WWE Legends of Wrestlemania

Yes ladies and non-ladies; it's Wrestlemania. The granddaddy of them all. The biggest day in professional wrestling. I remembered the good old days when I........couldn't watch it because our cable didn't give us the option to watch indemand ppv, and even if it did we didn't have the 60 bucks to shell out for 3-5 hours of wrestling. PPV suuuuucks. Recently though I have been watching Wrestlemania highlights and classic matches, and I do remember stories from my childhood about kickass Wrestlemania moments. The developers' goal with the game was to fuck with our nostalgia and make a nice buck just in time for the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania, and in a way it works.

I believe I can fl...OH SHIT NO I CAN'T!

The control scheme is setup to be simple so that anyone can use it...supposedly. You use the left analog to move and everything else is handle with the face buttons. EVERYTHING. While the button combo is much simpler than the SmackdownvsRaw series, sometimes it becomes a clusterfuck. Press A for grapple. Hold A for Strong grapple. Press X + A for finisher at level 3. Press A and left analog towards opponent while he's groggy to begin rope chain. Press A near the apron while the opponent is groggy to get a weapon. Press A if you're feeling horny. What the hell are all these assignments for A? This is just what they tell you in the manual (minus the horny part obviously). There's more uses for A that you'll find out while playing. In the heat of the match, you'll won't remember everything and wind up doing something you didn't want to do. And what the fuck is up with these situational moves? Why can't I just press a button to get a chair? Who cares if the opponent is groggy or by the apron or is in a good mood; I just want to get a chair so I can beat him with it. The worst part is you can't really run in this game outside the ring. Maybe you can and just didn't figure out the right conbination or situation I dunno. Inside the ring, you have to double tap away from your opponent so you can bounce off the ropes and then run towards your opponent. So basically your opponent can lazily move to the side, and there's a good chance you'll miss. It's not like the AI is smart enough to move anyway. This method sucks and is inexcusable when the shoulder and trigger buttons are not being used at all. Other than that, it's an okay system, but it misses the mark of accessibility I was wishing for in one of my earlier posts. Also it's too limiting. You only get 2 grapple moves per person. Well, not really. In essence, you have 6 thanks to the games Chain system. Underneath your health bar is your chain level. This has 3 levels: 1, 2, and 3 obviously. When you do enough damage or use a chain attack (which is a quick time event) you will go up a level, and in turn given 2 different grapples. At level 3 you can do your finisher. If THQ had a better control scheme, they wouldn't need fuckin levels. Well, at least I don't have to spend an hour trying to (and eventually giving up trying to) explain how to do a simple move like in SvR.

Fajitas. He's been cooking fajitas.

Besides the control scheme, the rest of the package is really good. It really does capture the feel of old school wrestling. Sadly, old school wrestling will not appeal to anyone, especially if you grew up in the Attitude era. This isn't about repeating weapon shots to the back or flying off every surface you can stand on (although they do have a ladder match and hell in the cell). It's not even about some of the flamboyant moves you see on a regular basis. Nope; this is about technique and spectacle. Some people say wrestling today has alot of spectacle, but not like the old guys. They were characters with personalities that were just unreal. Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake came out with shear and threaten to cut the loser's hair. Jake "the Snake" Roberts always came out with his pet snake Damien to freak out the other opponents. Ultimate Warrior was always jacked up no matter what like he was on a permanent high (turns out he was). Hugan...he...well let's just say nobody in the wrestling business inspired more people than him and maybe never will. Okay, so his leg drop finisher is weak, but it worked when I was a kid so shut up. And then there's my favorite wrestler: the Undertaker. He may be the baddest man to ever step into the ring (Lord of Darkness phase doesn't count. Fuck anyone who says otherwise).

All the greats are here....well...almost. There's still one guy missing. Actually there are several guys missing, but one guy in particular is a stand-out omission. You know him. He's the hardcore legend. He fell off the roof of the cell onto the announcer table, then through the roof of the cell. He wore a mask and kept his best friend in his pocket: Mr. Socko. That's right. Mankind. Even if he is on TNA, I'm sure he would have been willing to put Mankind in the game. Also, why use Triple H's old persona Hunter Hearst-Hemsley. That guy sucked. Yea, I know HHH is a future hall of famer and damn well deserves it, and since he is married to the boss' daughter you may feel obigated to put him in, but why as that? He's a pussy compared to the HHH now. Hell, he's a pussy compared to ANY other HHH's. They should have used his persona when the first DX broke up. I can talk about the roster all day, but if any of this is not making sense to you, this might not be your game. I went into too much detail anyway (damn fandom).

Here, hold this.

After getting used to the game, you'll probably go straight to the Wrestlemania Tour mode. In it, you will do exactly what the advertisments have been saying: RELIVE, REWRITE, and REDEFINE history. In each of the 3 modes, you will have to complete a bunch of challenges to earn a gold medals. These unlock new stuff and are just nice to look at. The challenges range from doing a certain move to breaking a table using some guy's back. These challenges add difficulty and fun to the matches that would have otherwise been dull. RELIVE has you doing matches from classic Wrestlemanias (if you haven't guessed that already) with challenges that reenacts the key moments in that match. REWRITE is pretty dull with arbitary challenges that feel like the developers ran out of ideas, but at least in this mode you can see what it would be like if the other guy won. REDEFINE is the same as REWRITE with its lame challenges, but the matches have actually changed. What would have been ordinary match becomes awesome when you throw in a ladder. Sometimes it feels like you're doing RELIVE mode except the type of match is different from what actually happen, and that's what makes it fun.

We're here for football tryouts

What surprised me most about WWE LOW is how good the commentary is. Jim Ross and Jerry "the King" Lawler did a better job here than they did in SvR, which is weird when you think about it. Why half-ass it one game but do better in the other? Maybe it's because they're the only announce team and in SvR they are 1 of 3 teams, so the dialog is limited to make room. Maybe they just had shitty writers. Whatever it is, I like them here and hope to here more of this in later games. What didn't surprise me was how they didn't capture the feel of the crowd. Wrestlemania III was performed in front of 93,000+ people in attendance. It damn sure didn't feel (or looked) like it. It also doesn't help that the arenas look like shit, but that's not really the developers fault. The presentation was pretty underwhelming back then except Wrestlemania IX.

I think Hogan just gave birth to a bouncing baby hernia

THQ wanted it to be for the casual fans, but I don't know if casual fans know most of the guys in this game or have much knowledge of those great Wrestlemania moments. If anything it's a nice history lesson for those who don't and a big bowl of nostalgia flakes for those who do. The control scheme can go fuck itself for all I care, but for those who are nuts about wrestling you should pick this up, especially since you can import the entire SvR2009 roster and pit superstars against legends (Big Show vs Andre the Giant, Jeff Hardy vs Superfly, etc). For those of you who may be interested in playing a wrestling game, this may not be the game to start out with. Wait for TNA Impact 2; I heard it will be awesome. TNA Impact 1...not so much.


NOTE: I realized that people who don't know much about the Rock won't get that fajitas joke.