I'm gonna shoot for 20 minutes on this one because I have a LOT to say about this game. So here we go kicking off Quick Review #5 with the following game:



Now you have to keep the following in mind: I've NEVER purchased a Wrestling game in my life. The closest I've gotten was watching a friend of mine play TNA Impact. After watching Wrestlemania XXV a couple of weeks ago, I decided a Wrestling game had to be in my collection. QMarc8O suggested this one. With a gift card that QMarc8O gave me for my birthday, I purchased a used copy of this game.

For a Wrestling noob like myself, this is a very fun game. Everything is done "Smash Bros." style. Different things are possible based on a movement of the directional pad and either the X or the A button. Y is block and B is to pin. Me and QMarc were able to pick this game up and get to thrashing without even looking at the directions. Wrestling "vets" might complain about this, but I like it.

Graphically the game is very realistic. The detail in the various Wrestlemania locales are taken right from the footage of the actual events. The Wrestlers themselves look just like they should, and the game even details how sweaty they are. In some cases, the computer generated characters look better than their real life counterparts (Rick Rude...eww). The matches start with each character's signature entrances. They're pulled right out of the footage as well. Even The Undertaker's ridiculously long entrance where he rolls his eyes into the back of his head remains intact.



On to game modes. There are two modes you can play in Single Player. The first is Wrestlemania World Tour, where you either Relive, Redifine, or Rewrite classic Wrestlemania matches. Each match is introduced with a video of actual footage from the match's storyline. Then you are treated to footage of the match itself. For anyone who is new to wrestling, like me, this is a fantastic way to see some of the matches you may have missed in the 80s and 90s. It's unfortunate the full match isn't unlockable, but there's always YouTube for that. If you meet certain objectives during these matches, you earn medals. There is no specification as to what these medals are for except to unlock new matches for multiplayer. Even so, you only need 3 medals to unlock the remaining matches leaving the rest of them pointless to earn (and very frustrating) unless you want to go for XBL achievements. Another frustration in the gameplay is how good of a button masher you need to be. Years of gaming have given me a pretty rapid fire finger, but this game puts me to shame. I find myself unable to kick out of pins or escape from cages very easily because I can't button mash the way they want me to. It can be very frustrating to keep from winning a match just because of the button mashing demands, espicially when your finger hurts and there's nothing you can show for it. That sounded bad.



The other mode is Legend Killer. You start this by creating your own wrestler. I was very impressed in how detailed this mode is. You can spend hours getting facial features, clothes, and wrestling moves just right. My wrestler is Mike "Redneck" Jones. This is a survival mode style series of matches where you fight 10 wrestlers in a row. You recover a little bit of energy with each pin. At the end of each match that you win, you are presented with experience points that go towards who knows what (if there is anything you can do with these points, I haven't found it). I found myself not liking this mode very much mostly because I kept getting instantly pinned the fifth match in. I'm guessing you have to keep playing to get good enough to survive against the legends, but that looks like it'll take awhile. After all the time and effort I put into making my wrestler, it seems a waste to see him go down so easily.



Multiplayer is a lot of fun. Everything is there: ladder matches, submission matches, cage matches, even tag team! If you can find friends either locally or through XBL (anyone wanna play?) to throw down with, you'll have a great time.

Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 6
Music/Sound: 8
Overall: 7.5

Time spent with game: 5 hours
Time it took to write review: 33 minutes (Damn! I need to get better!)
Status of game: In the XBox 360. Soon to be returned to the DVD rack for NHL 09.