by: Michael Ogunnubi

April 05, 2009

Legends of WrestleMania comes in with the idea behind it being the ability to relive, rewrite, and redefine the greatest moments in wrestlemania history. Wrestling, you either love it or you hate it. Me, I think it’s ok, as long as you accept the fact that it’s just a soap opera for boys. As a youth in elementary school I’ll admit, I could never relate to my classmates every Friday morning, the day after WWF (the name at the time) came on. The acting is terrible and the plots are weak, but for some inexplicable reason I actually like the games. This game takes us to the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of the WWF and I must say, YUKE has done a pretty excellent job in recreating some of the best moments in wrestling history; this game spans from in the 1980s and 1990s.

Let’s get it straight from the onset; this is a niche title. I know it sounds strange to say it, due to the global outreach of the WWE brand, but it’s not going to entice anyone in who doesn’t already have an interest in this particular division of ‘sports entertainment’. However, for those fans out there who have slowly lost interest in the over-complex Smackdown vs Raw offerings that require you to have the brainpower of Stephen Hawking in order to remember combos, you’ll be pleased to know that WWE Legends has been pared back and is a lot simpler to get to grips with. This doesn’t mean it is simplistic, however. You can still perform a variety of strikes, grapples, irish whips, clotheslines etc, but it all seems a lot less bewildering when you first pick it up. You’ll soon be suplexing like Mr Perfect and chest-chopping like Ric Flair himself. I had not touched a wrestling game since back when I reviewed Smackdown vs Raw 2009 and it only took me maybe 5-10 minutes to at least get the basic controls down and earn a few achievements along the way. So with this game, it’s an easy to pick up, keep playing to get really good type. I would say “hard to master”…but it isn’t.

The basic game works in a similar fashion to other wrestling games; the more successful moves you perform, the more your opponent’s energy bar will deplete. When it’s been depleted far enough, you will be able to pin or make them submit. Where this game differs is that it introduces a leveling system called the Chain Levels. You start on Level 1 and can progress up to Level 3, where you can then perform your finishing move with a couple of button presses. As you successfully execute moves against your opponent during a match, your Chain Level increases. When initiating special moves and certain grapples, you are presented with a quicktime event, where you have to press two or three face buttons during the move in order to complete it. When you complete your special move (or fail it), you then drop back down to Level 2, and have to work your way back up again. There’s the obligatory button-mashing when it comes to getting yourself back up after a fall, or trying to escape from a pin, but thankfully it’s not too frequent.