Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home

"Do I need to make a joke about the subtitle here?"

When me and my little brother were in our early teens, we were into wrestling. So much that my bro' was involved in a ''basement league'' where they started out imitating WWF and WCW wrestlers; Konan, Gangrel, etc., in a shoddy ring made of support beams, pipes, and electrical tape.
Soon it evolved into more original personalities, like ''Flashy Boy Funk Flex'', ''Slacks'', and ''The Masked Ref'' and they added stuff like chairs, ladders, and Play School toys into the melee.
Still, it wasn't anything like what we hear about backyard wrasslin' today, and certainly wasn't anything like we get in Backyard Wrestling the game.

I honestly tried to dig this game. I've played almost every wrestling game on the market, and dug every one to some degree. But this... This just ain't a wrestling game. Sure, you got the moves and the ''celebs'', but I don't think even the most out of control kids would start up an impromptu match at a gas station. A gas station with a WOOLY MAMMOTH, at that.

Control 4/10
I actually found the control easy. An odd thing to say after giving a score of 4, but then I'm giving it a 4 BECAUSE it was easy. Everything else drags it down. Standard fare, press X to hit, O to grapple, and forget the rest, because all you'll need to know is how to punch until they're stunned and then grapple and slam them into submission. The other stuff seems odd though. To use your finisher, you tap both square and X. Why not an L or R button? And why do you have to tap both L1 & L2 to change the BGM? Crazy. Plus a serious lack of move choices means you repeat the same 4 bloody slams all game, making your greatest challenge in the control to be ''should I use X+up or X+down?''

Gameplay 2/10
So much to say, so little time... Cheap. The game is cheap. You could be a mile behind a wrestler, and the bottle they threw in front of themselves would still hit you. Honest. Those tires and basketballs must have heat seeking microchips or something. Plus they will constantly hurl that junk at you on end, keeping you from getting close, or up on your feet for that matter.

Another word for the game is short. The games is REAL short. I rented it at about 3:30pm, played it at 4:15pm, finished Talk Show Mode by 6:00pm. Although I should be thankful, because if I had to spend a number of days completing it, I wouldn't be able to have tag matches or more than 4 characters. That's right, unless if you complete the game, it's about as deep as shareware, and after you finish, you don't even want to reap the rewards, because by then you realize it stinks.

Also, why have we brought back to old system of health bars? You'd think Eidos would notice that THQ doesn't use them, and has done a better job than past games with bars. Of course there are other factors to THQ's success that Eidos seems to have ignored.

By the by, the CAW S-T-I-N-K-S, STINKS!

The reason why it gets a 2 is because the finishers do look funky (too bad you have to play the game), and the animations were decent.

Music 4/10
Listen, I'm a bit of a closet ICP fan. I mean, the guys themselves are jerks, but they do have some decent tunes, sadly only two of their good tracks ('Hocus Pocus' and 'Down With The Clown') are in this, the rest are kinda... Meh. Honorable mentions go to Sum 41, and the cover of 'And I Ran'. Otherwise a forgettable soundtrack. Neat to see stuff like Chimera and Biohazard in though.

Graphics 3/10
I said the animations were okay, and the the models themselves were fine as some games go. But it seemed more like the stuff you'd get on PS1, not a PS2. My brother, a rabid Sabu fan (point to the rafters!) was heard to say ''That doesn't look like Sabu at all!'' I concur.

Story 2/10
Yes, they had a ''story''. You play a series of matches based on the ''testimonies'' of guests on some talk show. The jokes weren't funny, and the ''ending'' was obvious. Personally I would've rather seen you do a ''career mode'' where you would fight up from the backyard to the indies, and finally JCW. But then again I'm not getting paid thousands to create video games, so what do it know? (can you tell I'm rolling my eyes here)

Overall 3/10
You know, rarely do I feel like I've wasted my cash when I rent a bad game, since it only costs me 5 bucks. But in this case I do really feel ripped off. Watching the promo video I really had to smirk. ''If you want ballet, then get WWF, but if you want to good stuff, get BYW''? Well, a ballet is a thing of beauty, so I think I will take it as opposed to the garbage Eidos has presented me with, thankyouverymuch.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/27/03