Wrestlemania 2000 Review
I have never been much into wrestling, (ladies topless mud wrestling excluding of course). When I was about 10 I used to watch all the old ones a bit, but you seem to strangely grow out of it. Upon moving into my new house some 10 years later, we all decided to splash out and get sky digital with all the channels, (bloody waste of money if you ask me). Then for some unknown reason a strange condition known to the masses as wrestle-mania seemed to take over the few TV hours, between work and pub, that we managed to spare. It was then to my dismay I find Wrestlemania is posted through my door, will I never rid myself of this foul demon? Well of course not, WWF rules!
Wrestlemania 2000, I wish the whole world especially games makers would stop with all the 2000 all over the place, I think we all get the idea. I suppose you need a way to distinguish from the last game, but you could call it Wrestlemania 2 or 3 or whatever. The easiest way to look at it is if Microsoft do it, (Office 2000, Windows 2000 etc etc), then you have to admit that it's obviously crap and not worth doing yourself, (he says, writing his review on Word, whilst using Windows!). Sorry I got a bit side-tracked there, so anyway the game...
Well Wrestlemania is based on the whole WWF thing. That's not the World Wildlife Fund, just in case you were thinking the game was about saving some panda's in some god forsaken part of the globe. No, it's about a battle, a battle for truth, justice and the American way (Yeah, and I don't mean stuffing your face full of fast food, and whining on Jerry Springer about you mum sleeping with your three sisters and your wife's goat). Well no, it's not about any of that really, it's just about beating the living smeg out of any scum who dares to enter the ring with you. ("God he's off again"-Ed).
In single player the game it's self has five playing modes, Championship, Vs, Tag Team, Survivor Series, and Gauntlet. All of them are based around the same idea, to beat your opponent until you are able to pin him down for a count of three, but all have their own little quirks to give the game that extra lastability. Championship and Gauntlet mode are basically the same. You have to fight you way through the wrestling ranks to win. The only real difference is you get full health at the end of each fight in championship mode whereas you don't in gauntlet. Vs mode is just a single fight (unless you change the fight options in the option menu), where you get to choose which wrestlers you and your opponent are. Survivor Series, is a set of matches where there are two teams, each team has four wrestlers in it. The object of Survivor Series, (as in all of the modes), is to win. Whichever team loses brings their next wrestler into the ring to fight the winner until one team has used all its players. The final main mode is Tag Team. This mode involves you selecting two wrestlers to fight against two other wrestlers, only one is allowed the ring at any one time. But if you throw your opponent out of the ring you get to use your spare wrestler to 'soften' him up a bit out-side the ring. There is one extra mode, which I have not talked about and that is the practice mode. This is a great little extra for one main reason, you get to try out all the moves which you want to perfect, such as the finishing moves. The one advantage of doing this in practice mode compared to the other modes is that you opponent doesn't fight back., (well not much anyway), which is nice.
One of the nice things about this game is that is uses loads of up to date players all from the actual WWF. The only player I saw in the game, which was out of date, was Mankind, (who was banned from the WWF from some reason or other). Mankind is in the real WWF, but has taken a new guise (I can't remember what). Other good bits were things such as, all of the wrestlers retained their trademark finishing moves. So if you want to get the Undertaker to tombstone Kain, or shove that sweaty sock into the Undertakers mouth you can. It's a pity though the tag team section didn't contain some of the well know tag team combinations, instead you could just pair up any of the normal single player wrestlers. I'm glad they decided to add the cage as an option for fighting in, but it would have been nice to have added some other extra's though. For example, the random pieces of wood, chairs, or maybe even an occasional wrestler charge into the ring to attempt to give your opponent the upper hand by trying to kick your butt just because you whipped his the game before.
I knocked a few points off the final score mainly for the sound. The music was very repetitive and it's just a godsend that you can turn it off in the option menu. Although saying that, the in game sound effects were great! You get all the grunts and groans as you slam you opponent into the mat from a clothesline, or Steve Austin does the Stone Cold Stunner on some poor fool who though they were man enough to take him on. It is a shame though, that it is still necessary to drill it into game makers that sound is an integral part of a game, I see time and time again the sound side of things letting, what would be an all-round great game, down. Luckily with these guys not too much of a drilling was needed.
Overall this game is a great laugh. Whether you're a fan of WWF or not, you will be impressed by this, one of the nicest made Gameboy colour games I have ever played. I didn't try it out in two-player mode only because I was too engrossed in playing it in one player mode, but I'm sure if two players is anything to go by, it's probably just as good as the one player version. The sound isn't bad, the gameplay is first rate, and it will go the distance. This one is a must.