In the early 90s, the then-WWF was caught amidst a major drug scandal, wherein Vince Mcmahon was accused of giving his performers anabolic steroids. The federal government managed to crash down on one Dr. Zahorian for his prescribing drugs to assorted wrestlers and put him in jail. However, some legal mistakes on the government’s behalf and a claim from Hulk Hogan that he enhanced himself on his own volition allowed Vince Mcmahon to walk away from court a free man. A free man with a company ravaged talent-wise due to drug testing, but a free man nonetheless.
THQ’s video game, Legends of Wrestlemania, is meant to be a retro-oriented time capsule, except it takes place in an alternate realm. Here, nobody ever accused the WWF of foul play, wrestlers were allowed to shoot needles in their asses until they were more jacked than Captain America, and every day is a Wrestlemania Pay Per View set in an economic climate that allows fans to fork over $65 to watch King Kong Bundy in High Definition.
You get a relatively solid sampling of wrestlers throughout the last 20 years that are on Vince’s good side. Perennial 80s favorites like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Andre the Giant and Roddy Piper are all here, along with 90s icons like Bret Hart, purple-clothes-era Undertaker and dirty-mullet-era Shawn Michaels. Representing the Attitude days are Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, both of which feel out of place as the only workers of their time, flipping middle fingers and calling Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake a rudy-poo candy-ass.
Now I wouldn’t be the complete mark I am if I didn’t complain about omissions. Absent are current TNA employees like Mick Foley and Kevin Nash for understandable reasons. Less understandable is the absence of Randy Savage, and there are any number of rumors to explain why. Whatever he did has to be pretty vile to be passed up in the video game for the Ultimate Warrior, a man whom had been given his own slanderous DVD documentary. Eddie Guerrero’s presence could’ve at least given Rock and Austin some 90s company for when they feel lonely amidst the Barbers and Elvis impersonators from the 80s. Ricky Steamboat is missing from the roster for absolutely no good reason. And with Michael “PS” Hayes in his Freebird glory, the omission of the other Freebirds (let alone anyone from World Class) becomes a bit obvious.
Fortunately, you can give the roster a nice shot of depth (among other injections) by importing the Smackdown vs Raw 2009 roster in the game. “Importing” isn’t quite the right word being that the character data seems to already be on the disc and is merely unlocked to those who have a SvR save on their hard drive, though I won’t complain; Xbox 360 hard drives are too expensive to want an upgrade and by now, most players’ 10 gig drives are going to be filled with Rock Band songs anyway. Plus you get to have your Rock vs Cena dream match that Duane Johnson casually brushed off as never happening on E!
And why are Ric Flair and Arn Anderson the only present Horsemen?
The characters that are included in the game are mostly true to their real-life counterparts’ moves and mannerisms. The Junkyard Dog will get on his knees and headbutt his opponents in a manner that would never work in a real fight. However, the character models are unrealistic in that they’re all jacked beyond reprieve. Even by the standards of 80s action figures, these guys are so big that it gives any sense of immersion the big boot and leg drop. Hulk Hogan has a back so big that he must be pulling Mack Trucks on a chain as a lat workout, while Brooke works fulltime to keep his movie-screen body oiled up. Greg “The Hammer” Valentine becomes The Pale Incredible Hulk. And old school Undertaker looks absolutely ridiculous in his purple get-up concealing what appears to be some undead cleavage.
The game has Davey Boy Smith, but why not Dynamite Kid?
It appears that THQ and Yukes had opted to simplify the control scheme of the Smackdown games in order to widen the game’s appeal. To which I thought “Great!” The Smackdown vs Raw games, solid as they (sometimes) are, have convoluted, illogical controls that that use every button on the gamepad multiple times over, to a point where I simply deemed the game nigh-impossible to explain to a newcomer. Here, only the face buttons are used, and in a slightly more logical progression. We’re back to grappling with a button instead of a stick (what an intuitive idea! Makes you wonder why they made the switch in the first place) and the game is rife with quick-time event sequences based on actual in-match spots where the first player to press a button gets the advantage. Four out of five times, these are presented in a logical way, but the sequence of special move animations is about as properly edited as a bad horror movie (or a parody mocking a horror movie’s bad editing, thank you House of the Dead Overkill), and can be interrupted. That’s right, the right press of a button can deny the player his hard-earned Stone Cold Stunner. And you’ll have to earn your stunner too; there’s some kind of three-tiered system where you need build up a meter to get the right to use your finisher. But it takes so much effort to get to that point that its simply easier and more effective to punch and stomp your opponent’s health away to victory. So the game is a rather broken in that regard.
Why not Jerry Lawler as a wrestler? It’d be better than his current role as colour-commentator, doing the same hackneyed, terribly edited excuse for commentary that the Smackdown games have become associated with.
You have a handful of gameplay modes. Online play returns but it’s the same laggy, badly coded online play that previous games have suffered with. Or at least laggy in my part of Canada, which may very well be my punishment for well over a decade of “You Screwed Bret” chants. Likewise, Legend Killer mode feels like some kind of punishment for people that cheer for Randy Orton; here, you play through a gauntlet of matches against opponents, with not much in the way of replenishing health and no option to save your progress. The key is that you must play with your created wrestler, which killed my hopes of a heel CM Punk going on an anti-drug rampage against the entire 80s. The idea is that your progress in this mode improves your created wrestler’s stats, and that this is the only way to upgrade a character from his paltry, Barry Horowitz-like initial stats to a superstar. Reaching that status takes a ludicrous amount of effort and grinding; Yukes needs to drop this idea that people enjoy leveling up created wrestlers. This isn’t World of Warcraft, where people are willing to invest hundreds of hours into a single wizard; people are going to use the Create-A-Wrestler (the exact same CAW that appeared in the last Smackdown game by the way) to fill the roster gaps or have their dream Darth Vader vs Mr Clean Hell in a Cell match. And when someone creates a wrestler, they’d like them to actually be able to hang with the existing roster of characters, not be painfully outclassed by them. Sheesh.
Where’s Scott Hall?
The Wrestlemania mode included is a bit more interesting. There are three sub-modes here. In “Relive”, you’re tasked with replaying any number of famous Wrestlemania matches, almost always as Hulk Hogan. First, you’ll be greeted to a video montage showing assorted clips of matches and storylines building up to the real match, and these are, without a doubt, the strongest points of the entire game. Next, you’re given a checklist of spots from the match that you can do to earn points in the goal of earning a medal and unlocking, say, an alternate wrestler costume. One can see that a healthy amount of care went into this mode, as there are quicktime events designed specifically for each match’s memorable spots. Sadly, you’ll run through Relive quickly and be relegated to the other two modes. “Rewrite” makes you play as the loser of a match, while “Redefine” throws a Russo-like stipulation that would’ve made no sense whatsoever in the context of the card in question. You still get the great video packages, but the medal goals are reduced to more redundant challenges like “get three grapple counters” and “hit three ropes off the turnbuckle.” The latter of which made no sense in one match that made me play as Yokozuna.
Speaking of, where’s Lex Luger? The first man to bodyslam Yokozuna?
If any of my complaining about missing wrestlers amounts to anything, it’s that there will more than likely be a sequel to Legends of Wrestlemania next year. I’m more hopeful of the prospects of a future game than anything else, as this current product is shallow and broken. It makes for a good weekend rental to get drunk with and play with friends as you geek out over playing as the Iron Sheik as he finally gets his chance to humble Hulk Hogan, B Brian Blair (another one not in the game), Ultimate Warrior, Chris Jericho and everyone else that needs a broken back. But nostalgia wears thin and this game lacks the depth to achieve immortality. Stick with Smackdown vs Raw for another year and hope that this or the next TNA game live up to their potential with sophomoric releases.
For what it’s worth, the game is better than the Acclaim Legends of Wrestling games of years past.
3 stars
Doink the Clown? Okay I’ll stop.
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