Showdown: Legends of Wrestling

"Legendary failure"

I've been playing wrestling games my whole life because they appeal to me, I always find wrestling games fun, but this one is a different story. It could've been a WHOLE lot better. When you have wrestlers like Sting, Bret the Hitman Hart, Macho Man, and of course Hogan it should be a great game. But lets get on with the review.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics are very nice, though just like everything else they could've been better. It looks alot sharper on the xbox version which is expected. The arenas look alright, though you won't get to look at it long. You only see the whole arena once you do your entrance and the entrance itself is short enough. The crowd looks like paper, nothing special though you probably won't even notice the crowd. It's like... it's just there you don't notice the crowd. But the wrestlers look cool, Sting with the face paint, Hogan with his bulging muscles. Above average graphics.

Sound: 5/10
There is commentary in this game, and these commentators are the ones I used to like. Bobby the Brain and Tony. That's why the sound got even a 5 because I like these guys. But the thing is, they really suck in this game. Their dull and slow. You start the much right, and you've been wrestling for about 5 minutes, then all the sudden they say OK lets get this much started! Like it had just begun. Other times there will be glitches, (yes many glitches) and they will start talking and it will keep repeating what they just said over and over, though sometimes its funny it can get annoying. Music is...okay. Most of the music sounds ALMOST like the original. Not quite there.Then the entrance music that they give you that doesn't belong to any of the wrestlers, its horrible. Not surprised.

Gameplay: 2/10
Oright this is where I began to hate it. It's just unbelievably bad. N64 had better gameplay than this. It's very repetitive with the slams and tie ups you do. It goes to fast also, you never really know what move your going to do. Submissions are very short, which is good I don't like just to sit there and look at them. Reversals aren't very good, it says press the square button to reverse or block. Ok so I do that, but guess what? It hardly ever works, EVAR. You'll maybe get 2 or 3 in a match, if even that. While they'll probably get at least 8 or 9. It can be very cheap. The matches are long, can take from 10 to 60 minutes. There are no stats in this game also which I didn't like. There is table matches, ladder matches, first blood, cage matches, hardcore, 2 3 4 man tag matches and just regular matches. With no stipulations and it's only one on one it can get dull.

Story Lines: 1/10
They are crappy, I didn't even pay attention to them

Replayability: 3/10
Meh, I think your able to unlock a couple hidden wrestlers, I'm not quite sure on that but there's nothing else to unlock, and matches are just... dull. You don't really notice the blood either. Every now and then they'll do a close up and you can see it, but if they had made blood more of a factor and showed it more, I would've played more it brings me pleasure to beat the living crap out of someone while showing the blood.

Fun Factor: 1/10
Lemme put it this way...it's PATHETIC. Some people find this game very entertaining, I've seen many people on the message board say they've played it 6 hours straight or even more. But, if you want a real wrestling game, just stay with Smackdown. But for xbox owners, this is an improvement over their Raw series.

BUY or RENT
HA I'm tempted to say neither, but its worth a try.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/04