http://wii.ign.com/articles/110/1104229p1.html

Review score: 5

So, High Voltage was set to capture the "hardcore" on Wii with the conduit.  Then they bring us this.  Is it to do exactly the opposite? Are they hoping to scare these gamers so that they buy the HD version of the Grinder?  What about the Conduit 2?

Seriously, it just seems that no effort was put into this game at all. But why???

What makes you think "hardcore" gamers buy or don't buy games because of reviews? That implies they are sheep, not people who like games.

If this game doesn't sell well, it will be because gamers don't like it, not reviews.

As for the question, I'm wondering if the reviews are hating on it more because it wasn't what they thought it should be, not what it actually is. There was a lot of negative feeling over the change from the initial build, and that seems to have caused a lot of people to not give this game a chance, regardless of whether it is any good or not.

Sega really tore this one apart. Seems to be what happened at least.

oh thats not good...

People saw this  game failing 18 months away. Anyone who thought that Gladiator A.D.-turned-Tournament-of-Legends would get anything higher than a 7 from any review site simply doesn't exist.

After the redesign, EVERYONE knew this would be a poor game.

They should of stuck with Gladiator A.D.'s design and style. At first I thought it would be a pretty good game until they changed it to Tournament of Legends.

Sheep is exactly what the majority of the current mass of "hardcore" gamers are, as big if not bigger then the "casual" crowd.

There was a time when "hardcore" actually meant something, now any dweeb that gets an achievement on Live calls himself that because he likes to play FPS games or logs in stupid amounts of hours while playing like crap. This is elitist of me, I recognize that but it besmerches the name of the original and true hardcore gamers, those out winning tournaments, finding ways to break or balance the games and other true achievements,  the media term that has gone out declaring everyone plays GTA gets to be considered hardcore.

And the fact is, I am not even close to being a hardcore gamer myself, but it irks me.

P.S. I was worried about this game back when it was called Gladiator A.D. and the early previews likened the combat to Punch Out. Granted, I love Punch Out but the warning flares kicked in at that point, oh my Lord the warning flares.

Sales are going to be horrendous. It was clear to me this one would fail even before it became Tournament of Legends. While it might have faired slightly better in its older form, while many people (at the time) went ZOMG over The Grinder, there was almost no interest for Gladiator AD excepot some lone voices here and there.

But don't worry, once this will bomb big time (imo guaranteed far worse than Extraction's 1st NPD), someone will use it yet again in the age old argument of 3rd party games don't sell on Wii. Same as Extraction (that did get better reviews, ok) - it was clear right from the moment it was announced to be on-rails almost to anyone (given the strong reaction by people) that it will fail, but that didn't prevent its being used as the flagship game to prove 3rd party core games don't sell.

This was not a smart move by Sega, they should have scrapped this game, since this game (not just the sales, but the game itself) will also imo have a negative impact on Conduit 2 sales. At least some of the people who were willing to give Conduit 2 the benefit of the doubt will say "well if this their latest effort one year later then no way Conduit 2 will be an improvement over 1". I am not one of those who think this says anything about Conduit 2, but some people will be, costing Conduit 2 sales.

Being on rails is not the reason Extraction sold poorly. Being a game that looked boring, which is against the spirit of rail shooters, is why it sold poorly.

Does anyone actually care about capturing the hardcore? I've got more than enough games to be getting on with at the moment. Tri is annihilating my time and I now have a vast backlog of games. And only July and August (though I'm gonna get FlingSmash and Arc Rise) that are relatively game release free.... aieeee!