Olympic torch make up the scatter symbol, and with its appearance it can bring about as many as 50 extra spins. This is a large amount to be getting on with, but it hardly instils that sense of sportsmanship within us, shouldn’t a title such as this one offer more? If you answered yes, your prayers have been answered as there is an extra to be found.

It’s called Sportsmen, and it consists of specific tiles depicting different types of activities like swimming and running. After you have spun the reels they’ll show up, and should one of them get a majority over the grid, a bigger payout will be gifted to you. If you match every one of the symbols in the same quantity, your win will be worked out in terms of priority symbols, e.g. the football icon is rated number 1 on the paytable.

Returning to Olympia

Continuing on with the theme of the Olympics, we wanted to demonstrate just how many different aesthetics surrounding this theme exist, with Gamescale’s Olympia being our guide. This is the type of aesthetic we had anticipated when we’d loaded up this title, as normally there’s greater reference to the ancient side of the sports than there is the modern. Some of the slots out there go against the grain, but it isn’t exactly common.

The 3-reels of Olympia is clearly different from the 5 you’re given here: you get a smaller space with which to navigate, and you play within a totally different environment. Nonetheless, the bare bones of the theme is there, which should help you feel somewhat at home. If we’re honest, we prefer the Gamescale title just because it adheres to what we expect an Olympic inspired slot to look like.

Modern Takeover

We’ve done a lot of skirting around the issue of style here, so it’s about time we focused on it a lot more, as it really alters how you see the game. As gamers we can appreciate that the brand wanted to try and deliver its audience something refreshing and new, but to ignore the gladiator side of the title seems wasteful. They could have married the present and past together in image as well as title, but they chose not to.

Disappointment aside, the colours of the interface are vibrant and welcoming, depicting excitement that we all know surrounds the Olympic Games. You get this quiet, bubbling atmosphere of adrenaline as you play, with the crowds in the background helping to enhance that. Our compliant isn’t that the design is wrong, just that it doesn’t work if you read literally into what the title is suggesting.

Soon to Be Dated

2016 Gladiators is a sports themed slot that is soon to be very dated, not least of all because of its name. It’s focused on a very specific time period, a single year even, which makes its longevity shorter. When playing 1960s based slots, you’ll note how they tend to look at the decade as a whole rather than just a couple of years from it; it’s why they play so well. They’re content avoids becoming outdated.

Furthermore, you have the fact that this real cash slot delivers virtually no variety when it comes to features, with the free spins being the only option available. This is a poor showing for a title based on human brilliance; there’s room here to play with interactive bonus rounds, but it wasn’t to be. This was meant to demonstrate excellence, but it shows lack of focus instead.