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Having
a great interest in wrestling all my life and now being twenty-one,
I’ve grown up watching a “sport” - that I thought was huge at
the time - growing bigger and bigger.  Keeping the fans it had with
the same quality and obtaining more simply by adding a little
quantity, thousands of “Superstars” poured through those
massive smoking doors adding their own characterisation and a whole
new depth to what became the WWE. Giants, musclemen and freaks all
came together to take entertainment to new heights.
WrestleMania
has always been the biggest event in the wrestling calendar; the
point once every year when all your favourite wrestlers and plots
come together for a prolific smashing. Old scores getting settled
generally by pummelling the opponent till they give up or pinning
them for the count of three, new scores being made by wrestlers’
friends coming in to stop the former or the latter. Amazing
acrobatics, diverse characters and death defying stunts make it an
awesome climax of everything that was wrestling that year.
This
year is no exception, apart from now you’re the one trying
to be the Superstar in the thick of the plot. The title
features the usual Create-A-Wrestler option we’ve become
accustomed to, as in many of the other titles in the WWE/F series;
however this time it all seems just a little bigger; there’s more
options, more degrees of physical modification and even more
technique specific moves. However, you cannot take part in
the Career Mode without a custom created avatar. Oh and the cash,
which you can win by doing any match - you use this to buy, well
anything actually, from attributes for your character and costumes
to loading screens and concept art - the selection seems almost
endless.
The
actual fighting in the game has been modified, making it
flow much smoother. It still relies on reversals to save you from a
proper beating, but not in the same way as the last couple of Smackdown!
games; they instead keep a fair match going at a speedy pace. The
attacks can be joined to a quick grapple creating combo-esque
manoeuvres and Irish Whips can be used while grappling, leaving an
inexperienced opponent helpless. The power and turnbuckle moves
don’t have that ever-so slight pause anymore, keeping the flow up
amazingly. The special moves are shown to spectacular effect with 
brilliant lighting and camera movement, making it look like when
you put them down, they should stay down.
Exhibition
mode is a great place to practice many of the basic moves and get
used to some of the match types, unfortunately all those without an
XboxLIVE! subscription will be unable to play with their
created wrestler in this mode, but for real fun and to breathe the
life into any wrestler you’ve put all that effort into making you
can go into the Career mode. It’s in this mode that you can take
your guy or gal from dreamdom to stardom. You start from the
beginning as a rookie and have to do a couple of matches to prove
you’re worthy to enter as a Superstar, then you are pulled up
into the ranks to play with the big boys, although you may find
these boys or rather big muscled men don’t like to see a newcomer
get the better of them. This is only a partial start to the huge
soap-esque story that you’ll delve into, taking you through many 
memorable fights and enticing storylines, hopefully emerging as a
legend in your own right.
For
those with XboxLIVE!, you can go into the LIVE! mode - which
takes you to the world, and you can take ‘em all on.
You can set up quick matches, special matches, tournaments,
even entire championships (a unique feature of this game).
There’s even accessories to help. The Xbox Friends List is
used, as is the headset - for that special joy of swearing at the
guy/girl down the other end. The only lag I found whilst on LIVE!
is during the menu screens, when fighting others, I didn’t ever
feel like I lost a fight from the slow response times I have found
in other internet based games, which when considering the speed
that the game is played is damn impressive.
Graphically
this game is pushing many boundaries, although the basic format is
simple, what they do with it is remarkable, everything that is
there has had every effort put into it, it’s been smoothed over
to perfection, during their entrance the wrestlers, unless you c heck
twice, look photo-realistic, in fact the only thing that
isn’t fully glammed up for this game is the crowd, but at least
the first five rows are fully-polygonal, all-too-much a rarity
really.
The
in game music is definitely up to the moment, not quite to my
tastes, but playing on the Xbox gives you the option of a full
custom soundtrack. The sounds during the big fights keep the
feeling of pain right at the back of the teeth, but when you get a
chance to fight in one of the quiet areas the quality really comes
out, every squeak, footstep and tight breath can be heard as you
both dart around the ring.
So,
does this game live up to the name and image that WrestleMania has
established for itself from the very beginning? Does it bring that
feeling of being a Superstar right into your front room? Maybe even
convince you that if you lose this match your career will be
over? Hell yeah! If you have an XboxLIVE! subscription you
need to buy this game – it’s certainly the current high-point
in online wrestlers, with just a little bit of effort the online
mode can be bigger than the entire offline game. If you like
wrestling, even a tiny bit, the game will hook you far more than
you yearly-update wrestling-sim; everything that is wrestling has
been summed up in this package, it’s definitely brought the last
twenty-one years to one awesome climax.
Just like WrestleMania should. |
