American Gladiators is an athletics competition in which amateur athletes, called "contenders," compete against each other and against the show's stable of professional athletes, called "gladiators," in multiple events testing their strength and agility. The contender with the most points at the end of the game is the winner and earns the title of "American Gladiator."
There are two modes: a Head to Head mode where two players compete against each other and a Tournament mode where one to eight players compete in a tournament bracket (with computer players substituting for the other contenders when fewer than eight players are present). Head to Head consists of a single round, and Tournament is divided into three rounds (quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals). Each round consists of six events. Matches only involving computer contenders are not shown, but their results are shown in the tournament bracket after every round.
When starting a competition, players choose male or female (which affects all competitors), and each player enters a name. Regardless of how many players are in the game, each event is only ever played by one or two players simultaneously. In games with more than one player, the blue player always controlled by the first control pad and the red player is always controlled by the second control pad. Players control the contenders while the computer always controls the gladiators.