Legends of Wrestling
Reviewed by JPeeples
Legends of Wrestling was released in early 2002 for
the Nintendo Gamecube. LoW was developed and
published by Acclaim. Interestingly enough, the
Acclaim development team that handled the duties for
this game, did not develop any of the previous
Acclaim wrestling games. This game runs on a new
engine developed from the ground up. This game
features, as you might expect, some of the biggest
legends to ever grace a wrestling ring. Wrestlers
like Ricky ÒThe Dragon" Steamboat, Jerry ÒThe King"
Lawler, Bret ÒThe Hitman" Hart, and Terry Funk join
the cast of sports entertainers such as ÒThe
Immortal" Hulk Hogan, ÒThe Birdman" Koko B. Ware,
George ÒThe Animal" Steele, ÒThe Superstar" Billy
Graham, and ÒThe Rock" Don Muraco, just to name a
few. Aside from the legendary singles stars,
legendary tag teams such as ÒThe Legion of Doom" The
Road Warriors, and The Rock N' Roll Express join the
fray. The first family of professional wrestling, the
Von Erichs, are featured in this game in all of their
glory. Each and every male Von Erich is featured in
the game, giving fans of World Class Wrestling a game
they can be proud of. LoW also features some of
wrestling's brightest stars, men like ÒMr.
Pay-Per-View" Rob Van Dam, and ÒThe Homicidal,
Suicidal, and Genocidal" Sabu join the fray. Thanks
to its broad wrestler roster that encompasses so many
types of wrestling across different generations, LoW
allows you to recreate classic matches of the past,
or create dream matches for the future.
LoW's gameplay is accomplished with one of the finest
wrestling game engines I've yet experienced. The
engine allows for smooth transitional moves that
haven't been seen before in any wrestling game. The
game uses a rather unique timing-based countering
sequence that makes these smooth transitions
possible. In order to counter a move, you'll have to
hit a button at just the right time in an effort to
elicit the counter that you want. Pressing it too
early for say, a piledriver, could result in you just
backdropping your opponent, while pressing it at the
right time could result in your snatching your
opponent up in a cradle. This countering system is
all about timing, so be on your toes. The gameplay
doesn't stop with the transitions, oh no, there's a
host of other gameplay facets in the game.
The game's coup de grace is the revolutionary career
mode. This mode takes wrestling back to the days
before Vince McMahon Jr. made professional wrestling
a national pastime, back to the days when regional
organizations ruled the roost. Each region, just like
in the game, was separated into separated
territories. The promoters in the territories would
agree to unify championships so a wrestler could make
a name for himself, and so they could make a ton of
money. The career mode does an amazing job at
replicating the scope of regional wrestling. It not
only encompasses the United States regional wrestling
scene, but the international wrestling scene as well.
There's the Northeast region, with its territories
being New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia, the
home of Extreme Championship Wrestling. The Southwest
region is made up of: Dallas, Texas; the stomping
grounds of the legendary Von Erichs, Las Vegas, and
Phoenix, Arizona. The Midwest region is home to:
Minneapolis, Minnesota, the home of ÒRavishing" Rick
Rude, Larry ÒThe Ax" Hennig, his son, ÒMr. Perfect"
Curt Hennig, ÒDouble A" Arn Anderson, and Jesse ÒThe
Body" Ventura; Chicago, Illinois; the home of the
legendary Road Warriors, and St. Louis, Missouri. The
Pacific region is made up of: Seattle, Washington;
home of Greg ÒThe Hammer" Valentine, San Fransisco,
and Portland. The Southeast region is made up of::
Jacksonville, Florida, Memphis, Tennessee, the home
of Jerry ÒThe King" Lawler, and the birthplace of
some of wrestling's most memorable feuds, and
Atlanta, Georgia; the former home of World
Championship Wrestling. The United States region
encompasses all of the previous regional cities.
Finally, there's the World region. This region is
made up of: Tokyo, Japan, the home of some of Japan's
most legendary matches, Montreal, Canada, where some
of wrestling biggest legends made their names, and
Mexico City, Mexico, where Mexico's greatest legend,
Mil Mascaras, ruled the roost for decades. Now that
the historical aspect of this mode is out of the way,
it's time to tell you how the mode works. In this
mode, you will go from territory to territory, and,
when you conquer each territory, you will have a
match for that region's championship. After you win
the championship in one region, you move to another
region, unify that region's championship, and then do
it again, until you unify all of the regional
championships to crown the undisputed heavyweight
champion of the world.
Throughout your career, you will receive advice from
either ÒThe Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart, or ÒThe
Manager of Champions" Captian Lou Albano, depending
on which character you choose. This feature adds a
touch of realism to the game. Throughout your career,
your manager will interfere in your matches in an
effort to increase your chances of victory, of
course, just like in real-life, this can backfire. I
really love this feature because it harkens back to
the days when managers really could make a difference
in a match, when they actually meant something to the
matches. On top of these great features, the career
mode really feels like you're progressing through a
career. In an effort to give each region its own look
and feel, Acclaim has given each of them their own
arena that showcases some of the sights and sounds of
that region, while also giving you a glimpse at the
importance of the match being held inside of it. For
example, the Northeast arena is elaborate, much like
New York's fabled Madison Square Garden, wrestling in
this arena gives you a sense of accomplishment. The
World arena is even more elaborate, it features a
mind-boggling set, and lets you know that you've
truly arrived in the big time.
Legends of Wrestling features a thorough
Create-a-Legend mode. This mode enables you to create
legends of your very own. The mode is rather thorough
in the moves department. It's broken down into 10
styles, with each style feature some overlapping
moves so you can create a wrestler that uses a little
bit from a certain style, and a lot from another. The
amount of moves in this mode are staggering. There
are copious amounts of old-school moves, with just as
many newer moves included so you can create some of
the more current wrestlers in the wrestling world.
One thing that this version of the game is missing
was one of the things that made the CaL mode good in
the original PS 2 version: the Create-a-Stencil mode.
This mode enabled you to create literally anything
you wanted for your characters, and it helped to
offset the limitations of the CaL's outfit selection.
Now, without this feature, the CaL mode is butchered
beyond repair. That single solitary feature helped to
give players more freedom than they ever had before
with character creation, now, players are stuck with
the pre-made stuff in the mode. Great job Acclaim.
Make people wait for an inferior product.
The controls in the game are the best I've ever
experienced in a wrestling game. The control scheme
is set up brilliantly, it's very intuitive and
doesn't obstruct the gameplay. The control does have
a more methodical response time than most wrestling
games, this perfectly suits the old-school style of
the game engine. It does a great job of complimenting
the speed of the game, as well as the wrestlers within it.
The graphics in LoW are in a league of their own. The
characters all have a larger than life look to them
that gives them a certain timeless quality. The
character models feature just the right amount of
details, the outfits are spot-on, so much so that
you'll be able to make out each and every heart on
the tights of Bret ÒThe Hitman" Hart In an effort to
maintain the timeless look of the wrestlers, the
faces and bodies of the wrestlers lack details that
might harm the timelessness of the wrestlers, such as
wrinkles and scars. The character models almost
resemble action figures in this sense, and that's a
great quality in my book. The animation in the game
is simply unbelievable. Every single maneuver in the
game is packed with animation, from the smallest
punch, to the most elaborate Van Damninator. The
selling in the game benefits greatly from this
endless stream of animation. The characters react
with more realism than ever before. Say you give
someone a suplex, if another character is too close
to the wrestlers involved with the suplex, he will be
knocked down after they hit the ground. This is just
one example of the thorough animation in the game,
there are dozens more, to say the very least.
The sound in Legends of Wrestling is, for the most
part, great. The theme music is about as good as
could be expected given the copyright restrictions
that are placed on the themes of about 90% of the
wrestlers. The original themes for the wrestlers fit
the characters pretty well, except for the theme of
Rick Martel, which sounds like it came from a honky
tonk bar. There is some usage of sound-alike themes
in the game. Rob Van Dam features a song that is
amazingly close to Pantera's ÒWalk", his ECW theme;
and the Road Warriors feature an ÒIronman"
sound-alike that mimics their Black Sabbath NWA theme
music. The sound effects are another aural highlight.
The sound effects for the punches and kicks have a
unique sound to them, the same goes for the game's
mass amount of weapons. All of which have their own
sound effect. The black eye on the sound comes from
the in-game music. This music is about as generic as
I've ever heard, and it does nothing to add to the
feel of the game. Thankfully, it doesn't really take
away from the experience.
The replay value of the game is sky high. The career
mode will keep you glued to the game for as long as
you let it. If you allow the historical aspects of
the mode to sink into your brain, like I did, you'll
never get tired of it. The game's immense roster
covers pretty much every wrestler that could legally
be put into the game. Legends like Ric Flair and Arn
Anderson would have been impossible because those men
had existing contractual obligations that would make
them unable to be legally placed in the game. Rest
assured, Accliam did the best they could. The roster
spans generations and will keep fans old and new
glued to the game. If there's a wrestler that isn't
in the game, like the aforementioned Ric Flair and
Arn Anderson, you can make them in the game's
Create-a-Legend mode. This mode is made all the more
realistic by the fact that you can give the character
a first and last name that will be called out by the
ring announcer, you can choose from a ton of both,
first, and last names, both lists feature quite a few
legendary names that you can place together to get a
perfect name. Names such as ÒRic Flair" can be done
via this mode, as well as many, many others. Acclaim
is lucky if they don't get sued because quite of a
few of the name combinations come out to being the
names of current WWF superstars, besides Flair.
Nonetheless, I really appreciate that they went the
extra mile for their fans.
Overall, Legends of Wrestling is one of the finest
wrestling games I've ever played. The game's amazing
career mode and super-smooth gameplay engine make the
game a joy to play. The game's control is bliss, the
graphics are unique, and the sound is, for the most
part, great. The replay value is through the roof
thanks to the career mode, and the in-depth
Create-a-Legend mode that might be a bit too in-depth
for Acclaim's own good. However, the absence of the
Create-a-Stencil mode really drags down the freedom
for the player. It can potentially destroy the replay
value of the game for those who play wrestling games
to create wrestlers that aren't in the game, which,
thanks to the legal issues involving some big-name
legends during the game's development, is quite an
extensive list.
Overall: 8 out of 10