Although being just a somewhat fan of the real Wrestling sport I have always enjoyed laying the smack down in the video game world. I’m the type of fan that enjoys watching my favorite wrestlers get into the ring but, skipping passed all of the soap opera drama that ensues. Since I purchased my Xbox and traded in my PS2 I tried both the previous wrestling games that were made on the Xbox and was very displeased with both of them. Being a huge fan of the WWE Smackdown Here Comes The Pain on the PS2 just made me miss it more knowing there were no good wrestling games out on the Xbox. I had also heard very good things about the first two that came out for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube. Then reading some previews that really talked up WrestleMania 21 in a couple of game magazines just made me all the more ready to get into the wrestling world again.

After waiting an extra month for the release of this game, as it was pushed back twice, I was unfortunately again disappointed. All I can say is, “where did all of the choices go”? And. “What is with all of the bugs”? Seriously, this game has more bugs than my first apartment. And that is saying something. The game feels as if it was on the right path with everyone working on putting a good game together and all of a sudden, they were given a one week deadline and they just through the game out as it. The game has a lot less choices as the previous releases, graphic bugs, and major lag (just to point out a couple of those bugs). Usually, when a game is pushed back from its original release date, it is a good thing. It just means they have found a bug and are going to fix it before they release the game. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. If anything, they found so many bugs that they debated even bringing the game out at all. I wish they decided to bag the game and save me the money.

Graphics 4/5
The graphics, in general, are my least complaint with the game. They are above average over all in my opinion. The player models look real to life for the most part, (one complaint is JBL looks to be about the same size as Chris Benoit) the various wrestling rings look very good, the crowd in the background is solid enough, and the cut scenes in career mode are well done. Even to the point as your wrestler, and the others, mouth movements are true to what they are saying. The graphics stay true throughout your matches and the game.

However, there are still hiccups even here. For example, the wrestlers tend to loose there shoes and body parts inside and outside the ring as if they were on quicksand (this mainly happens during cut scenes in career mode). A couple of times in a tag match when I would come in to help my partner the ropes would somehow stick to me like a bungee cord following my every move. The ropes stretched around the ring and outside like you wouldn’t believe until I went back out for a tag. This did add some humor though.

Career Mode 1/5
This is where the game falls and can’t get up. You start out by creating your new WWE star and begin a career at the bottom having to work your way up. This part is fine until you realize you have no options or directions from here. The story line is pre-made along with all of your matches and opponents. If you have played any previous THQ wrestling title such as Smack Down Here Comes The Pain or Shut Your Mouth you will understand what I mean by options and directions. In those previous titles your new character had choices on what to say throughout the career mode. These choices then took you on some different directions and even side matches. This giving you a feel that your wrestler is face or heel towards the others. In WrestleMania 21 these choices are completely taken away. You are just watching your wrestler (being a complete jerk) going through the motions as sit back and idly do nothing.

Another major complaint in the career mode is the fact you are not allowed to lose a match. That’s right; you have to win every match in order to move the story line along. If you loose any match along the way you will be forced to redo that match until you win. What fun is that? Throughout the story they make references to this fact that you are undefeated and attempt to make it cool that you haven’t been beaten. Why would I want to have to redo a match over and over if I have a tuff time winning? I like more realism then that. I don’t recall any wrestler not loosing any of their first 30+ matches in their career. The story should just reflect the fact I lost and go in that direction. This also takes out the fun of title matches and defending a title. Titles matches are in the game and you do have to defend on here and there (of you will have titles since you have to win every match that is set up for you) but, there is no story line among these. I missed being able to try and request a title match of my choice if my wrestler qualified for it.

The only thing you can change during this mode is buying some attribute points for your wrestler making them a little better. Even this is very limited. When you pre-make your character in the beginning you choose what type of character you want to be. For example, you could be a powerful wrestler or perhaps a technical wrestler. Which ever choice you choose you will have a certain amount of attribute points you can spend on each skill. This is not to bad of an idea not letting you make the all out complete stud that is perfect in everything however, it still is taking another choice away. If you didn’t want to make a wrestler perfect you could just stop buying attribute points at any time. At least that would be your choice. Also, you character will not be rating amongst the best in wrestling no matter what type of wrestler you choose.

In all, the career mode is very one dimensional and takes a lot of fun out of the overall fun of the title. It is relatively boring and changes direction inside itself to fast. You never get a true feel of were your wrestler sits among the WWE world or any of the other wrestlers.

Controls 4/5 & Game Play 2/5
The controls are pretty much the same as the other previous titles. You have your quick, strong, and signature grapple moves. Your running moves, aerial assaults, rope maneuvers, turnbuckle bashes, countering moves, and so on. You will pretty much be able to do everything you see the wrestlers do on TV (without the risk of injury). These are done with relative ease by pushing or holding down certain buttons, moving the analog stick to a direction of your choice to perform a certain attack, and watching your wrestler wreck havoc. I have no major complaints here. If you have never played any of the previous titles you should have little trouble understand the setup and getting used to it.

The game play itself runs smoothly for the most part. The graphics stay consistent and true throughout the matches. However, deeper game play does not run as smoothly. You will be annoyed by the way the game plays out in different difficulty levels. You will find that sometimes you will be able to never let your opponent up in order to win the match. Just keep doing ground grapples once they are hurt somewhat or if you have a ladder or table, just keep bashing them on the ground till they are toasted. On harder difficulty levels you will your opponent doing this to you sometimes as well. Also, you will find that you need to turn down the damage inflicted to less than 100%. This is because the matches are way to short as the wrestlers do way to much damage.

The difficulty levels themselves need to be mentioned as well. This is just another area that just doesn’t feel right. There are four levels of play (Rookie, Rising Star, Superstar, and Legend). As the first two levels, they are just way to easy. The last two are just too hard. You will find yourself barely even getting touched in rookie or superstar mode. As for the superstar level, you will be able to win some of your matches of course but, you will find it annoying. This is definitely noticeable when you play as Triple HHH (for example) and barely defeat (if you win) a much weaker opponent over and over. Your opponent has the tendency of never letting you up as they just keep doing ground grapples over and over again. Legend mode is flat out ridiculously hard.

On the lighter side, there are two good additions to the game play. That is having the original announcers and real voice-overs. This did add a great deal to the realism of the game. The announcers will keep you a little more interested in the match. They will get a little repetitive at times but, that is something that is really hard to avoid in any game. The voice-overs are great and true to life however, this happens only during career mode and you will only find yourself talking to a few of the wrestlers.

Wrestler Creation
This is a very important part of a wrestling game. Nothing like having your wrestler look like a total bad a**, at least in your mind, and lay the smack down on all of the others. Again, this title took away a lot for some reason even here. There are still a few options and ways to build the look of your character however; I just never could get the feel for this. There just wasn’t enough here to keep me interested for very long.

They did add one thing which I thought was extremely fun and worth mentioning. While creating your characters entrances you now have the ability to import your own music that you have burned on your Xbox for your entrance music. To have my wrestler walking out to the ring as old Motley Crue or Metallica songs were playing was fun to play around with. However, they also took away from this section at the same time. Very little options came with this such as lighting or other affects you can have happen as your wrestler enters. This was always a large part of the previous titles and something that just added to the fun.

One last thing is what you can unlock throughout the game. There are tons of them here including legend wrestlers, different arenas, more outfit and cloths for your wrestlers, new fighting moves, pictures of the divas, load screens, and more. But, it will take you forever to unlock everything. For example, you make money after every match (in career or exhibition mode) if you win. I averaged around $4,000 per match. But, in order to unlock legend fighters, different arenas, or wrestling moves they cost around $100,000 and up. This is not to mention spending around $35,000 just on attribute points in order to get your wrestler better. There is no way I would play this game enough to get everything unlocked. This is one time I would be online looking for a code to unlock everything at once.


The Ugly
One of the things that made me the most upset about this title was the fact that it has the tendency to completely freeze up on you. Just like a poor PC title where you need to reboot your computer to get your computer out of the freeze the game just put you in. It feels like that here. I noticed that if I left the room for a little bit and left the game on I had good odds that soon the game would be freezing up during a load screen and I would have to turn my Xbox off and try whatever I was doing again. Just to make sure it wasn’t just my Xbox I spoke to some others that I knew that had purchased this game and they all had the same exact trouble. That to me is just inexcusable that a game is released doing this.

My second biggest complaint is the lag. I’m not talking about being online playing with others from around the word. There are certain matches and events that cause this game to lag terribly even in single player mode. For example, doing a tag team match (normal or tornado) which the wrestlers end up outside the ring together and the camera would go way back to follow them all. You are guaranteed atrocious lag during this. Another major lag point is after a match is one they do a reply of a major event that happened during the match (actually a cool idea). However, I would say during 75% of the replays there is so much lag during the reply you can’t stand to even sit through it. So you just end up clicking a button to skip it. This taking that added feature right out of enjoyment and play.

Back to my complaint about having too few options and choices, were did the entire arraignment of match styles go in exhibition mode? You can still choose to play a ladder, hell in the cell, or cage match. Even tag teams match regular two on two or tornado tag but, that is pretty much it. No longer can you put any of these particular matches together. Why can’t I choose to do a two on two tornado tag ladder match? You always were able to in the previous titles. Not in WrestleMania 21. How about a tornado tag cage match (one of my personal favorites)? Again, there is no such match option in exhibition mode. You will do all of these matches in career mode at least once but, that is all. So, in other words, in order to play these type of matches again you will have to create another character, start a new career, and work your way through the story line until you get to any of these matches. No thanks. There are other matches non-existent as well.

Conclusion & Replay Value 2/5
Don’t go waist over $40 on this title. The game just doesn’t live up the hype it was given. There are much better games out there right now for this kind money. Multi-player just lags to much making impossible to enjoy. You will find some fun for a little while playing single player, however this is very short lived and again not worth the money. If you are a true wrestling fan you may want to give the other titles a try that were made for the Xbox. You may find those better than I did. Plus, they cost no where near the money as this one does. So the loss would not be as great.

I don’t recommend this game to anyone.

Thank you for your time!

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Recommended: No

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