WWE Legends of WrestleMania Hands-on Preview

Nostalgia. Everyone loves it. Down the pub, over a few beers – Transformers, Super Mario Bros., Michael Jackson, Back to the Future, big hair, curtains, Nirvana, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter II – it makes us laugh, cry, cringe, and feel all warm inside. Back then all that mattered was surviving school, running home, watching TV, playing video games, listening to music, and doing it all over again tomorrow. That, and WWF.

Not the World Wide Fund for Nature, but the World Wrestling Federation, as it was known back in the day. Back, dare we say it, when it was good. Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Bobby “the Brain” Heenan, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jimmy Hart and Bret Hart – remember them? Good. Game publisher THQ certainly hopes you do, too. Why? Because it’s readying the launch of WWE Legends of WrestleMania, a virtual trip down memory lane for those of you who used to love wrestling in the 80s and 90s.

The game, in development for the 360 and PS3, is being developed by Yuke’s, the same Japanese developer behind the annual WWE SmackDown VS. Raw games. There are undoubted similarities – the graphics, the wrestler movement, the structure – but it’s really a very different game. That’s mainly down to the simplified controls and the new combo system. The complexity of the SDvR games has been completely stripped away in favour of an old school arcade control system that rekindles memories of the classic NES WWF games.

The left thumb stick or d-pad are used for wrestler movement, and the face buttons are used for wrestler actions. On the 360 pad, Y is for guard, X is for strike, A is for grapple and B performs actions, like getting in and out of the ring. That’s it, for all intents and purposes.

At the top of the screen a yellow bar displays your wrestler’s overall health, a red bar underneath shows momentum, and underneath that sits a three-tiered, fighting game-esque super bar. Doing damage to your opponent will reduce his health bar, as you’d expect, but it’ll also build up your momentum bar. When that fills up, one tier of your super bar will activate, opening up new moves and abilities. Get your super bar to level three and you’ll be able to perform a trademark finishing move.

There’s a new taunt system, too. Each fighter has four taunts, triggered by pressing Y and B and a direction. They eat up half your momentum bar, but provide a useful temporary buff to your wrestler, like a speed boost. Submissions trigger quick time events for escapes, getting out of pins involves mashing the face buttons until a circle bar fills up before the three count is up, and you can counter with a well-timed press of the Y button.

It all combines to give Legends a very arcadey feel, much more so than the hard to pick up and play SDvR games. It is a stripped down experience. Some though, might say it’s more fun, more immediately satisfying, and, crucially from THQ’s perspective, more accessible.

The super bar comes more into play in the Relive, Rewrite and Redefine game modes, which supplement the standard exhibition mode. Relive allows you to, well, relive classic WrestleMania matches exactly as they really happened, Rewrite allows the real life loser to become the virtual victor, and Redefine allows you to mix things up by adding variables, like different rule types and weapons.

When you select to play one of the 15 matches that have been taken from the first 15 WrestleManias, you’re treated to a montage of real archived footage, a first for the series, that sets up the bout. Take the famous Andre the Giant versus Hulk Hogan fight from WrestleMania III, for example. You see clips showing Andre’s turn to the dark side, and Hulk’s distress at seeing his mentor and hero turn against him, before the virtual action begins. It’s all professionally put together and is sure to please those of you who remember watching it as a kid.

In Relive mode each match challenges you to complete a number of point-awarding objectives. These objectives are tied into moves and events that were performed in the actual matches, like Hulk throwing Andre to the ground. But you’ll only be able to complete them by filling up your super meter – the different tiers unlock the abilities you need to do so. Hulk can’t body slam the much bigger Andre the Giant until level two is obtained, for example. If he tries beforehand he’ll give up, his face in excruciating pain and hand pressed against his twisted spine.

The arcadey feel permeates through more than the controls. The wrestlers themselves are heavily stylised – Hulk Hogan’s torso is ridiculously huge, and he’s much taller in comparison with Andre the Giant than he was in real life. The menus have been made to look like the WWE Hall of Fame vaults. The point is this: Legends’ aim is not to appeal exclusively to current wrestling fans who buy the SDvR games year after year, who continue to watch WWE on Sky Sports and maybe even see the action live. Legends’ aim is to also appeal to those in their late 20s or 30s, perhaps, who watched and enjoyed wrestling back in the 80s and 90s but fell out of love with it when they grew up. It’s as much of a nostalgia trip as it is a fun, arcadey fighting game.

Bar that, confirmed features include online play and create modes, essential really, given the last SDvR game included both, and, get this, you’ll be able to import superstars from SDvR09 into Legends and play with them. We’re not sure exactly how this is going to work, but fans are sure to love it – John Cena versus Bret Hart? You got it.

The archive clips and arcadey controls will hopefully make Legends of WrestleMania perfect fodder for lapsed wrestling fans, fuelling laughs and shocks as all those memories come flooding back. Assuming it achieves this goal, it’ll be job well done from THQ’s point of view. Now… who fancies watching The Rock videos on YouTube?

WWE Legends of WrestleMania is due out on Xbox 360 and PS3 in late March.