Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home

"A Flaming Pile in Fast Motion"

Introduction
Ohk, I want to start off by saying, this isn't a review as it is more of a warning...this game is so bad, you will be punishing yourself everytime you play it...and you'll basically shoot yourself when you realized that you paid 50 bucks for this thing. Now on to the review.

Sound 4/10
The music in this game is ohk, I mean it's got a decent soundtrack, I mean I think this is one of the good things about the game, if there is such a thing. The game sounds are decent, I mean the broken wood sounds like it should, and same with screams and other things, but it just seems a bit too much, I didn't much care for the sounds as a whole, so I just ended up putting on a CD in my room to drown the sound out.

Graphics 5/10
The game looks good, not great, but it does look like it has lower end PS2 graphics, but at least it doesn't look like it's from Playstation, which many crap piles do. The fire looks alright, and the surroundings really give you the feel of backyard wrestling, so they aren't that bad, but I have definately seen alot better in wrestling games, and especially from Eidos' other games, they didn't spend too much time on these to make them special, but they are definately the best part of the game.

Controls 1/10
I understand that wrestling games don't necessarily have great controls and everything, since I am a veteran of Smackdown and Wrestlemania, but come on, this game doesn't have a sense of control at all, there is nothing at all that keeps this game from flopping in this department. The action is too fast to make the controls worth a lick. I would have rather been beating my head in with the controler instead of using it to control a worthless blob on the screen, becuase that is what happens in this game. The computer runs at you so fast, there is no sense of reversals in the game, the grapples are the only thing I can understand, becuase many of the time, unless I was on ''normal'' mode, I would be punched into a bloody pulp before I could actually make a grapple with the opponenet, it's really frustrating, and these are by far the worst controls in a fighting/wrestling game I have ever seen.

Gameplay 2/10
The modes they give you to choose from aren't bad, they main thing to do is the Talk Show mode which is basically the season or story mode of the game, and to be honest it's not half bad, at the core, but becuase you actually have to have matches in this mode, it's flawed. Exhibition mode should be renamed ''Waste of Time'' or something similar, becuase the matches that you have are either unecessarily hard, with the computer rushing you at every moment, or too easy where you just keep pummiling your opponent till they are knocked out. It's a pointless few minutes, I mean there is no reason to keep playing this game, unless you like being bored out of your mind.

Overall 3/10
This game is crap, whether you can buy it for 50 or 5 dollars...DON'T! You will hate yourself if you do, becuase there is nothing in this game worth playing it for, sure you can watch some of the videos of the near naked women, but when there is the internet why even bother with your time...and there is always BMXXX which is soo much better than this. If you had to rent or buy this game do neither and consider yourself lucky, thank god I have a Blockbuster Games Feedom pass, and I didn't have to pay 6 bucks for a week of this torture, this game is going back as soon as I get my car back, and I will never speak of it again...that is how bad this game is. I can't believe Eidos made such an interesting concept into complete crap, but they did, sadly enough.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/03