Brutal Gamer

WWE Legends of WrestleMania (Xbox 360) Review

By Mike - March 31, 2009 - 20:20 UTC

I used to be a major wrestling fan back in the day. I still catch the occasional show if I can be bothered, but it doesn’t interest me the way it used to. However, I always make a point of watching WrestleMania, which I have watched every year since I stayed up to see WrestleMania IX as a kid. I will admit that I do love wrestling games, though. The worst wrestling game I’ve ever played was Legends of Wrestling, which was made by Acclaim when they lost the WWE license to THQ many years ago. Good Lord was that game terrible.

Anyhoo, when Legends of WrestleMania was announced, I was very much looking forward to it. I enjoyed the recent SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 (and, as people on my 360 friends list will probably tell you, I still do) and was looking forward to seeing what Yukes would do with it. And now that I’ve spent a while playing it, I can report that it’s good. Well, kinda…

As soon as you start the game up, it feels very familiar. The title screen and main menu are basically a re-skinned SDvR 2009. The list of exhibition is a lot smaller than the SD games. I’m guessing it’s because they’ve kept the match types down to those that featured during the time line that the game features, going up to WrestleMania XV.

The first thing you notice upon playing is that the controls for this game and the actual way the matches work are completely new for this game, with the idea of giving the game a more arcade feel to it. Your character has two meters, a health meter and a ‘chain’ meter. The chain meter has 3 levels. You start at level 1, and as you pull off moves, the meter fills up until you hit level 2, at which point you can perform different grapple moves and do more damage. Once you get all the way to level 3, you can perform your wrestler’s finishing move. This activates a sequence in which your wrestler will perform 2 or 3 moves, the third one being your actual finishing move. However, each move in the sequence is activated by a quick time event. A large button indicator appears in the middle of the screen and you have to quickly hit that button to activate the next move in the sequence. If you miss a button press, you will not perform your finishing move. If you perform your finishing move, and your opponent kicks out, they regain quite a bit of health, and you have to build your chain meter back up from level 1 again. These quick time events also can happen with other grapple moves as well, and appear far too much for my liking. Almost like you’re essentially playing ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ rather than a wrestling game.

'Whatcha gonna do, brother?'

The controls are a major sticking point for me, and some of them just don’t feel natural. You get used to them after a while, but it doesn’t always work. For example, there is no set ‘run’ button. In order to run, you either have to move the left stick in the opposite direction to your opponent twice, or press B twice. I found myself constantly forgetting and pressing the wrong button. Once you do eventually get the controls down, the game really becomes easy. Almost as if the controls are used as a way of making the game challenging.

The game contains two single player modes. The first is the Legend Killer mode. In this, you create a wrestler and then take on various legends in a 10-man gauntlet match, in which you have to win all 10 matches to clear each tier. There are several tiers in this mode, each with a pre-determined list of legends to defeat. Each win gets you XP with which you can increase the stats of your created wrestler. In addition, if you have SDvR 2009 save data on your hard drive, you can unlock the entire roster for use in Legends of WrestleMania, as well as an extra ‘Superstars’ tier of Legend Killer mode, in which you face 10 wrestlers from that game.

The other main single played mode is the WrestleMania Tour mode. In this, you play out a series of actual WrestleMania match-ups, each one preceded by the actual build-up videos used by WWE to promote the matches. These matches come under 3 categories, Relive, Rewrite and Redefine. In Relive mode, you have to try and recreate the matches with a list of objectives. Get a certain number of objective points, and you get a medal and unlock the next match. In Rewrite, you play as the wrestlers who lost the matches and try and win the match with them, once again with a set of objectives. In Redefine mode, you can play as any participant in the match, but the match will have a different stipulation to the original match. This mode is a lot of fun, and it’s great to see all the old build up videos.

Local multiplayer is a lot of fun with a couple of mates. However, there doesn’t seem to be many people playing online. But I think this is better played locally overall.

Overall, this is an OK game. It looks pretty good, but it’s marred by the badly thought out controls and the bloody quick time events. There’s no real flow to it, and half the time you just feel like you’re participating in an interactive match, pressing the occasional button to keep things going. The relatively short single player modes don’t really offer much challenge either, but are quite fun while they last.

Also, the commentary is made up of lines lifted directly from SDvR 2009 and some new stuff recorded mainly for the WrestleMania Tour mode. And it’s still annoying and repetitive most of the time. This is a great nostalgia hit, but I’d seriously consider renting this first, even if you are a fan of wrestling games.

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