WWE WrestleMania X8

"You can do much better these days."

Introduction:
It hurts me to give any game a bad score. Unless the game has either made me mad or absolutely appalled me, I like to find the good in it. Wrestlemania X8 has neither made me mad or appalled me, but the good just doesn't outweigh the bad in this case. For it's time it may have been good, but now you can definitely do better.

Graphics: 7/10
They are good overall, with nice pyro during the entrances, and the arenas themselves look good, but some of the character's faces just look wrong. Chris Jericho being a good example, I booted up the game and decided to play as Shane O Mac seeing as he has been absent from a lot of the newer games, and after looking through the list for a good opponent I saw Jericho. I started up the match and sat back and watched the entrances. Shane's was cool, especially with his "Here Comes the Money" theme. Then the countdown started, I was excited because I always liked Jericho's entrance. He did his arm thing and when he turned around, I was absolutely shocked at his face. I swear to you he looks like some kind of animal that I can't quite put my finger on. His nose is scrunched up and his face is just wrong overall. I think the developers should have gotten a few more opinions before they finished up the face models. Aside from slight issues like these, the graphics are nice, and get a thumbs up from me.

Sound: 6/10
This is probably the worst area of the game. In my opinion, the sound isn't that hard of an area to get right in a wrestling game, I don't care if the game has licensed background music, I have been content with the generic rock they have put in games since the original Smackdown. The only thing I feel that really has to be right in regards to sound is theme music, as the entrance is such a big part of wrestling these days. I have to say that the lack of the correct theme music on several wrestlers is rather annoying and hurts the experience a good deal. Some prime examples are Booker T, and the NWO. These were the two themes I was looking forward to most honestly, and neither one of them was the right one. I understand if you can't get the rights to a song or two but when you have 5+ guys that don't have the right music, I think you need to try just a bit harder. Another thing that hurt the score was the lack of ring announcing. I don't mind if you don't have commentary as people have been complaining about the quality of it for the last few rounds of WWE games to be released. I missed not having Lillian Garcia or The Fink tell me the name of the superstar heading to the ring as only they can do, and thus I have to knock off a few points.

Gameplay: 6/10
While four grapple moves in the normal standing position might have cut it when the game was released, now you can do much better. The way the game has it's grapple system set up wouldn't be all that bad if it weren't for the sheer lack of moves you can do. In Smackdown, I never noticed that I was repeating moves, but after a few matches you will notice yourself doing it in this one, not because you want to, but because there are not that many moves in your character's move list. Control wise the game does fine, although I don't like the way the reversals are mapped, but this is only because I am coming off of SvR which I borrowed from a friend. Other than that the game plays alright, aside from being too repetitive I can't really find anything to knock the game about. It just hasn't stood the test of time that well.

Overall: 6/10
I really can't recommend this game to anyone looking for a good wrestler these days. You have too many other good wrestlers on the market to waste your time with this one. If you collect games, I think this would be a good one as it has the original nWo, before Hall got released, and it isn't all that bad to play. If you are looking for a good WWE game, check out the Smackdown series. If you only own a Cube, Day of Reckoning is only 20 now, I highly recommend that one over this ho hum wrestler.

OOOWWWW Have Mercy!!!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/05