Colosseum: Road to Freedom for PS2

GameSpot: "Currently scheduled for release in July, Colosseum: Road to Freedom is an action role-playing game in which you assume the role of a gladiator in ancient Rome. Colosseum: Road to Freedom will feature both cooperative and competitive play for two players when it ships in July, but for the purpose of this preview we've been exploring the single-player mode exclusively. Shortly after you start playing the game's story-driven single-player mode, you'll be sold as a slave and told that the only way you can win back your freedom is to repay your new owner the 1 million silver that you cost him. Your only income, predictably, will be the winnings that you earn in gladiatorial arenas, the vast majority of which goes straight into his pocket before you get a chance to spend it.

Colosseum: Road to Freedomscreenshot
The tutorials do a good job of familiarizing you with the game's unconventional controls.

Colosseum: Road to Freedom does a good job of easing you into your new life via a series of quick and easy tutorials at the same training camp where you'll be working out via a series of simple minigames in between arena days. The tutorials cover just about everything you'll need to know to survive as a gladiator, including multiple attack styles, dodging and parrying enemy attacks, sliding and rolling, crouching and jumping, picking up and throwing equipment, and managing your adrenaline meter. The controls are unconventional for a fighting game, but they're pretty intuitive, and it won't be long before you've decided on your favorite weapon combination and start to build an entire fighting style around it."

This title will be released in the PS2 format only.