Wrestlemania XIX Impressions

[Professor S]

I rented WMXIX today and have spent a couple of hours with it. I started out by going straight to the Create a Wrestler mode, as any good wrestling gamer should. Let me tell you, impressed is not the word. The WM create a wrestler is phenomenal. An incredible amount of moves and outfits. There were moves in there that were obscure Inependent wrestler moves and Puroresu moves as well. The selection is better than even Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, which was much better than No Mercy.

I could already tell that Yukes has something with their new grappling engine as I went throuh the training mode, which is narrated by Al Snow which is a very cool idea.

So I had created my wrestler using the incredible library of moves and outfits, and then decided to give him a run in an exhibition match...

It was like trying to wrestle on crack. I'm not even going to yell about this. Yukles has failed MISERABLY yet again, and the worst part is if they had just SLOWED THE GAME DOWN it would have been better than No Mercy. I'm not kidding. This game has every feature you could want, a robust grappling system that allows you to do almost anything from any possible position, and an incredible Create a Wrestler. The rumors about AKI's team being hired by Yukes are definitely true, but they are still run by some speed freak who thinks that 5 million strikes in a match makes good wrestling. Pathetic.

They had to make an arcade fighting game and make all their hard work be for nothing. Its crap. Its a big fat stinking bore because they give you so much you can do, but you only have time to do the basics because your opponent hops right up from everything. I doubt I'll play it again as I like WRESTLING games, not bad fighting games.

Oh yeah, the reversal system sucks too. Reversals are fine, but when every stinking move can be reversed, why bother?

SCORE - 5.0 out of 10 (3 points for the great grappling system you can't use and the fantastic CAW, 2 points for the great sound, 0 for everything else)