WWE WrestleMania XIX

"A good, yet somewhat flawed wrestling game."

No one is going to deny that Wrestlemania X-8 was bad. Very bad, in fact. THQ got its act together and released a great game, but still shortsighted a few things this time around.

Right off the bat you'll notice that roughly two-thirds of the roster is entirely Raw superstars, with the Smackdown superstars severely lacking. A closer inspection shows that only about 25% of the wrestlers on the roster are heels, while the rest are faces. If I recall correctly the only heels in the game when you start are Triple H, the Rock, Christian, Chris Jericho, John Cena, the Big Show, Kurt Angle (and they really chant YOU SUCK! during his entrance! Sweet.), William Regal, Lance Storm, and a mere handful of others. Lucky, there is a superstar edit function that allows you to edit the moveset and persona (from face to heel or vice-versa) that gives this some saving grace.

Speaking of movesets, a lot of those are flawed as well, with some wrestlers being given their finishers as part of their regular movesets and as specials. Why would you give Chris Jericho the Lionsault in his regular moveset and as a special and not as just a special when you consider that you can put the Springboard Dropkick in place of the Lionsault on his moveset? The same goes for Rey Mysterio and his 619 - it's both in his moveset and a special move, when he could be using the Springboard Dropkick or Springboard Crossbody in place of the 619 in his moveset and saving it as his special.

If you're a fan of current pro-wrestling, the first thing you'll notice when you actually start to play is that a lot of the entrances and attired are flawed. Take Christian, for instance - he has both new music and new attire, but it remains the old in the game, and the music is seriously wacked. The words at the beginning are cut short, and the beat of the music is too slow. Kane's old music is in the game, not his new music, and he's still masked. What the hell? Even in his titantron on the game, Kane is shown as being unmasked. Why then would you put Kane's stale gimmick in the game, and not his newer, fresher gimmick that started to actually draw? John Cena is sporting his old Eminem attire, not the new jean shorts look. I find that to be odd, considering he was wearing his new attire at the ROYAL RUMBLE, and that happened 3 months before Wrestlemania XIX. Oh well. The Dudley Boyz also do not have their new music, but actually just an instrumental of their old music. It doesn't sound very good at all. Rikishi has his newer music, but he switched back to his original music (the music of the Too Cool days) before the game came out.

Something else you'll notice as you start to play tag team matches is that there are only two teams that come out together, and they are the Dudley Boyz and Los Guerreros. During their entrances the focus is always on one of the members (Eddie for Guerreros and Bubba Ray for Dudleyz), and the other falls back behind the camera view. But still, even if THQ decided to let these teams come out together, why not let any tag team you choose come out together? Worse yet, why wouldn't they have done this for tag teams that existed around that time, like William Regal and Lance Storm, Christian and Chris Jericho, Christian and Lance Storm, and Kane and Rob Van Dam? Those teams were together before Wrestlemania XIX, so certainly THQ would have known about them. I could understand the Kane-RVD pairup if they decided to go with an unmasked Kane, but again, they still decided not to do that. Boo.

All of that aside, the entrances are spectacular visuals, with pyros going off all around. Want to see a lot of pyros? Check out Shawn Michaels entrance, as it was done almost to perfection.

THQ implemented new tricks on an older tried-and-true grappling system. The game has strong and weak grapples, as well as combination strikes and high-flying moves, although very few. Your wrestler has a special meter that fills up as you battle, and when it fills, you can perform your wrestler's finisher. The game still ultimately and centrally falls back on a grappling system, making for a much-slower paced game, and making high-flying wrestlers like Rob Van Dam and Rey Mysterio seem useless. You can't bounce around the ring with them like they'd normally do in the ring because of the severe lack of high-flying moves implemented into the game, and they become agile grapplers. You can't put high-flyers into a grappling system and expect them to maintain their persona. I can understand why things were done the way they were though, because most wrestlers nowadays seem to base around a grappling/power execution style, and you can't leave out Rey Mysterio or Rob Van Dam from the roster considering they are two of the most popular wrestlers in the game.

The game also features an all-new Revenge story mode in which you are beaten up and fired by Vince McMahon, and Stephanie McMahon offers you your job back if you help her. The ultimate plan is for you to sabotoge Wrestlemania XIX so that Vince loses his money and his position. Missions include destroying the construction scene, destroying the promotional materials, destroying cars, fetching briefcases, and stopping ships from getting to Wrestlemania. If you beat all of the missions, your final mission is to defeat Vince McMahon in the main event at Wrestlemania XIX to get your job back, and let me tell you, he is no pushover. After every mission you receive an amount of money based upon your time, skill, technique, and weapon use to spend in the Shopzone, where you can buy clothing and move templates for Create-A-Wrestler mode. Every area also has an unlockable boss that appears to be the boredom of the game creaters implemented into the game. Basically they just used some interesting clothing and textures from Create-A-Wrestler and made guys. There are 20 total. Interestingly enough, every boss's move template corresponds to an actual wrestler. In the end, although it's a good idea the first time through, Revenge Mode becomes incredibly boring and repetitive, and it's annoying when you have to keep doing it to get money for Ability Points for your wrestlers.

The game's Create-A-Wrestler mode is extensive, and in the end, outstanding. Finally, the GameCube gets a wrestling game where you can make and place your own custom art on your wrestlers. This allows for virtually endless possibilities with who you can make. You can edit everything from your wrestler's ability points, appearance, face (even as much detail as nose, mouth, eyes, eyebrow, cheekbones, and the like), body (reshaping and resizing proportions), moveset, fighting stance, fighting style, and even their entrances. Custom entrances are a lot of fun to make, but it's difficult to choose the correct camera angle since you have to watch the entire entrance before you can be sure it's the right one, as there are no preview features for camera angles.

The control is fairly easy with a low-medium difficulty learning curve. You'll only ever find that your problems lie in getting the timing for reversals down (yet there are even indicators that tell you exactly when to press which button) and pulling off some of the more high-risk moves correctly. Other than that, no problems at all.

There aren't many sound effects to speak of abound, but the music that is there is good. Other than the aforementioned above themes that are flawed, the other wrestlers' musics are done very well and translated with no problem.

Overall: 8/10
For the most part, it's a great GameCube wrestling game with a few minor flaws here and there that don't really drag down the overall experience of the game unless you're a stickler for details. I highly recommend it to fans of the genre, especially for the new $29.95 price tag.

Thumbs mostly up.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/04