My take on Legends of Wrestling.

[Guest Jay]

Legends of Wrestling was released in December of 2001 for the Sony PlayStation 2. 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 “The Dragon” Steamboat, Jerry “The King” Lawler, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, and Terry Funk join the cast of sports entertainers such as “The Immortal” Hulk Hogan, “The Birdman” Koko B. Ware, George “The Animal” Steele, “The Superstar” Billy Graham, and “The Rock” Don Muraco, just to name a few. Aside from the legendary singles stars, legendary tag teams such as “The 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 “Mr. Pay-Per-View” Rob Van Dam, and “The 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 ECW. The Southwest region is made up of: Dallas, the stomping grounds of the legendary Von Erichs, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. The Midwest region is home to: Minneapolis, the home of “Ravishing” Rick Rude, Larry “The Ax” Hennig, his son, Curt Hennig, “Double A” Arn Anderson, and Jesse “The Body” Ventura; Chicago, the home of the legendary Road Warriors, and St. Louis. The Pacific region is made up of: Seattle; home of Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, San Francisco, and Portland. The Southeast region is made up of: Jacksonville, Memphis, home of Jerry “The King” Lawler, and the birthplace of some of wrestling’s most memorable feuds, and Atlanta, the former home of WCW. 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 World’s Heavyweight Champion.

 

Throughout your career, you will receive advice from either “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart, or “The Manager of Champions” Captain 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 moved 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 certian 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.

 

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 “The 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 “Walk”, his ECW theme, and the Road Warriors feature an “Ironman” 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, Acclaim 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 in-depth 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 “Ric 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.

[Guest Jay]

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Guest the 1inch punch]

You can fight in Japan?

 

What Japanese Wrestlers? Fuji?

 

Mil Mascaras?

 

The Create a Legend Mode is brutal and totally inferior to Smackdown

 

Finishing Moves are nigh on impossible

[Guest Jay]

Fuji is the only Japanese guy in the game.  Mascaras isn't in the game.  The CAL is only as limited as you make it.  You can extend it by using the pre-existing bodies of the wrestlers in the game.

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

I like the game. However I find it very hard to do anything beyond the basic lockup moves.

[Guest Jay]

The timing does take some time to get accustomed to.

[Guest Jay]

This review is now on WWF Wrestling Games

[Guest The Man in Blak]

Though there's been a lot of firebombing, I thought I'd keep my feedback right where it should be.

 

"Excellent review, but you're wrong."

You've got a great writing style (a little verbose), but I personally believe that you waaaaaay sugar-coated many different facets of the game ("transition-based" gameplay, animations, the historic value of career mode, the managers).  Saying that the slow reaction times on the controls is "paying homage to the old-school style of wrestling" is about the most ridiculously positive spin you could give something that could just be summed up by saying "frequent lapses in timing."  I think a little bit of objectivity would have helped here.  Otherwise, great review.

[Guest Jay]

You interpretted the controls one way, I interpretted them another way.  It's cool either way.

[Guest Lil Naitch]

My opinion: the game sucked. I couldn't even do the damn finishing moves. Bigest waste of money yet, IMO.

[Guest Maurizio C... Version 2]

I've sold this game and bought Silent Hill 2.

[Guest Jay]

Foley, you got rid of a game because of your own ineptitude?  EGADS.

[Guest Maurizio C... Version 2]

jay, I think you're referring to me with your last comment... but no, I didn't get rid of the game for my own ineptitude. I got rid of it because after getting every wrestler with a simple code the game really ain't got no meaning at all. if there was a ppv mode maybe...

[Guest Jay]

No, I'm referring to FOLEY, which is why I put HIS NAME IN MY REPLY.  Sheesh.  Contrary to what you may think, I do have better things in the world than to deal with you.  Foley, in another post, said he got rid of the game because of the controls.  I was replying to what he said in that post, in addition to his post here.

[Guest]

Rented it, its slow, moves passed the basics, are damn near impossible. It does have some replay value cause the career mode is deep, and playing with some of the characters are fun.

[Guest Sykotic2002]

This game is the drizzling shits.  THANK GOD, I got this for Christmas and didn't pay for it.

[Guest Jay]

I love how most just bash the game without backing up any of their statements, it really adds a nice touch of credibility to their statements.

[Guest saturnmark4life]

whilst i like some aspects of the game that you mentioned, i think you put way too much emphasis on them. I don't like it cos i'm a lifelong devotee of the smackdown series, for example. Whilst there are some nice moves it's not half as much fun from a gameplay point of view. and i like to have my create-a-wrestlers much better than that. It's got some good qualities but it's not a great game by any stretch.

[Guest Jay]

That's your opinion, and that's cool.  At least you have BACKED UP what you have said.