Legends of Wrestling II

"LOW II: 2 steps forward, 2 steps back"

Legends of Wrestling II is the second installment of the Legends of Wrestling series by Acclaim. For those of you who have not played the first game, the engine in this game is truly unique. When a wrestler goes to execute a move, there is a meter with a “sweet spot,” much like in golf games, that allows the opponent to counter the move with a button press. Additionally, there are possibilities of combos with another press of a button. With the game engine, there is the possibility of some nice chain wrestling.

You would expect that sequels would be vast improvements over its predecessor. However, Legends of Wrestling II improves some things, but takes steps back in other aspects of the game. First of all, I am going to break down what works in the game.

First off, the roster in the game is excellent. There are a few notables who are not under WWE contract missing, however the roster is great overall. Featured wrestlers include Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper, The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott), The Road Warriors, The Von Erichs, Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Sid Vicious, Dr. Death Steve Williams, etc. Another big improvement over last year’s game is the addition of 4 outfits/looks for each wrestler. For instance, Hulk Hogan has 2 red and yellow outfits, 1 black and white “NWO-esque” outfit, and 1 outfit with his old white trunks. In Scott Steiner’s case, there are 3 outfits with Scott’s current look, and 1 outfit with Scott featuring longer hair, a wrestling singlet, and no facial hair like in his Steiner Brothers days. Ted Dibiase, (80’s clean shaven Mid-South babyface look) Terry Funk, (clean shaven NWA champ look) George Steele, (with hair from the Detroit region in the 70’s) Billy Graham, (bald head with fu manchu at the end of his career) and others all have different looks from earlier in their careers that are vastly different from their other outfits.

Additionally, Legends of Wrestling II has sped up its gameplay a notch over the last game. The speed now is nearly perfect. Additionally, they have fixed the looks of some of the moves. In the last game, Tito Santana’s flying forearm looked terrible. In this year’s game, the move was redone, and it looks excellent. Same with the sleeper hold and the enziguiri. They also added a tons of double team moves, including the Demolition Decapitation, Pitty City, Bushwhacker Battering Ram, Rocket Launcher, Poetry in Motion, and of course The Doomsday Device. (Strangely missing is the Steiner Brothers Bulldog and DDT.) As far as options, they are lots of choices. You can play in single matches, tag, 6 man tag, survivor series type 8 man elimination matches, battle royals, cage, and ladder matches. In a smart move, they also added DQs and count outs. If the referee gets knocked down or the manager distracts the ref, you can then use a weapon and not get DQ’ed. That added a sense of realism. Speaking of managers, they are again in the game, but they just kinda stand there, and don’t do anything. Why doesn’t Jimmy Hart put the boots to me when I am outside of the ring next to him like in real life?

The ring entrances are vastly improved. Each wrestler has specific entrances. Ricky Steamboat blows fire, Sabu runs and slides in the ring, George Steele eats the turnbuckle, etc. Each wrestler is introduced by former WCW announcer David Penzer. That is a very nice touch. The theme music is a lot better as well. The Funks have a clone of The Eagles song “Desperado,” Billy Graham has a clone of “Theme to Jesus Christ Superstar,” etc. The Nasty Boys, Road Warriors, and Ted Dibiase all have voice intros to their themes like their actual themes. The drawback to the ring entrances is that tag teams come out separately, instead of together. How many times have you seen The Road Warriors come to the ring introduced separately when they are wrestling as a team? Not very often, if ever. As far as ring entrances, probably like most people, I turned them off anyway when going through career mode.

Speaking of career mode, that is one of the true highlights of the game. You choose a single wrestler and start in one of 5 different territories in the United States. Each promoter gives you a different storyline to go through. You start wrestling local no-name unplayable jabronis. In this respect, I would rather take on real life “legendary” jobbers like “Iron” Mike Sharpe, Tom “Rocky” Stone, Tiger Chung Lee, Reno Riggins, Jake “The Milkman” Milliman, Barry Horowitz, or others. It is not like you would have to pay them a lot for their likeness. Jake Milliman would probably sign on for a case of beer. =-) Anyway, even with the fake jabronis, their addition adds a nice touch and gives some needed variety in career mode. After winning a few matches against the jabronis, you move up to mid-card matches. Finally after receiving 100% popularity, you get a title shot against the region champ. There are a lot of innovative storylines, and you can also recreate famous storylines like the Andy Kaufman/Jerry Lawler feud. Where they are a handful of really good storylines, however 70% of the storylines are something like this:

-I am playing as Sid. The promoter will say: ''Welcome to the region Sid. I know you did well in your former region, but we have a number of tough wrestlers in this region. I am going to start you out in a number of matches against local talent just to see what you can do.''

After winning the jobber matches, the promoter will say, ''Good job Sid. I see that you are as good as your former promoter has said. I am going to start booking you in some matches against tougher competition. We have a real tough champion in this region, and his name is Road Warrior Hawk. He has seen your matches, and expect him to interfere in some of your upcoming bouts.''

After winning the next 3 or 4 matches, with Road Warrior Hawk interfering in all of them, the promoter will say, ''Congratulations Sid, you were able to do well even with Road Warrior Hawk interfering. I am going to book in some matches with our top superstars. Good luck.''

Finally, after winning those matches, you get a title shot against the champion. (end storyline) Replace the region champion Road Warrior Hawk with any other wrestler in the game, and you just described 75% of the storylines.

Another thing that shines in the game are the wrestler interviews that are exclusive to the Xbox and PS2 versions of Legends of Wrestling II. The interviews are mainly “shoot-style,” with only Paul Orndorff and Jim Duggan staying in character. Wrestlers tell very funny road stories, especially Terry Funk and Bam Bam Bigelow. As good as the interviews are, they could have been better. You could tell that the interviewer was asking questions straight off a list, and not specific to each wrestler. Why would one ask manager Jimmy Hart about what titles he has won or what moves he was famous for using?

Finally, there are a lot of things to unlock in the game. You can unlock wrestlers, clothing, arenas, cheats, and CAW attributes. You can also unlock concept art. When you win a match, you get a number of green coins. You then have to gamble the green coins in order to get blue and red coins to make purchases. The gambling portion leads me straight to what does not work in the game.

GAMBLING! Gambling is what absolutely ruins this game. When you win green coins, you have to gamble for red and blue coins. You pay 2 green coins to lay down a blue coin on a checker board or 5 green coins to lay down a red coin on the checker board. There is a cursor that jumps around on the board, and you have to press the “A” button to stop the cursor on your coin to win it. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Well, it is not fun. It is time consuming and tedious. It is boring. It is a pain in the butt. If you want to unlock everything in the game, you need approximately 400 blue coins and 250 red coins. That means that you have to play that stupid gambling game a minimum of 650 times, and that is saying that you win your coin each time you try. The worst part is that after I take Hulk Hogan through career mode, I get to unlock Bruno Sammartino. Actually, I get to unlock the ability to purchase Bruno Sammartino. After I spend hours and hours going through career mode, shouldn’t I get Bruno unlocked for free? It is to the point where I do not want to go through the trouble of unlocking everything, because it is simply not worth it. I would not have a problem having to simple purchase items with green coins like the Madden series and Madden cards, but why do I have to play a stupid mini-game? This is a wrestling game, not Mario Party 4. Advice for Acclaim next year, drop the gambling portion.

Unfortunately, the create-a-wrestler portion of the game is also weak. For some strange reason, Acclaim took out the clone-a-wrestler portion that was in last year’s game. That gave the user to change the look of an in-game wrestler in order to make him look differently. Bottom line was that allowed the user to get a whole different set of faces to use in the CAW. In the current CAW, there are only 10 faces, each of which can be slightly tweaked to change their facial appearance. It is still hard to make an accurate looking wrestler like Tully Blanchard or Kurt Angle. Hair selections are also terrible. There is no ponytail. How can I make a Rob Van Dam CAW without a ponytail? The move selections are also poor in the CAW. Which leads me to my next complaint.

Who assigned the wrestling moves to the wrestlers? I can think of a ton of finishers that are inaccurate in the game, such as:

-Bruno Sammartino: Bruno's finisher was the Canadian Backbreaker, aka over-the-shoulder backbreaker. In the game he has a bear hug for his finisher.
-Scott Steiner: He has a spinning belly-to-belly as a finisher. It should be either the camel clutch (Steiner recliner) or the frankensteiner off of an Irish whip. BTW, they need to add an actual Frankensteiner in the game, that would drive the victim's head into the mat, not the hurricanrana they have now.
-Rick Steiner: He also has a spinning belly-to-belly as a finisher. His finisher should be a top rope belly to belly, The Steinerline, (a good clothesline, not the one where they do the flip afterwards) or a top rope bulldog.
-Eddie Gilbert: They gave him the neck snap off of the apron, that's supposed to be The Hot Shot. Can't they make an actual hot shot out of a corner grapple?
-Steve ''Dr. Death'' Williams: Boy, did they screw up Doc. Where they heck is his back drop driver or Oklahoma Stampede? His finisher in the game is The Last Ride, where it should have been a back drop driver, Oklahoma Stampede, or at least his doctor bomb.
-The Von Erichs: They gave all of the Von Erichs the claw into the discus punch move they Kerry used in his WWF days. Why not give them the standard claw?
-Brian Knobs: His Nasty Splash isn't a bad choice, but how about his running powerslam that always preceded Sags' top rope elbow?
-Nikolai Volkoff: During his final WWF run, he used the hammer and sickle: He whipped his opponent face first to the turnbuckles. When they staggered back, he clobbered them with a clothesline to the back of the head.
-George Steele: He used a hanging chicken wing submission, not this stupid chicken wing suplex.
-Andre the Giant: They gave him a double chicken wing suplex, which he used in his last run in the WWF. However, in Japan, his finisher was a vertical splash, aka Earthquake Splash. That's not even in the game.

Additionally, a number of wrestlers are missing their trademark moves, such as:

-The Backlund Bridge (reverse rollup with a bridge)
-Oklahoma Stampede
-Back drop driver
-Ricky Steamboat's arm twist/savate kick combo
-The Sheik/Abdullah’s bite to the head
-Abdullah's fork attack
-FIREBALLS, FIREBALLS, FIREBALLS You have Eddie Gilbert, Jerry Lawler, The Sheik, Jimmy Hart, and The Grand Wizard in the game. 5 of the most prolific fire throwers in the history of wrestling, but no fireballs? Grand Wizard throws one in his career ending movie, but none in actual gameplay.
-Jim Duggan's spinning body slam, NOT a powerslam
-Jim Duggan's taped fist punch
-Paul Orndorff's boogie-woogie kneedrop
-Eddie Guerrero's Gory special
-Eddie's splash mountain
-Eddie’s dropkick to the knee
-Eddie's (when wrestling as Black Tiger in Japan) top rope brainbuster
-Hogan's back rake. C'mon, Hogan has 11 actual moves, so how can you forget his back rake, brother?
-Jerry Lawler's top rope fist drop. That's inexcusable.
-Ted Dibiase's reverse falling top rope fist drop.
-Sabu's Arabian facebuster w/ a chair
-Sabu's Arabian roll (top rope victory roll)
-Animals' gorilla press into a powerslam move
-Owen Hart's move where he would grab the opponent's arm, run to the top rope, walk the rope, sit down and do a backflip off of the rope, and then hip toss the opponent.
-Scott Steiner's fallaway slam off of the top rope
-Scott Steiner's Samoan drop off of the top rope
-Scott Steiner’s double underhook powerbomb
-Dr. Death's 3 point stance tackle, NOT clothesline.
-Davey Boy Smith’s delayed suplex

As with the last game, the old time wrestlers are assigned moves that they never used in their career. You remember when The Sheik gave Mark Lewin a pedigree in Detroit in 1973? No, me neither. How about when Kevin Von Erich put Terry Funk away at The Sportatorium in 1985 with a Kryptonite Krunch? No, I don’t remember that either. Granted, they wanted to spice up the game a little bit. They wanted to make the game more exciting, so they threw in some flashy moves. However, I point to the Japanese game for the Sega Dreamcast Giant Gram 2000. That game featured legends like Bruno Sammartino, Fritz Von Erich, Bruiser Brody, Don Leo Jonathan, Verne Gagne, and a lot of other legends. In that game, you did not see Verne Gagne giving Takao Omori a shooting star press. Instead, you saw Verne use the moves that he did during his career. However, they were applied differently. For instance, the body slam was applied with more force. The atomic drop was applied holding the victim up longer, etc.

Also, there is no weight detection in the game. Want to see Jimmy Hart give Andre the Giant a powerbomb? He can in the game. 130 pound Grand Wizard can give 500 pound Abdullah the Butcher a Samoan drop with ease. Number of games like the Fire Pro series and WWF No Mercy have weight detection in their games, so there is no reason why it cannot be added. In the same respect, moving around the ring can also be a pain. The wrestlers seem to be a little slow to respond your commands.

There are a lot of glitches in the game. If you create a tattoo or art in the create-a-wrestler, it appears on your grappler upside down. If your wrestler is on the ring apron and tries to hop down to the arena floor at the same time the opponent grapples you, you will be stuck in a grapple and have to restart. There are times in 3-way dances where you will become stuck together with your opponent and start to revolve around the ring. Additionally there are times where you will be stuck in a small package and cannot escape ever after kicking out at the 2-count. There are numerous others in the game.

Another gripe I have is the lack of moves in the game. Once again, each wrestler has only a maximum of 3 front ready moves when they could easily have 5. There are 4 ISP (Intermediate Start Positions) from the front, but only 3 from the back. Why not add an arm bar ISP from the rear? From that position, you could add Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ short-arm clothesline, Ricky Steamboat’s arm twist/savate kick combo, a Fujiwara armbar, a Crippler crossface, the falling armbreaker move that Jeff Jarrett uses, the headscissors into a cross arm breaker move that Kendo Ka Shin uses, or countless other arm moves.

If that does not make things worse, Legends of Wrestling II took out moves that were in the first game. Gone are the tree of woe position and the neck over the second rope position. You can no longer push your opponent out of a grapple and back into the corner. You cannot drag your opponent around the ring anymore, or stand an opponent up who is leaned over.

Another complaint I have is that there is little difference in the feel of each wrestler. If I am playing as Andre the Giant, I expect him to move around the ring at a snail’s pace. He should get in and out of the ring very slowly. He should not be able to climb to the top rope, or if he can, he should do so slowly. His strikes should be very slow and deliberate. He should not be able to moonsault off the side of the cage. He should only be able to go out the cage door. On the other hand, if I am playing as Eddie Guerrero or Dynamite Kid, I should fly around the ring. I should be able to ascend to the top rope very quickly, instead of slowly climbing up. In the same respects, I should have a different strategy when playing against different wrestlers in the game. If I am taking on someone like Abdullah the Butcher, I should try to use my speed to tire him out, and avoid fighting outside the ring. Instead, I can use the same strategy to beat every wrestler in the game.

In conclusion, Legends of Wrestling II is improved in some areas when compared to Legends I, but it also takes some steps back from its predecessor. It plays like a simulation wrestling game, but it has arcadey aspects. The game needs to decide what it wants to be, arcade like the Smackdown! series or simulation like the Fire Pro or N64 THQ games. Additionally, Acclaim needs to add some more variety to the career mode. The game makers need to sit down and watch some video footage of the wrestlers they are featuring to more accurately recreate their likeness and ring style. (Dr. Death Steve Williams especially.) They need to rework the CAW to make it easier to more accurately recreate wrestlers not in the game. Most importantly, they need to get rid of the gambling aspect. Finally, if there is a Legends III, add a new mode or 2 not seen in other games, like a lumberjack match with lumberjacks outside of the ring or a leather strap/Russian chain/dog collar match. Good job with Legends of Wrestling II Acclaim, but you can do better. My score: 6.7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/24/02, Updated 12/24/02