To prepare for this
review, I rented a DVD featuring all the Backyard Wrestling crew and what I saw
left me with my jaw dropped down. A young man from New Jersey climbed up on his
roof and threw himself off it just to land on his buddy who was laying flat on a
table and shattered it while really hurting his friend. In another segment, two
combatants are at each another’s throats when one of them picks up a garbage can
and slams it into his opponent’s head to the point that the man starts bleeding
profusely. Sounds like fun? It might be but thanks to Backyard Wrestling:
Don’t Try This At Home for the Xbox, it’s best do that in a video game . . .
unless you think spending the week in the Intensive Care Unit wing is your idea
of a weekend getaway.
Backyard Wrestling, if you
haven’t seen the infomercials or seen the actual videos themselves, strays far
from the regulation-style wrestling WWE fans are familiar with and does so with
far less drama and more physical violence. That’s right, anything goes in this
style of wrestling and that means you won’t get very far in this wrestling
circuit if you don’t break a two-by-four over somebody’s head. The winner of
these matches is the one that’s still standing and not passed out over a puddle
of their own blood.
The game offers three
modes of playing the game: Talk Show Mode, Exhibition and Bonus Games.
Exhibition mode allows you to use any wrestler and location you happen to unlock
in the game’s main story mode, Talk Show Mode, and allows you to play against a
friend. Bonus Games comes with Survival mode (fight as many opponents as
possible), King of the Hill (go up against a friend and dominate a location) and
Tag (whoever gets knocked down during the match is it).
Talk Show Mode doesn’t
really follow your chosen wrestler per se but it’s certainly connected with the
location in which you do most of your wrestling. You are thrust into many
unlikely locations that push the idea that this type of wrestling franchise is
the kind that can be done anywhere. One day you’re fighting in a backyard fit
for a backwoods redneck and the next you’re in a meat locker with slabs of beef
nearby. The wrestling, though, is all the same.
Basically you’re placed on
the environment with plenty of weapons scattered all around for you to use
during the match. There’s baseball bats laced with barbwire, two-by-fours and
even objects like chairs, television sets and shopping carts filled with junk.
The wrestlers all come complete with a variety of moves as well so you’ll
definitely be able to climb up a roof and drop down on a dazed or punch drunk
opponent. Here all you have to do is knock an opponent down and don’t even
bother to pin them.
So with all these brutal
moves and regulation rules tossed out the windows, why isn’t Backyard Wrestling
very fun? The trouble falls with the frustrating opponent AI and the controls
that have you running around the environment looking for a brick or basketball
to toss than performing wild moves. We’ll start with the controls first.
Control-wise, Backyard Wrestling has a few grappling moves and counter moves to
keep you from eating pavement. Yet often times you’ll be doing more throwing or
swinging bats than actually performing a pile driver or a toilet seat (that’s
when you bend your knees as if making a human seat and slamming your opponent’s
back into your knees).
On to the frustrating AI,
which is truly the game’s biggest problem. The opponents usually never miss
when they toss something at you and they’re a lot quicker to counter a move than
you. Now this usually makes for a challenging bout, but it’s frustrating when
your entire moves end up with you getting grabbed by the neck before you can
even press the counter button. Secondly, there is not much skill needed to
actually defeat an opponent. All you have to do is kick and punch until you
stun said wrestler and then attempt a grappling move.
Visually, the game is not
bad -looking at all. In fact, the environments look pretty good since there is
just too many nicely detailed objects all around you. The many wild characters
are also nicely rendered and watching the Insane Clown Posse get massacred
during a match is a hilarious sight to behold. The game is very bloody and
actually very brutal, though, and you’ll see it once a wrestler receives a bat
to the cranium. The blood effects are done realistically enough and you’ll even
get to see facial damage as well as heavy splattering of blood when noses are
broken. Trust me, this is the reason this game received its Mature rating.
Sound-wise, Backyard
Wrestling has plenty of tunes to keep you company during the match and you can
switch tunes even in the middle of a fight. You’ll find a multitude of songs
from the Insane Clown Posse to Bowling For Soup, Andrew W. K., and even Rancid.
There’s even decent voice work and sound effects that certainly sound good
enough to make you wince.
Backyard Wrestling has a
long way to go if it wants to impress us with its fresh take on the wrestling
genre and, thanks to its many flaws, its few good qualities are overshadowed by
its many bad ones. While the game has good graphics and plenty of Backyard
Wrestling antics, the actual wrestling itself is flawed by many frustrating
factors. If you’re curious for something different, you wouldn’t go wrong with
a rental, otherwise stay away.
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#Reviewer’s |
Gameplay: 6.0
The game’s downfall is its controls
and the opponent AI that keeps the game from being fun despite its use of
weapons and anything-goes appeal. The majority of matches are spent dashing
through the environment and hurling basketballs or other assortment of objects
at your opponent and, while you can swing a bat into your foe’s chest, your
opponent can easily counter you and send plenty more hurt your way.
Graphics: 7.5
While not visually stunning, the
game is still pretty decent to look at and you can’t help but smile at the
various character types (there’s everything from crazed clowns to comely
strippers) that are rendered pretty nicely. The environments themselves are
filled with plenty of eye-catching details, but it’s the damage done to the
characters that really shine through. Smash a brick into your opponent’s face
and his face becomes a bloody mess. Yes, it’s pretty brutal setting somebody on
fire or smacking him across the head with a lamppost but this game does it so
good you can’t help but watch.
Sound: 8.0
The game certainly doesn’t lack in
the tunes department because there are just so many songs in the play list that
you won’t feel the need to add your own tunes to the mix. That is, of course,
if heavy hitting tunes from Sepultura, Anthrax and Biohazard aren’t your cup of
tea. The sound effects also work nicely in this game and while the game is
filled with pained grunts and cries, the sound of a bat smacking against flesh
sounds painful. There’s also some pretty decent voice work and many of the
characters have pretty hilarious lines and taunts.
Difficulty: Hard
Going up against the
computer-controlled opponents will leave you pretty frustrated and the reason is
simple–they’re all just too good at everything. Dodging things your foes toss
at you might seem easy but somehow the object always finds its target. Counter
a move and suddenly Violent J counters your counter move without even
trying. Sounds unfair? It is, indeed. Sounds challenging? It most definitely
isn’t.
Concept: 6.0
The intention behind this game was
to breathe new life into the wrestling genre while offering something completely
different from the WWE wrestling titles on the Xbox, and, for the most part, it
does just that. There are plenty of lively characters to choose from and unlock
in this game and its pretty fun to find these assortment of characters among the
lineup. There’s also the option to create your own wrestler but the design
options are very limited.
Multiplayer: 7.0
The game actually feels a bit better
when going up against a friend rather than playing against a computer-controlled
opponent. The reason for this is now you’re playing somebody that’s more likely
to make mistakes and actually swing and miss. You can wrestle a buddy in the
Exhibition mode as well as the bonus game modes such as King of the Hill and
Tag.
Overall: 6.5
Backyard Wrestling could have been
one of those great alternatives to the WWE wrestling titles, but its many flaws
are just too numerous to make this one any fun. The sad thing is that the game
has all the elements that make up a really brutal and entertaining game and the
graphics aren’t very bad at all. If you want a different wrestling game on your
Xbox, this one will certainly make a pretty good rental.
