Hoping to capitalize off of the slow news week that is the week before E3, High Voltage Software has revealed Gladiator A.D. for the Wii, which is to be a followup to their yet-to-be-released The Conduit. Set in the Roman gladiator arenas, the game is described as a fighting game, of sorts, comparable to Fight Night. The main difference, however, is that you can cut off people's heads. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty good selling point in my book, especially when the developers note that they plan on slowing down the game during large attacks to emulate the cinematography in films like 300.

In an interview on IGN the developers go into details about the game, but most of it sounds like an attempt to build up some hype. It's a fighting game, first and foremost, with a splash of RPG and some action thrown in for good measure. It's explained that each character will have a unique back story, which will likely translate into a fourteen second cut-scene before the arcade mode starts.

It will run off of a modified version of the engine powering the Conduit and support Wii MotionPlus, all of which point to it being one of the most polished games on the system, despite it being far from a release. They're currently hoping for a Q1 2010 release, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear more as soon as next week. There are plenty of more images and a few more details on IGN's website, and check back during E3 for a full report on exactly how hard we looked for a playable version of the game on the show floor.