Overall Rating

Legends of wrestling (GCN) - 3"Legends of Wrestling," Acclaim's first foray into the world of wrestling in several years, has already hit the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Now it's on the GameCube, where it faces competition from "Wrestlemania X8." This puts "Legends of Wrestling" at more than a slight disadvantage. Though it's clear that Acclaim went out of its way to make a massive and deep homage to the pseudosport, it didn't effectively port the game from the PS2.

Play as classic wrestlers or create your own
The stats here are impressive. The game includes 42 wrestlers, including classics such as the Iron Sheik, the Road Warriors, and George "The Animal" Steele, as well as newer sensations such as Rob Van Dam and even a certain has-been blond who refuses to go away (Hulk Hogan). While some of Acclaim's choices seem a bit odd, and long-time wrestling fans might be missing their personal favorites, the game's large stable of characters is enough to excite any fan of sports-based entertainment.

There's also the Create-a-Legend mode, which has a fine array of options for creating your own wrestler. The number of facial skins for custom-made characters is alarmingly light, however, and there are only 10 color choices for your outfit.

Various modes
Once you pick or make a wrestler, you can test him in a quick exhibition match. The match can be one-on-one, three- or four-way dance, or tag-team. In the Career mode you battle your way through various regions of the world (starting in the states), getting the attention of a manager, winning over the crowd, and capturing championship belts.

Legends of wrestling (GCN) - 2The Tournament mode lets you move up the ranks in a round-robin competition to win the belt for the one-on-one, tag-team, and Tag Belt modes. In these modes, competitors fight until they get eliminated, so the last man (or team) standing takes the prize. Multiplayer action lets up to four players battle it out in both tag-team and four-way matches. On the surface, everything about "Legends of Wrestling" suggests a well-rounded, feature-laden game. Unfortunately, there's no shortage of annoying flaws that make this latest rendition of LoW seem rushed.

Cartoonish look, jerky animations
The game looks like a cartoon, much like Sega's "Soccer Slam." These legends all look larger than life. While "Legends" certainly isn't on the cutting edge of visual effects, the unusual look allows for an entertaining distinction from the competition. It's a shame that the animation isn't quite so amusing. "Legends of Wrestling" sports some truly awful and jerky motions. Even the entrance sequences are chock-full of bizarrely sudden pose animations, and nothing in the game moves with the fluidity that gamers expect and demand.

Complicated and unresponsive control
"Legends of Wrestling" has, at heart, a deep and intricate gameplay system, but it's mired in overly complicated controls and a shocking unresponsiveness. You have to use every button on the pad to fight in and around the ring, and that gets more than a little overwhelming. Worse, the controls suffer from delayed reactions. Though the game boasts a cool combo chaining system, it's hard to pull off even moderately complex moves when you have to deal with the slightly delayed response times of your wrestler.

Legends of wrestling (GCN) - 1However, if you can get the hang of the controls, you can use a wide array of moves, right down to changing positions in holds, linking moves together, and signature finishers.

Rounding out our list of complaints is the terrible audio. Sound effects are sparse, the music is cheesy, and voices are sudden, short, and often absent for both your wrestlers and the commentators.

"Legends of Wrestling" is a great idea, but its execution is flawed on almost every level. Only die-hard fans will have the patience to muddle through the unresponsive controls, the chintzy animation, and the bad sound. Hopefully, "Legends of Wrestling 2" will fix the first game's severe flaws and give gamers a truly great homage to the oldies of professional wrestling. Until then, Cube owners are advised to stick to the more competent WWE-based titles.