Trivia
Sales of this game were clearly far below the expected levels. Enough to have contributed to Acclaim's bankruptcy? You decide. Lot number 2013 in the "pick the bones" auction of Acclaim's assets consisted of Nineteen Thousand One Hundred Seventy Three (19,173) unsold copies of Gladiator Sword of Vengeance for PC.
Contributed by
ClydeFrog (10174) on Dec 06, 2004.
Acclaim billed this game as their bloodiest ever, but how do you get that message out?
Bloodvertising
Acclaim planned (not sure how this turned out) to place advertisements in UK bus shelters that would bleed. For six days, cartridges behind the ads would spurt red dye which would spill out on to the ground (and cleaned up at the end of the one-week campaign).
Watch the credits for humorous "outtakes" and other surprises.
In this game, Romulus and Remus are presented as the children of Jupiter. In traditional mythology, they are identified as the children of Mars and are responsible for founding Rome. Romulus is said to have killed Remus, so we can guess who's wearing the comedy mask and who's wearing the tragedy mask in the game.
The Dark Gods of the game, Phobos and Deimos, are called the "errant children of Mars." Errant maybe, but they belong to the Greek mythic tradition which places them as the children of Ares. They represent the aspects of Fear and Terror. Interestingly, Acclaim has much of this information on their web site.
Historically, Emperor Trajan reigned from 98-117 AD (or CE). This game is set in 106 AD/CE but the story allows for any discrepancies. Trajan's achievements were set in stone, the famous Trajan Column, and he was followed by Hadrian, famous for the Hadrian Wall.
