Is it even a WWe game?

Reviewed by Midnightson on July 11, 2007  |  report this review

To whom it may concern,

Thank you for giving fans of your products a place and opportunity to voice their opinions and give you feedback on your titles. I have written comments regarding the title, Wrestlemania X8 for the Nintendo GameCube in hopes of it reaching the game's developers. I apologize for the length of my comments, but I hope my feedback will properly address the concerns of fans of your WWE products for the Nintendo GameCube.

My Comments:

Every sequel is judged by the game preceding them. Many fans of your previous WWE titles were greatly satisfied by Wrestlemania 2000 and also it's sequel, WWF No Mercy. Although with some technical problems (due to the cartridge) with the latter, the classic gameplay had been enhanced and even to this day, the game does not lose it's appeal with fans.

I was looking forward to the GameCube transition of your popular title, Wrestlemania X8, and it was for this reason I was excited about owning a Nintendo GameCube. As I was reading the first reviews for this title, I noticed many magazines and fans complaining about being disappointed. I knew I had to be the judge for myself, so I rented a copy of this game before purchasing it. When I had a chance to try out the game, I felt completely alienated by this sequel as it does not play or even resemble your previous accomplishments with Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy. Subsequently, I found myself also being thoroughly disappointed and wondered to myself what went wrong?

Here is a simple rundown of the many problems that I have encountered while playing Wrestlemania X8 for the Nintendo GameCube.

Grappling System:

The grappling system and controls were more influenced by Smackdown for PS1 and PS2 then with Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy for Nintendo 64. I found myself fiddling with the control scheme for a few days just to get the hang of it, and when I did, I did not like what I became accustomed to. There were less grappling moves (Five in the front, five in the back) and I found myself repeating the same move over and over again. Furthermore, the most powerful moves, (some of them KO moves in the original and also on TV) were associated with regular grapples. This made the opponent virtually immune to some of the most devastating attacks. After pummeling an opponent with a grapple or weapon, the wrestler appeared to come back up with not even a limp. I barely found any difference between performing a grapple, and doing a special move. The opponent did not seem even phased and got up as if nothing had happened. This makes the gameplay very tedious and also repetitive.

Wrestlers:

There were 73 wrestlers in WWF: No Mercy and with the Create a Wrestler mode, we could create almost a limitless amount of wrestlers. The Nintendo GameCube has over 100 times more space in their mini-disk then the old cartridge format, yet Wrestlemania has a dismal 42. Although the players do share an uncanny resemblance to their real-life counterpart