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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not so legendary, 26 Mar 2009
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
THQ and Jukes are back again, this time bringing some of the WWE's best ever superstars back to the ring so that you can "relive, rewrite and redefine" some of the greatest moments in wrestling history. Growing up watching the golden era of wrestling when I was a kid, this game is like a dream come true.
THE GOOD
- Very realistic graphics - all of the wrestlers look extremely life-like and you can even see the sweat as the matches go on! All of the Wrestlemania arenas are there too from WM 1-15 including Caesar's Place, Trump Plaza, the Silverdome and Madison Square Garden.
- A really good roster of superstars including favourites like Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, The Undertaker, Jake the Snake Roberts, Andre the Giant, Big John Studd, Yokozuna, Legion of Doom, Bret Hitman Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Ultimate Warrior, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Hunter Hearst Healmsley as well as some surprises like Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Kamala, Bam Bam Bigelow, Dusty Rhodes, Brutus the Barber Beefcake, The Big Boss Man and Mr Perfect.
- The connectivity to Smackdown vs Raw 2009 is pretty cool as it increases the roster by double.
- Plenty of game modes to choose from including one-on-one, tag team, Royal Rumble, Hell in a Cell, Cage, Ladder, Battle Royale and a few others as well as the one player Legend Killer mode where you create a wrestler and then try to beat the legends. Also the Wrestlemania mode where you replay classic matches.
- The video intros are brilliant, giving the history of the classic matches and also shows you what happened (I also forgot how funny Bobby Heenan was!) Perfect for fans from back in the 80s and 90s - it bought back a lot of memories! The presentation, including the original graphics used for the real-life Wrestlemanias is also excellent.
- Very easy to just pick up and play with a great learning curve and online mode is really good fun.
- It features all of the entrances and original music.
THE BAD
- So many classic superstars are missing! Where's Macho Man Randy Savage, Demolition, Mick Foley/Mankind, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Earthquake, Lex Luger, The Nasty Boys, Akeem, Tatanka, Rick Martell, Tito Santana, Owen Hart, Marty Jeanetty, Doink, The Barbarian, Haku, IRS, The Big Show and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat!?
- There's quite a few wrestlers like Arn Anderson and Michael Hayes for example which I can never really remember as being legends in the WWE (maybe in WCW)..
- The controls aren't great - they should have stuck to the Smackdown vs Raw controls rather than the old school button bashing that is here, as I felt like a lot of the moves you pull off are quite random.
- It is stupidly easy on one player - I flew through Wrestlemania mode on Normal difficulty in no time. Nearly any pin will be successful.
- Some of the entrance music is the newer music and not from the era, like The Big Boss Man and Bam Bam Bigelow.
It seems that there are as many good points as there are bad, so this does summarise this game as pretty average unfortunately, especially for fans from this era like me who perhaps expected a little more from this as it had the potential to be the perfect wrestling game. I actually think that the Showdown: Legends of Wrestling game on the PS2 was a lot better than this in all honesty as although it didn't have the WWE/WWF branding on it, it did have about 40 more wrestlers on the roster and was a bit more fun.
Overall it is a fun to play game with the best presentation I've seen in a wrestling game, but has way too many flaws to be perfect. Worth try if you used to watch WWF in the 80s and 90s but expect to feel slightly underwhelmed on the whole. And that's the bottom line, because KM said so!
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What the world is watching!, 22 Mar 2009
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Like many of us who grew up watching Wrestlemania's this game was either going to do more harm than good, or faithfully recreate all the nostalgic glitz and glamour of the big event. Thankfully it does the latter in abundance. Legend's of Wrestlemania is an arcade style beat-em-up that features loads of classic wrestlers from the WWF's peak in the 80's and early 90's. Wrestlers you'd expect are here (like Hogan, Rick Flair, The Undertaker, Ultimate Warrior) plus some unexpected treats (Kamala, Yokozuna). It's well documented that THQ decided to `beef-up' the character models to make them seem `action figure-esque' the sort of larger-than-life way we remember them as kids. I personally think this works very well (apart from some `over-doing' on Hogan). Not only do the wrestlers look great but the included Wrestlemania venues have been faithfully recreated (most notably Wrestlemania 9 at Caesars Palace).
However all this would be for nothing if the game play was awful. Legend's employs a simplistic grappling system. If you remember early PSone Smackdown games it's along those lines. Hitting the grapple button while your opponent is in a certain position (i.e., downed, at the turnbuckle, etc) will perform a different move. Simple punching combos set this up. It's all familiar territory here. Where the game differs is its action-chain-sequences. Here you perform a grapple at a certain location and as the action unfolds you have to beat your opponent to the punch by pressing a sequence of buttons. If you get it right your moves are successful, get it wrong and it's reversed. Now this is the part of the game play that's got most people worried. Well I personally think it works. It's competitive and fun (sort of a `quick draw' mini-game) and allows you to watch those classic, wrestler-specific, moves being carried out in cinematic style (as it would have been televised). It's not all sequences however and there are plenty of moves to perform from grapples.
As your wrestler inflicts damage you'll move up levels (three in total) as you reach level 1 and 2 your moves will differ and inflict more damage (as do chain-sequences) this also happens at level 3 with the bonus of being able to pull off your finisher. In my opinion this keeps the tempo of the match building, which past wrestling games haven't been able to achieve.
Commentary is done by The King and J.R. Once again it's passable, no better or worse than any wrestling game I've played. What a shame Gorilla Monsoon isn't around anymore to add his renowned voice to this game. Perhaps they could ask Jesse Ventura for a future release.
Legend's has a number of different game modes to choose from, the main one being Wrestlemania Tour. Its split into three categories, Relive, Redefine or Rewrite. Each has its own levels to complete. In relive you do just that relive moments from past Wrestlemania's. Each level gets its own video montage taken from the real-life footage of the time. It's a great way to show the back story of the match to newcomers and a trip down memory lane for people who remember watching as a kid. Once the game starts you must complete objectives directly linked to the actual match. For example, body slamming Andre the Giant or winning the test-of-strength with the Ultimate Warrior etc. You must complete the majority of objectives and get the win to open up the next level. Redefine has a whole new set of levels that allow you to change history and make the loser the winner. Finally Rewrite puts a whole new spin on classic matches pitting opponents in ladder matches and cages etc.
Create a superstar mode is as detailed as ever including create a move set, create an entrance and create a tag team. You then use your created wrestler in the `Legend Killer' game. It's a last man standing affair where you take on as many opponents as you can to earn awards. Again there are a number of levels to this.
The exhibition mode features your single matchup, tag team, cage, ladder, hell in a cell etc. One area that looks really good is the Royal Rumble. With classic logo and venue recreated it brings back the memories. Now you can double team to get wrestlers out of the ring (something I haven't seen before). However it's a little bit annoying when the camera cuts to the wrestler who's next to the ring as it disrupts the game. It's also very difficult to stay in for a long length of time.
While I'm on the negatives I will say that Legend's collision detection is quite poor. Reversals can be difficult so you need to persevere sometimes. Another area that is quite annoying is submissions, they're way too easy to get. They can happen right in the middle of completing objectives in the tour mode which is very annoying. It's best to avoid them late in a match. Some may also find the chain-sequences too difficult as they flash up pretty quickly. Again you need to persevere and be ready when they're coming. Speaking of the Tour mode the objectives can be difficult to complete as they normally involve getting your opponent in a certain position and performing a grapple. Getting a steel chair from under the apron was never such a laborious task as it is now. Sadly the objectives also restrict how you go about winning the match and offer less freedom than other wrestling games. Staying with the Tour mode, the Rewrite section seemed to offer far less variety in objectives. Something of an anticlimax after the far more involved Relive section. Put simply THQ got it right in some areas, but didn't manage it in others.
Overall though I am very happy with what THQ have achieved with Legends. It's an easy, pick-up-and-play game that features enough old superstars to keep me happy. They've tapped into the nostalgia of the period and have given fans a real treat. The negatives do hinder it somewhat, but they don't take away from having fun with the game. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, perhaps if you're a Smackdown v Raw faithful you might want to give it a miss. However if your an old gamer who watched in awe at the glitz and glamour of the WWF then I'd highly recommend it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Legends and footage but where's the gameplay?, 21 Sep 2009
Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars
Well, THQ had a great deal here, if they could have just kept the gameplay and controls from SvR2009...
The grappling system is very bad...
The roster is nice and big... And the import from SvR09 is also very sweet...
But ultimatly, the arenas, all look to mutch alike... And the control systems, just spoils the experience.
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