WWE: Legends of WrestleMania

A big part of the appeal of any sport is not knowing what's going to happen. It's the uncertainty that runs underneath even the most lopsided of challenges that gets us through the gates every week, filling up the stands and putting bums on seats.

It's Liverpool putting eight past two of the biggest clubs in the world in one week, or Formula One's 'virgin' team taking the top two spots in the first race of the season.

Now, wrestling might not be the most spontaneous sport out there, but it's still not out of the question to expect the games that honour it to offer even just a spark of variety and unpredictability.

For anyone who has sampled any of THQ's recent WWE outings, Legends of WrestleMania is that same package. It runs the same, it feels the same, and unless the variants of the wrestling arena are your lifeblood, it is the same.

For some, that will be no bad thing. Like previous releases, the controls can be pinned to memory within minutes. The pre-career tutorial gives you a run-through of the basics. '5' is the all important key, dealing the blows to your rival, while '1' takes them in a grab and '2', '4', '6' or '8' perform a super slamming move once they're under your control.

Everything you might expect is here, from climbing the ring itself to thwacking your opponents around the head with a chair. Career mode is also fully customisable, with you taking charge of everything from the style of your character to the colour of his hair.

But it's the battles themselves that, as in every WWE outing, are the meat, and it's here that Legends of WrestleMania's lack of progress really becomes evident.

Presuming you play with the standard rule-set (various WWE spins, such as Last Man Standing or Iron Man, are available), winning a bout involves thrashing it out in the ring, throwing smacks and slaps aplenty, until your rival is ready to clap out.

Building up your 'momentum bar' is key during these exchanges, enabling you to throw your opponent to the ground and keep him there, winning the fight as a result.

Just how long this takes, naturally, depends on which of the four difficulty settings you opt for, but anyone who has sampled any of THQ's WWE line-up in recent times will know what to expect here, each wrestler offering a stiffer test than the last as you try and make your name in the WrestleMania arena.

What might be of interest to wrestling fans is the game's slant on tracking the event's history, throwing in the likes of British Bulldog, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin as playable characters.

But, essentially, there's not much here to differentiate Legends of WrestleMania from its predecessors, apart from what appears to be a slight smartening up of the AI.

Thankfully rare in Legends are instances of you and your rivals performing the same moves at the same time, or neither of you doing anything at all.

Fights have more of a flow to them, but - on anything but the hardest settings - victory does feel especially random, minutes of suffering in the bulk of a bout seemingly having little effect on the actual outcome.

Then again, when it comes to a game based on a scripted sport that follows the line of its cousins just a little bit too closely, perhaps a dose of the haphazard and an element of chance is just what Legends of WrestleMania needs to set it apart.

Otherwise, this is more of the same. There's not much new to draw in WWE stalwarts, while newcomers will find this a better first base than its predecessors. But only just.

WWE: Legends of WrestleMania

Legends of WrestleMania is no massive improvement over its predecessors, but it does come with a little added Bulldog spirit and a smartened engine
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.