Ultimate Muscle: Legends vs. New Generation

"Good game, lack of moves hurt it."

I decided to do a new topic for this. Ok I really did walk into this with an open mind. I must say with both games I bought it for the engine and not the people in it. I'm sure many other people did too. And for those people who are buying these games because of AKI then let me stress this, BUY DEF JAM.

CAW 6/10
With that said let me explain. First Def Jam had no CAW, I looked past that, but in my heart it was the one thing I wanted. So this game has one, but I must say with a great deal of passion, that it's worthless. The things people who have no idea what this game is would want, are not here. There are like 20 heads tops, then you can change there color, 5 2 or 3 heads are wasted on animals, and the closest thing to a human head looks like mega man. Now the body's, though limited, are actually very good and fun to play with. In the end though it's probably something you'll use like once. Part 2 of CAW, the next thing people would want is to make their own move list, well sorry you can't. All you can do is pic a finisher and give it some type of sick name. There is a cool option to set your personality, which I believe affects your move list.

ENGINE 5/10
So on to the engine. AKI's real engine is in Def Jam, if you want ti buy that. Now for this game you get the A button to be your punch and kick button, and if you don't like that tuff because that ain't changing no matter what. I found myself using the c control scheme because it resembles the Def Jam scheme at least a little, putting you grapples on B. Now speaking of grapples, this is where the game lost it for me. Characters have like no variety, I must have DDT some guy last night 100 times in one match. No matter which direction or strength you do you grapple with your going to do the same move, the only way your not is if don't press any direction, so yay to one move, if there was a way to do another I'd love to hear it. You now have to use 2 buttons to throw someone which also sucks, but it least it looks sick, so that's a win loss situation. And just so you know, you don't hook up to grapple in this game like in Def Jam or No Mercy, you instead just do the move as you hit the button like in the really sucky Smackdown series. In the end we have Finishers. First off finishers can be done after like 4 moves if you use a lot of grapples, so that's kind of lame. They almost never cause the match to end(there is no pin option), as a matter of fact I usually end up doing my same finishers(yes there is only 1 level 3 for each guy, and only about 20 to choose from) 3 times a match and then it ends in KO with a punch or something else really lame after it I have done it. On the bright side most of the finishers look pretty sick in the cinema they show, but they get old fast after you see them like 3 times in one match, and some are just basic moves hyped up looking because lightning is shooting around in the back ground. The submission ones make no sense because there is no option for a tap out. And on the basis that most of these moves WOULD KILL A MAN, they really should do more damage when they are hit. Def Jam is set up in a way where they would prefer you ko someone also, but when you hit the finishers in that game, most people stay down 8 out of 10 times.Graphics 7/10
Graphics. I should touch on this, there are some that are great, some that are very dull, it's very hit and miss.

Story 4/10
Ok this game will let you go into story mode with like 10 people. But it's not like Def Jam or the WWE games recent story modes with nice cinemas or people walking around talking to eachother. Instead it's a picture of the wrestler you have and another picture of your opponent, you then watch them talk smack in dialog boxes for about a minute and a half(yes it speaks for you, but you can read faster than they talk) and then a match with no intro's ensues(did I mention there are 0 entrances, something I was hoping would be added in an over the top game like this, and something that I missed in Def Jam also).

Overall 6.5/10
So what's good? Well it's fast, it can be very flashy, once you ca accept that this isn't the old AKI engine at all you can kind of get into what is left over. The jump button in pretty sweet, being that you can launch yourself of of the turnbuckles and ropes to do moves. Other than this I don't know what to say, I was hoping for more, especially more moves, the game is fun and good, but if your buying this for the AKI name being behind it, then don't, you want and need to play DEF JAM which does own this game in every way, other than to things, this game has tornado tag matches which was sorely missing, and a very shallow CAW.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/10/03, Updated 06/10/03