Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighborhood – PS2 – Review

When Backyard
Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home was released, it was supposed to be a
wildly unique alternative to the WWE games wrestling fans have been enjoying
since WWE SmackDown!: Here Comes The Pain. Sure, it has all the features
of those bloody grappling videos and yes, the fact that you can break a 2×4 over
a wrestler’s melon is appealing, but the overall execution was appalling and the
game quickly became a bargain bin title. Now Eidos attempts to rectify the
title’s original problems with Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The
Neighborhood. So have they improved the game enough that it’ll make us
forgive and forget the original?

The answer is a
big no; in fact, despite the minor changes the gameplay remains the same. This
is certainly bad news for those gamers that are actual fans of this style of
underground wrestling, but at least the few changes add a few more moves to the
move list. Backyard Wrestling 2 continues the over-the-top gratuitously
bloody brawls that makes the WWE style of wrestling seem extremely tame in
comparison and, for the most part, is still able to capture its essence
perfectly. You can grab an opponent and bash his head into a rusted old car in
somebody’s backyard or slam a wrestler into a picnic table until the table
breaks into pieces. Blood will flow and wacky wrestlers such as Violent J and
Shaggy 2 Dope (the two members of the Insane Clown Posse) will attempt to use
you as a battering ram. 

The game offers
two modes of playing the game: Career and Exhibition. Career Mode allows you to
create your own wrestler, choosing everything from sex, body type, hairstyle and
various clothing options. While the creation process is not as deep as WWE
SmackDown! Vs. Raw, it’s a welcome addition that, at least, will make you
care enough to see your character win. Unfortunately the game doesn’t have a
story or feature any rivalries that will keep you fixed on the main objective:
become the champion of Backyard Wrestling. You’ll have the option to pick a
location that offers a lengthy series of opponents to fight, but whichever you
choose you’ll be fighting a long list of oddball wrestlers that seem to have
been put together using the game’s Custom Wrestler options. The main opponents
are the real challenge here and you’ll face returning Backyard
Wrestling grapplers (like Ruckus and New Jack), celebrities (like Andrew WK
and the Insane Clown Posse), and replacing the strippers from the first game are
two adult film stars.

Here’s where
everything seems to fall apart. The second the match begins, you’ll immediately
be disappointed with the controls that make moving your character a real
challenge. Your grappler will clumsily miss a kick or grab at the air. He or she
will attempt to block a blow that seems to go right through your arm and hits
you squared in the face. Your opponent will escape a grapple with the slightest
of ease but when you try the same thing it’s never successful. You can toss
opponents off the ledge of a swimming pool only to have them recover faster than
you can if the roles were reversed. Turbo and Super Move are great ideas, but
ultimately they fall flat here and make up for many missed opportunities
throughout the match. The Environ-Mental feature allows you to use environmental
objects such as cars or desks (at one point in a restaurant you can toss an
opponent into a fully functional stove) and it works okay enough.

The opponent AI
is just one of the game’s many problems that make this a repetitive game. Many
times you’ll be the one chasing down the other wrestler because he or she begins
to simply run around. You’ll be too frustrated by the fact that your opponent
can easily reverse a move that you’ll be tempted to just win matches by simply
kicking and punching the other wrestler as many times as you can. Since things
like tables or chairs or picket fences shatter into usable pieces, you can win
matches by grabbing a board and hitting your opponent repeatedly until he’s
knocked out. Of course, this means you won’t earn extra cash for performing neat
tricks but then again the extra movies you can purchase don’t offer much that is
different from the free movies.

Visually,
Backyard Wrestling 2 on the PS2 is slightly better than the original and
that’s not saying much. The environments have plenty of detail and while it’s
unrealistic to watch a bench shatter into dozens of pieces just by running into
it, the fact that you can pick up pieces and use it against your opponent is
cool. The character models, though, are still a little blocky and there isn’t
any natural expression on your grappler’s face that registers pain. The hair
does flow … as does the blood … yet this just doesn’t make this a visual
treat.

As for the
sound, the voice acting is made up of repetitive phrases you’ll hear over and
over again. Many of the characters sound as though they’ve been voiced by the
same person (why does every beefy male character sound just like actor John
Goodman?) and the sound effects are limited to a few slapping sounds and things
breaking. There’s a soundtrack and the massive song list is pretty impressive
since you won’t hear the same song twice. The music ranges from the heavy stuff
from bands like Saliva to a tune from Hoobastank, and it’s pretty good stuff if
you’re into that kind of music.

It’s sad to see
a game that had a lot of potential fail to rise above it flaws, but it’s even
worse to see a sequel repeat the same mistakes as is the case with Backyard
Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighborhood. Even with the few changes the
game’s clunky controls and poor opponent AI makes this a repetitive and
frustrating game to play for long periods time. With so many other better
wrestling games available this year, I suggest you forget this one and spend
your money on one of them.

Gameplay: 5.0
All the things
that made the first game a flawed, repetitive and below-average experience are
back in There Goes The Neighborhood. The few additions made to the game
are not enough to mask the game’s awful controls even with the cool destructible
environments.

Graphics: 6.0
Good news …
this one is better looking than the original and sports some pretty neat
environments you can wreak havoc on during matches. The bad news is that the
character models move stiffly and are totally devoid of any show of emotion.
Slam Mad Man Pondo over the head with a garbage can and he doesn’t even wince.

Sound: 4.9
The
heavy-hitting soundtrack might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for those who
love GWAR, Saliva or Andrew WK will get a kick out of the fifty-something tunes.
You might even love the sound of ramming an opponent through a glass door in an
office building and then smashing a chair over his crumpled body. As for the
voice acting, it’s repetitive and poorly performed.

Difficulty:
Easy
While your
opponents can land some pretty surprising blows and can reverse a move just as
easily as you can, you can still defeat every opponent using the simple ‘grab a
weapon, hit multiple times until he/she gives up’ technique. 

Concept: 5.5

There’s plenty
of zany characters (including you Andrew WK) and a number of interesting
environments to wrestle in but there’s very little else to look forward to after
beating the game’s main Career mode. The Custom Wrestler feature is a nice touch
but nothing new.

Multiplayer:
5.0
No multiplayer
means you can’t show off your wacky created character but at least there’s a
two-player option for Exhibition matches only.

Overall: 5.0
Everything you
hated about the last game makes its return in Backyard Wrestling 2, a
sequel that just isn’t fun enough to recommend to fans of wrestling games. If
you’re an absolute fan of this style of underground wrestling, wait until this
one becomes available at the bargain bin of your local game store … otherwise
skip this one entirely.