WWE WrestleMania X8

"Takes 3rd for Wrestling game of 2002."

When GameCube first came out, wrestling fans who attained the least impressive of the three next generation consoles were ecstatic about hearing of THQ's WWE Wrestlemania X8, they heard so much about it, but when it finally came out, around the same time that the best of WWE RAW, WWE Wrestlemania X8 and WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth, Shut Your Mouth itself, came out.

When Wrestlemania X8 hit store shelves, many were disappointed and immediately returned to shelves, but those who either enjoyed it's arcade feel, or had the friends to play multiplayer all the time hung on to it.

Gripes aside, Wrestlemania X8 is still an enjoyable title, and whilst those who own WWE RAW, WWE RAW 2 Ruthless Aggression, WWE Wrestlemania XIX and WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth will indefinitely shove aside the title, it still has some fun to it.

An enjoyable factor is how challenging the AI is, one of the most impressive seen so far on most wrestling games, not to mention, it had something WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth didn't, the ability to break up performed moves, such as in a Triple Threat Match, if say you played as Jeff Hardy and the other two were Kane and Albert, and Kane got a Chokeslam from Hell on Albert, as soon as Kane grabs Albert's neck, you can stop Kane from hurting Albert by simply punching him, Kane will let go and flinch as will Albert.

The graphics are great, but unrealistic in a way, such as Booker T... who simply doesn't look like Booker T, and Triple H... who has more forehead than face and even Rob Van Dam, who has muscles like Brock Lesnar (who, disappointingly, isn't in the game), but nonetheless, the character models are still very polished and the arena lights flash beautifully.

Each character can have up to four special maneuvers, and while not every pre-made character has four special moves, you can still add, such as I did with The Hurricane, who only had Eye of the Hurricane, in which I added Chokeslam from Hell to represent the Hurri Chokeslam, and the Flying Crossbody.

A disappointing thing about this title is it's awful Create-a-Wrestler mode, as almost everything has to do with a past or present wrestler, which does indeed spoil the fun of making your own made up wrestler, and while you can still make three parts to your intro and music and everything, you are still left with a pathetic, familiar looking wrestler.

The moves list is large, but one of the smallest we have seen so far on any wrestling game, while games like SmackDown! give you hours of looking through hundreds of moves, this game only brings you one hundred moves altogether, at the MOST, out of all categories put together.

The singles mode “Path of a Champion” is more like “Path of an Arcade Champion” as it is ridiculously boring and very repetitive, not only do you go through a few singles matches, then triple threats and then fatal four-ways, but when it gets to more than one on one, it becomes extremely unforgiving, as the opponents have a tendency to gang up on you, and you are rewarded with a ridiculously easy title match, not much fun as I played it over and over and over and it just got so boring that I wanted to crack that disc in two as much as I ACTUALLY DID Universal Studios the game.

Another disappointing factor of this game (yes, another) is it’s unforgiving blocking engine, as when you press the blocking buttons, if you’re playing with a friend, they can easily pick out which blocking button you’re pressing and do, for example, a grappling move when you’re pressing away at the blocking of striking moves, or if they have a special, and you bash away at both buttons to block it and steal a special from them, they will continuously beat you down with grappling and striking moves.

Apart from the disappointment, there comes it’s almost unrivalled multiplayer factor, with so many Exhibition modes and match types to choose from such as the awesome Royal Rumble or even, if you and a friend want to take on two other friends, the tag team mode, or if you and a friend want to destroy one friend, then the 2 on 1 handicap mode.

Another thing that can be kind of enjoyable is the challenge of the Battle for the Belts, where you try for 52 pre-made belts, several of which are real/were real (Women’s Title, Rock Belt, Smokin’ Skulls Belt), I myself spent hours trying to clear the easy mode, normal mode, hard mode, and the awfully painful, Painful mode.

Overall, WWE Wrestlemania X8 is a game much like that of the First-Person Shooter Timesplitters 2 in the fact that it is enjoyable only in the multiplayer factor, everything unfortunately spoils what could have been one of the best wrestling games ever.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03