Legends of Wrestling

"Old School Gameplay baybe!"

Game play: Very good but very slow. You simply cannot equate slow with bad in regard to this game. I mean if you’re a fan of these “legends” then you have to know that wrestling was different back then. In the “good ole’ days” a sixty minute draw was considered a great match. Two out of three falls were the norm in championship matches. Wrestling has not always been this extreme, five minute matches with constant run ins with bare ass men and women running around. This game truly takes us back.

You have to master the ISP meaning the initial starting position. Here your moves are based on the position you do them from. Most moves are better executed from the “grappling” position (press circle to go into a grapple). But you can pull off moves on the fly, it is just harder to do so making that arm drag and standing drop kick more satisfying when you manage to get one in!

The wrestlers are based on their real life counterparts meaning Tony Atlas and Hulk Hogan are not going to perform top rope body presses and Sabu and RVD are not going to knock you out with a few punches or perform over head body presses! Oh you will still occasionally see some ridiculous moves like Jerry Lawler power bombing King Kong Bundy but they are fewer than in most games. (Fire Pro SIMS Wrestling the best BTW but LoW does a nice job). You are also not going to toss your opponent into the ropes, nail a finisher, or a big critical move, until you wear them down. Try to do the big stuff too early and it will be reversed.

Combos are nice but very difficult to pull off requiring you to watch some silly meter hitting the right button at just the right time. I have yet to pull one off! Reversals are similar but a little easier to execute. Every match is sort of hard-core rules because there are no disqualifications. In fact the game encourages you to take it out of the ring and use weapons (that are hidden under the ring and have to be taken out by you or your opponent nice touch IMO).

At times the camera skips but I found this only on rare occasions and it never cost me big. A few little grips of mine is in the create a legend there is only one face to chose from but I still managed to make a number of authentic legends of my own. When I did however I learned you can not assign them together as a group or stable, hopefully this will be corrected in part 2 or maybe even the X-Box version coming up later. One very nice thing about the create a legend is that Acclaim recorded some legends names not in the game and the ring announcer will say the name in the game. Believe me it is much cooler to hear “Introducing Ric Flair” than to hear :Introducing Player One: or some lame nickname you are forced to give your CAW.

Career mode shines! You must wrestle in numerous “territories” across the Nation, areas such as “North East”, “Mid West” etc. You have to capture the title of each area on your way to the US title. Then when obtaining the US title you must defend it for sometime before the World Champion challenges you before finishing the career mode. This is a pretty long process with some tough single, tag, three and four way matches to win as you go. You also have to impress the fans by using a variety of moves, using weapons, bumping the ref, drawing blood, and using big time, heavy damage moves when the time is right. You do all this to build up your “popularity” rating and you have to fill that rating meter before moving on to the next territory. Very fun, challenging, and engrossing!

Over all: 8 (due to create a legend needing to be better)

Graphics: Very nice but nothing spectacular. They have a very cartoonish yet 3D look to them. Collision detection is very good with exception for the extremely large wrestlers going through you sometimes (King Kong Bundy in a figure four does not look very good!). I once also hit my opponent along side the outside of the ring and he fell through the ring! This didn’t happen all that often however and most of the time it actually does collision detection very well!

Over all: 9

Sound: The music is terrible but the game sounds are pretty good. The sounds the moves make, the grunts of the wrestlers, the refs orders, the ring announcer, are all done very well. The X-Box version should allow us to rip our own entrance music but so far no developer has been wise enough to use that as a feature.

Mixed bad

Over all: 7

Control: Well here is where most people will disagree. At first I hated the control but that is because I did not understand it! If you take the time to practice, read the manual (which helps little) and create a wrestler so you can see the moves you will catch on. Unfortunately some of the “cool” moves are locked until you open them in the career mode. I am not too fond of that idea but at least they are in there.

Everything is here however. If you have seen it on TV you can do it in this game…some moves may be harder to pull off but they can be done.

Over all: 9

Overall: A very nice game that plays differently than any other US Wrestling game on the market. I know everyone wants to compare it to WWF Smackdown Just Bring it but you simply cannot do that. You can compare some features, the graphics, and the “modes of play” but you simply cannot compare the control, style of game play, and take on the sport of Wrestling. They are just too different.

WWF Fans MUST own SDJBI
Old School fans must own LoW
Overall Wrestling fans MUST own both

Score (not an average) 8.5

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/01, Updated 12/06/01