M.U.S.C.L.E.

"An entertaining game, which unfortunately lacks a little too much in the wrestling department"

Not long after the video games industry was born, companies tried to make traditional wrestling games on the early consoles, with more or less successful results. The Video games area is indeed very fitting for wrestling, but as we all know, such games need a lot of spark-n-spices if they want to capture the true wrestlemania feel. One of the earliest attempts was Bandai's M.U.S.C.L.E., a poorly programmed, sloppily drawn, strangely planned, yet undoubtedly charming game. Based upon a classic manga from Japan called "Kinnikuman", M.U.S.C.L.E. is a classic wrestling game where two tag teams settle their scores inside a wrestling ring.

For such an early wrestling game, there is a high amount of characters you can choose. No less than eight wrestlers are available. Of course, their names aren't spelled out. And their portraits don't do them justice, so you just hope to pick the good one from a bunch of bulky gray face portraits. All the wrestlers look like huge mutant men, all with their own style of clothing. We have a viking, a kung fu-master, a knight, a sort of an Indian Hindu god and a Ric Flair-look a like. I could be wrong about these guys, but this is what I think they mean to represent. The game is tag team mode only, so each side has to choose two guys each. You then start the battle in either one-player mode (a tournament, where you face one team after another), or a two-player mode where two human players face off against eachother.

While M.U.S.C.L.E. is highly creative and ahead of its time in certain parts, it is also heavily scarce in others. First of all, the touch of a tag team style is very neat. I bet the next game with a tag team match didn't come until one generation later. Also, you get three types of rings to rumble in: a plain ring, an ice ring and an electric ring. The plain ring is your average wrestling arena, the icy ring has a slippery floor which makes the players slide around if trying to move with too quick steps, the electrified ring gives a punishing shock to anyone who touches the ropes or the posts. A nice ingredient we want more of.

But M.U.S.C.L.E. is also lacking a lot in other departments. First of all, while the amount of wrestlers is nice, the array of moves the game holds is extremely thin. All in all, you are only capable of making around five standard moves - INCLUDING punching and hammer whips! This means that the rumbling battles we look for aren't very hot and heavy. The game is also a bit weak in the controls department, making it a difficult task to perform well-timed moves. This takes away a lot of action from the game.

Fortunately, all the eight wrestlers have their own special move. These moves are all unique and quite crazy compared to the standard moves, which makes the game a bit more colourful. The most interesting thing is how your wrestler gets the ability to do these moves. Now and then during a game, a small guy starts running around outside the ring. Then he throws in a blinking icon. The wrestler who picks up this icon gets super powers. A very randomized and confusing method, but still acceptable. This gives the fight a nice strategic touch. However, the special moves are sometimes highly ridiculous, and some of them are very unfair. One of the wrestlers for example, gets the ability to shoot axes when he gets the icon. Not very fair, is it? Others get abilities where they need to get behind their opponents to execute their move, which can be a very difficult task.

While M.U.S.C.L.E. is a bit poor overall, the nice touches and the average simplistic way of playing makes it an okay game. Nice parts are the tag team concept, the special moves, the different kinds of ring and the way your player starts to stumble and walk slower when he is badly beaten up. Some of the weaker spots are the lack of moves, the inability to walk outside the ring or climb the turnbuckle, the lack of more game modes, the unfair distribution of special moves, the poor graphics and samples and the weird fact that the aim of the match is not to pin your opponent, but rather knock him unconscious. Works fine, of course, but a simple pin system would have been more appropriate for a wrestling game.

All in all, M.U.S.C.L.E. is absolutely not a bad game. It is quite fun to play, both as a one-player game and a two-player party. The challenge level is well-balanced too, so you will have some nice bouts with the CPU. Still, there is not much left here once you have played for about thirty minutes. With no bonuses, no extra game modes and no fancy collection of moves, M.U.S.C.L.E. falls very well below the line of becoming a classic game. If Bandai had made a sequel to this game many years later, it would probably had included all these things we miss. But for now, we are stuck with this inferior, but worthy predecessor to the upcoming thundering wrestling games.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/06