"Fans of old-school wrestling will eat this up."

Old-school wrestling fans will enjoy this very first wrestling game on the Nintendo GameCube. I am a particular fan of old-school wrestling, so that most likely contributed a good deal to my enjoyment of this game. Fans of modern-day wrestling should wait for Wrestlemania X-8.

I’ll begin with exactly what makes a wrestling game a good wrestling game:

Characters
The selection of characters here is astounding. There are 42 characters total in the game. 30 are available from the start and 12 must be obtained by doing various things in the game. Amongst the midst of the cast of characters are Hulk Hogan, Bret Hitman Hart, Superfly Jimmy Snuka, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, the Legion of Doom, the Rock N Roll Express, the four von Erich brothers and their father Fritz von Erich, Mr. Fuji, Capt. Lou Albano, “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart, Ted Dibiase, and still more. The list is extremely impressive, also because older favorites such as Mr. USA Tony Atlas and Harley Race are there. Each character has his own personality, attributes, and style. However, there are just a few aspects of the characters I am slightly disappointed about. First of all, my two favorite wrestlers, true legends to the WWF – The Ultimate Warrior and Jake the Snake Roberts – are not there, and my favorite tag team, former 3-times WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition are also not there. That’s just biased-ness on my part though. I do wish that some original ring names were kept. For example, Kerry von Erich is better known to most WWF fans as the Texas Tornado. He was extremely popular during his days. However, since the game features the 5 members of the von Erich clan, I can understand why Kerry von Erich was simply kept.
Character Score: 9/10, -1 for no Warrior, Roberts, or Demolition. :]

Create-A-Legend
You can create your own wrestlers here. You can choose to edit an existing legend to make your own or start from scratch entirely. You can also gain attribute points for a wrestler as you bring them through Career mode and place them here. However, at 9 blocks per wrestler, the memory card gets full fast. You’ll want to invest in that new InterAct 16x Memory Card, I believe it is, which has 1018 blocks, if you like creating lots of wrestlers.
Create-A-Legend Score: 9/10

Fun Factor/Gameplay
I’ll include both of these in the same score since they compliment each other.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun. I enjoy very much seeing my favorite old-school wrestlers back in the ring once again. In the Exhibition mode, you can also choose to play as the referee, which gets just plain fun. You can count for a pin as fast or as slow as you like, and you can ring the bell for a submission at any time during the match that someone puts a submission hold on even if the opponent could still go on. Plus, you can still also interfere in the match with your wrestler’s own holds. Also available is the Career mode, where you take your wrestler and a manager first throughout the 5 regions of the country, winning a belt in each region, then winning the US belt, then winning the World belt. However, it is a lot of matches, and it gets boring with the same wrestler. You have to be patient, as IIRC there are 3 wrestlers that you must take through Career to unlock all of the hidden wrestlers. Next mode is the Tournament Mode, where you can have a singles tournament, a tag team tournament, or compete for the Tag Team belt. What would have made this game absolutely perfect (aside from the characters stated above) would be a Battle Royal/Royal Rumble/Cage Match option, but alas, we must do without them. Still, the game is fun, and you’ll enjoy it.
Fun Factor/Gameplay Score: 8/10

Sound
Background music is really not that great. Each wrestler has his own entrance, but the only entrance music that sounds even close to the original is the Legion of Doom’s. I think the music could have been done much better than it actually was.
The sound effects are good. The more your popularity increases in Career mode, the louder the crowd cheers. As the announcer introduces each wrestler, the cheers and boos are very prominent. The sound of a table smashing against the head of your opponent is disturbingly refreshing at times you’re in a bad mood.
Music Score: 3/10
Sound Effects Score: 10/10
Overall Sound Score: 6.5/10 ~ 7/10

Graphics
Nothing much to say here except that the graphics are excellent. Movement is smooth and continuous. Each wrestler looks different with all features accentuated. King Kong Bundy is fat, Hulk Hogan is muscular, and created women are skinny. One slightly disappointing, although not overly hurting, aspect of the graphics is the fans. They are paper-thin. However, as stated, they really don’t contribute much to the overall game outside of their cheers.
Graphics Score: 9/10

Control
The control system is complicated, and it does take a while to get used to it, but when you do, you will love it. Most of the wrestling moves are done outside of a grapple, unlike most other wrestling games. This is more true to actual wrestling, as you don’t typically see two wrestlers grapple that often, except at the beginning of the match, and they don’t do much in the grapple except maybe for a knee to the stomach. The counter system is excellent once you realize how to use it; it is, however, a bit complicated to explain here.
Control Score: 9/10

Overall
As I stated in the beginning, fans of old-school wrestling will enjoy this much more than fans of modern-day wrestling. If you are a fan of modern-day wrestling, wait for Wrestlemania X-8 to come out this June.

Overall Score: 51/60 = 8.5/10 = 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/04/02, Updated 08/26/02