WWE WrestleMania X8

"WMX8...The Showcase of Dissapointments"

WMX8...The Showcase of Dissapointment

First off I wanna start by saying that I have played every wrestling game ever, from Pro Wrestling, to Tecmo Wrestling, to the LJN WWF games on multiple systems, the Godsend Aki series(VPW-No Mercy), Fire Pro, you name it Ive played it, even more dissapointing offerings from out THQ buddies like WCW Nitro and its identical twin Thunder. WMX8 almost falls on the same category as the latter.

Graphics- The game shines on this category as it offers some smooth and very well animated, though cartoony characters models. Some wrestlers look blocky and with big feet while others look exactly like their real life counterparts. But all is not well in the Graphics department. As if it wasnt enough that the majority of the WWE superstars in this game dont have their actual entrance theme, the entrances suffer another drawback due to some poorly animated characters and a case of the stiff assed walk that plagued RAW on the X-box. Still moves such as strikes and grapples look very smoothly and at decent pace due to the animation as opposed to some of SD JBI's clipped looking animations. 8/10

Sound- Finally, Nintendo wrestling games step out of the days of midi or poorly compressed themes and music and provide decent sounding sounds. Still the theme music sounds like its played from inside a can, and some of the thumps, strikes and hits sound either like a frozen piece of meat getting hit or a rusty old tin can. The missing theme music really kills the overall presentation and the true feeling of a WWE show. 6/10

Control- The control is a double edge swrord. In one way its easy to learn and you can start playing from the get go, but at the same time its a mess. When you try to put several different commands on the same button combinations it really creates a frenzy and confusion, especially on heated 3 and 4 way dance battles. The counter system is supposed to be extensive but in reality its just another mess, sometimes they are accurate and responsive while other times no matter how well you time the button presses they wont work. On a side note using the analog stick to control your movements is not bad, but it can get confusing and a lot of times youll end up doing the wrong grapples and strikes. 7/10

Fun Factor- The game has a fair amount of match types to choose from, including the most notorious like TLC, Ladder, and HIAC(which is full sized by the way). The fact that there is no story or career mode really brings the score down, you only have a Path of a Champion mode where you fight 8-10 matches in which the number of opponents increase as you go up. For example the first three matches are single(some of them might include random stipulations like Ladder etc.), then you you wrestle two to three 3 Way Dances(usually ladder), then a 4 way dance and finally the title match. The CPU can sometimes be as cheap and lame as the one in the old Acclaim WWF and ECW games and the fact that the collision detection on multi wrestler matches is a bit off doesnt help. Try wrestling a 3 or even a 4 way ladder or regular match, everytime someone tries to punch another guy all 4 fall flat on the ground as if the ring exploded. See how much fun you have when it happens every 20 seconds. Also when you are doing a submission and you get hit by a 3rd wrestler both you and the guy you are doing the submission to fly off like they were tossed away. The corner table breaking is awful. Now here is where Yukes really dropped the ball straight down to hell, the CAW. I never though LOW and the previous Acclaim games(WWF and ECW) could ever be surpased as having a terrible CAW, WMX8 did that and with flying colors. Not only do you get 5 front grapples, but when you try to edit a few of the move sets or give moves to your CAW you find out there are barely 50 moves more or less(countig strikes and grapples together) to choose from. You only have moves from wrestlers already on the game, in other words and americanized, dumbed down selection of moves. Here are a few that are missing from this game:

Piledriver(and its pulling, cradle variations)
Tiger Driver(and all its variations)
Death Valley Driver(and its Burning Hammer variation)
Swinging Neckreaker
Dangerous DDT
Flowing DDT
Michinoku Driver
Emerald Fusion(Frosion)
Kneeling Powerbomb(TF Powerbomb)
Green Mist
Iconoclasm
Shining Wizard
Falcon Arrow

And the list goes on and on.......

Also they give you just enough accessories(shirts, pants and logos) to only create some of the WWE people that are missing(HBK, Billy & Chuck, DDP, Hugh Morrus etc...). There are no entrance attires for CAWs, not masks, paints, glasses, hats or any sort of accessories for the head. The only mask is Mankind's and its just on a premade face. Speaking of faces, just 14 like noted by a lot of other people. Very dissapointing considering previous games like Smackdown JBI(which runs on the same engine as WMX8) and No Mercy had literally 3 times the amount of moves and clothing/accessory options to choose from in CAW. Its almost as bare and bad as Smackdown 1's CAW. 5/10

In closing arguments I would like to say that I had good hopes for this game, especially when I heard Yukes was developing it and that they were fine tuning it to make it more simulation inclined, but as soon as the videos, the media and the reviews from people with final versions surfaced, all those hopes turned to dissapointment, and that is exactly what this game is. To put it in other words I went at 10:00am to pick the game up and by 3:30pm, after playing it by myself and with 2 friends who are major wrestling game fans like myself, I took it back and to my not so big surprise, the lady just went ''Agh, another Wrestlemania right?'' as soon as she saw me stand by the counter and pull out the reciept, cause as it turns out mine was the 4th copy returned during the course of today.

My advice, waste just $4 and rent this, then save the other $45 and get Smackdown 4, RAW 2 or Fire pro when they come out.

Overall- 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/02, Updated 06/12/02