Showdown: Legends of Wrestling was released in 2004 and was the last game in the series. It is also one of the last games that Acclaim released before it went bankrupt. This little tidbit made me want to do some more research on Acclaim.
With Acclaim going away, this series ended. There is a lot to look into with this, but for now, I’m going to stick to this game. What I do know is that a planned GameCube release was canceled, making the PS2 and Xbox versions the only way to play this game at the time.
No one picked up the rights to this series when Acclaim’s properties were sold off. It must’ve been a bit of a nightmare to try to deal with all of the likeness rights for this game. I’m looking forward to this one. It will be interesting to see what improvements were made to this game.
TLDR: The end of a promising series. It has good graphics, but the gameplay is only marginally better than the previous game.
Narrative
There is a story mode in this game. It isn’t too different from the second game, which is perfectly fine. It didn’t really need to be changed too much.
There are a few storylines to follow in this game. Some wrestlers are forced into scenarios for different territories, which does make some sense from a historical perspective. I don’t have anything to complain about with this.
Gameplay
This is really weird, but I think the gameplay in the second game is a little better than this one in some areas. What Showdown does right is the career mode and having a bigger roster. The control scheme has been changed, which is a product of the change in development teams.
The controls saw a minor change, which was enough to throw me off a little. I eventually got used to it, though. The same problems as the previous two games came up here. The controls are a little sluggish, and it is a pain in the ass to change your target in multi-man matches. This has been an issue in Acclaim wrestling games for a while.
I loved the career mode in this game. They give you a little storyline to follow, and you go around to different regions. It isn’t too different from the second game, which is fine since they didn’t need to change much.
This game has a great roster of wrestlers. Beyond Hulk Hogan and his friends, you have a lot of wrestlers who hadn’t been in a video game until this series. It is such a good idea to do this, even if the gameplay isn’t as good as it could’ve been.
While this game has issues, I don’t think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the game. The controls could’ve been better, and some of the rougher edges can cause minor issues. Nothing in the gameplay would make me say this is a bad game, but there also isn’t anything here to say that this is great.
Visuals
Showdown: Legends of Wrestling looks very good! It is a step up from the previous two games, while maintaining the same style. The character models still look like action figures, but are well detailed, and have different body types. There are some screwy things when it comes to animations, but that could be said about many of the wrestling games from this era.
If there is one thing that I’ve liked about each game, it is the character models. They look like the action figures I played with as a kid. In this game, they’re well detailed and look excellent.
The ring, crowd, and entrances all look great. The few problems I had with the previous games seem to have been fixed. There really isn’t much I can complain about the way this game looks.
It isn’t perfect. There are some issues with targeting opponents, and a few instances where the animations don’t look good. This is something that is a problem with many retro wrestling games. It will be interesting to see if it has been fixed in other wrestling games that were released around this time.
The Legends of Wrestling games have had quite a few issues, but the graphics haven’t really been among them. With Showdown, the graphics are very good. I like much of what is here, and I think it has the best graphics of this short series of games.
Reviews at the Time
The reviews for this game are all over the place. There are a few outliers that skew the average, like a 3/10 from EGM and a 4/5 from GamePro. The consensus review for this game is between a 5/10 and a 6/10. I’ll be looking at four publications for this.
GameZone gave the game a 5/10 and lists an “Average Web Rating” of 6/10. I think this is supposed to be a user review, but I’m not sure. If you read this, you can feel the reviewer’s pain as they had “high hopes of recreating the matches” of their youth. The only thing that they liked was the roster and graphics.
IGN gave the game a 5.9/10, which was considered mediocre at the time. The reviewer lamented the wasted potential of this game. They continued by saying that the developers “didn’t learn from its past mistakes,” or from Acclaim’s “past successes.”
GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10. The reviewer called this an improvement over the first two, but said that the game “suffers from a number of pacing and polish issues.” They wrapped this up by calling this a weekend rental, and that it doesn’t have enough to “compete with the big boys.”
GamePro gave the game a 4/5, and the user average is also a 4/5. They called the game a “big step in the right direction.” In a short review, they go over a handful of things that they think are better and worse in this game.
The overall consensus is that this was seen as the best game in the series. The reviewers loved the graphics and the roster, but didn’t like the gameplay all that much. The change in development team was noted, and it seems like a few of the reviewers were hoping for a sequel to this.
Score/Verdict
Pros
- Great Graphics
- Wonderful Roster
- Lots of Game Modes
Cons
- Poor announcing
- Awkward Animation
- Bad to Inconsistent AI
Conclusion
Showdown: Legends of Wrestling is a good follow-up to the second game in the series. It has the best roster and graphics out of the three games. The controls didn’t see a major improvement, but the counter system was simplified.
It is a shame that this game was made by Acclaim. It would’ve been nice if a different company had been behind it, and they were able to keep this series going. Having a game that isn’t tied to the WWE is a great idea, and this game had nostalgia on its side. There were a number of other wrestling legends who could’ve been added to this game in a potential sequel.
What was interesting was how this game came at the end of Acclaim’s time as a company. Shortly after this game was released, the company was shut down due to bankruptcy. While their wrestling games aren’t always well remembered, I do enjoy them. The Legend of Wrestling series is decent, but not all that great.
If you liked this post, please check out my other wrestling posts. Such as Legends of Wrestling on the PS2 or Legends of Wrestling II on the PS2.