Legends of Wrestling II

"Recreating History....the best you can"

For anyone who reads this and recognizes the name, they will know I have been a loyal wrestling fan since I was old enough to talk. I've followed wrestling over the last 2 decades and that I have seen basically every big name grappler compete in a squared circle. So naturally, when I heard of LoW, I quickly rushed out to buy it, but I found it quite under par due to its slowness. But when I heard LoW II was coming out, I thought maybe it will be better....and in some parts it is, but in some cases, its not.

Graphics: (6/10)
What Aclaim was going for was a larger then life look from the past, that resembled the action figures of the past, which is quite nice to look at considering a too close to the real thing game kind of ruins all hope of something different. The arenas are nice, but the crowd looks terrible.

Story: (n/a)
Its Wrestling, but in this case, you must compete in different territories around the country to gain fame and win titles, but still, its a wrestling game so no rating.

Gameplay: (7/10)
This is probably the most controversial bit about this game. Some people find it too slow, some say too fast, I think it is a little too fast myself, compared to LoW 1, but it doesn't bother me. The other is the grappling system, which I enjoy. It seems most people I know who hate this game is cause they are TOO use to the Smackdown system which is a ''button masher''. As long as its not a Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat system its fine by me.

Modes: (9/10)
Considering this is old school, its traditional not to have any gimmick matches that didn't exist before the new age era of wrestling. Everyone thinks the Ladder match was just introucded to wrestling in the WWF during Shawn Michaels tenure as HBK, but in actuality, the ladder match dated back to Stampede Wrestling when several of them were between Bret Hart/Dynamite Kid and Bret Hart/ Bad News Allen (brown). The Cage match is more unique to old school cause back then you could only win by going through the door, instead of escaping over the top. the one mode i love the most is the 8 man tag elmination matches, which reminds me of Survivor Series past before it was watered down to crap.

CAL Mode: (3/10)
That's being generous since it sucks beyond belief, but not as bad as one would say. Sure its VERY limited, but i rarely use CAL/CAWs so it doesn't bother me much.

Roster: (9/10)
Of course, titled Legends of Wrestling 2, the game features nothing but wrestling greats of the past (and a small percentage of the current times) giving wrestling gamers the nostalgia feel that plagues everyone, no matter what. No one can say they havn't liked something of the past years later and keep a straight face.

Overall:
Well, this game is mediocre, but could have been better if Aclaim developers weren't so damned lazy, cutting corners whenever they could. Sure, career mode was better, but come on, it got a little boring after a while. Andy why aren't the jobbers playable? lol.

34/50 = 6.8/10 (aprox.) rounded off is 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/02, Updated 12/28/02