Legends of WrestleMania - PS3

I have mentioned before that I have soft spot for 80's wrestling, back when it was called the WWF.

I remember sitting with my grandfather watching Gorilla Monson and Billy Bob Orton go at it (not like that you manics!)

So when it really became popular with the introduction of Hulk Hogan, it made it that much more spectacular. They was even a cartoon show based off the stuff for crying out loud. It was all amazing. I have the Legends game for the PS2 and this was my first one on the PS3.

The content of this game, it has 3 I guess story modes, but not really. They are fighting tiers, fight 10 guys in a row. And relive, redefine and some other one I don't remember. But they are classic WWF matches that you have to recapture in your own match. So there are a list of things you have to do win the match or win GOLD. It could be making your opponent bleed, reverse his finisher, throw him out of the ring, etc. This mode is possible the most entertaining thing in the game.

Of course it has all your basic stuff as well, all the different match types to play against friends or the computer or online and create a wrestler. But what really makes this game shine are all the actual clips from the 80's before each match. It shows the rivalry and the smack talk and highlights from the match itself.



It is here that this game excels at making me remember what I loved so much in the 80's. Its a great trip down memory lane and I loved every min of it.

The game play itself though is more a sequence of set up quicktime events then game play. Sure you can punch and grapple and such. But the meat of the game are the quicktime events. Making a opponent groggy results in a set of quicktime events which if you fail, means they reversed it and its all very cool looking. But once you get towards the end of the game play, starts to become a little stale.



So the bad I guess, it could have used more variety in the moves list. It does get trying to see most wrestlers do the same punch to the leg over and over.

The other thing would be a interactive tutorial. The tutorial is just a 25 page list. Which resulted in quite a few times, me not knowing what I had to do or how to do something. Which turned into me doing trial and error, which was very annoying at time. Like a said, a simple interactive tutorial would be super nice here.

Graphics..holy cow the graphics....the wrestlers themselves are decent enough. Although the style they went with was over the top muscles where even Andre the Giant as Abs. That's fine, but the rings...holy cow. The ring builds were down right poor. THE CROWDS!!!..some of the worst I've seen in a video game for its time. You would expect something for the crown, but this is downright ridiculous!!

It isn't best video(dammit I got to get my recording software set up) but this is a taste of the crowd.

The other thing is the roster. It says legends, but there roster goes into the 90's. I had stopped watching wrestling long before the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin showed up. So there are a handful of wrestlers that are from that era. Some I don't even recognize, who the heck is Hunter Helmsly for example?

Anyway, I would have rather that they put in some of the more well known wrestlers from the 80's. Such as Ricky the Dragon, Macho Man, the Killer Bees, The Rockers, Davey Boy Smith, George the Animal Steele, Virgil, etc. I don't know if it was a space thing or getting rights to their images? but it is a big loss in my book.



Overall, for a fan of 80's WWF wrestling, it was a great trip down memory lane and the game play was decent enough to keep me entertained and not get bored going through all the trials. Picking it up and playing with a friend is OK but its more of a set piece than a game.

So I can't recommend this game to all gamers. Only if you were a fan of the 80's wrestling. Everyone else, I don't think there's enough here to qualify for a good experience. There are better wrestling games out there, but for me it was the content. With this, I think I have had my fill for nostalgia wrestling games. I was considering the new gamethat mixes old super stars with new age wrestlers, but after this game. I think I will be passing.