Wrestling's best imitation of itself

Pro wrestling has finally evolved into something oddly self-aware. Now, they freely bandy about terms like 'face' and 'jobber' when only wrestling fanatics would use them before. I knew it was out of control when I heard someone refer to baseball's Devil Rays as 'jobbers.' True as it may be, it was still showing that wrestling had become something much stranger than sports entertainment. The only other self-aware entertainment like it is modern musical theater. And if you consider that both are filled with sexually ambivalent men reciting hammy lines, I guess it makes alot of sense.

It would thus make sense, then, if the games based on the redneck's response to "Jesus Christ Superstar" would finally evolve as well. Thus, I have come across this game, for the Game Boy Color. In a way, I'm really sorry to see that it appears here. Simply put, the game won't get any attention on this system, when its classic enough in its own right to merit a wider audience.

To begin with, the game does start out as normal, with the typical character select screen. I'll give the game credit for actually making the digitized pictures of the Rock, Steve Austin, Triple H, and the Undertaker (all trademarked), So you have the initial impression that the game at least tries to stay faithful to the original source material.

However, instead of going into a playable match, or a tournament select, you get something that no wrestling game has been comfortable thrusting at you before: plot. Everyone, please 'oooh' and 'aaah' in unison to feign surprise at this "novel" concept. In this plot, your wrestler - nay, "WWF Superstar (tm)" - is about to win the championship, when another wrestler interferes with the match. Soon after giving chase, Vince McMahon (tm) informs you that his daughter, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley (tm) has been kidnapped and that he will give you another title shot if you help him out.

Honestly, I know that this is the first time that any wrestling game, or THQ game for that matter, has ever tangled with this novel concept called plot. Man, if you want plot, go talk to those 'dorks' at Square. But seriously, I think you could have hired the fifteen chimps that the WWF keeps chained to the desks to make a better plot than this. Anyone who has seen anything from the WWF recently will be able to quickly predict the double cross that will come by the end of the game. In a way, though, the flimsy excuse for plot makes it more funny. You can start adding in your own, for convenience sake.

Of course, since it does start fairly fast, the game does throw you into the controls. This is where the game is simultaneously most like and most unlike your standard wrestling game. The game does, mostly, preserve the goofy controls, including the grappling mechanism, that have been in place since the old days of Nintendo's "Pro Wrestling." However, the loosen up the controls at the same time to make this game feel more like the old arcade standby, "Final Fight."

In fact, this is the greatest strength of the game. The game finally moves away from the structure that made every single wrestling game since the beginning alike. Now, the game follows the obvious push Capcom tried to give it by making Mike Haggar of "Final Fight" a former pro wrestler. The shift to a street fight flows much better with the wrestler's concept, as a strong world beater who has no patience with slowly subduing the opponent. The game flowed much better than your usual wrestling game.

However, the game's first flaw appeared because of this flow. Because the game moved so well and so quickly, the game blew by in less than an hour. Why, that wasn't even enough time to set up the cheesy sequel that this game deserves. And it barely had any time to really play off the wrestler's personas. That was a bit of a cop-out.

For the most part, the graphics were just ordinary. While cartoony, all of the WWF 'names' were recognizable. Albeit one recognized them in a satirical comic sort of way. The other characters were fairly clean, although kind of simplistic. Overall, a boring graphical performance, but the game could have delivered much worse. As they say, there are no such thing as style points except in figure skating.

The sound, of course, is the typical expected combination of bad Game Boy speakers and incompetent THQ sound programmers. Still suitable for scaring cats from your house, and not much else. All I can say is, thanks Nintendo for making volume switches. Only turn this up if you plan on punishing someone.

The best, though, is that the game buys too heavily in the corporate-sanitized homoerotic world of pro wrestling. I mean, the game's packaging makes it clear that everything associated with the WWF, right down to its impressario and his family, are under trademark by the company. In addition, the real wrestlers, I believe, penned their electronic counterparts' dialogue, to maximum cheesy effect. You can pretend that every little thing they do is done by a wrestling announcer, which makes it all the more fun. "My God! It's the Rock, and he's downing a cheesecake! And he's about to bite into the apple that he stole from the security guard! Somebody has to stop this... Wait! Is that the music of the referee?"

Or you can add in "Days of Our Lives" style dialogue in there. Or pretend that you are out to save Susan Lucci. I think you get my drift - this game is more of an exercise in personal creativity, as you mess around with yet another flaccid WWF game. Simply put, the game is only moderately fun on its own. However, as mocking material, for my pet cause the Cheese! List, this game serves well. Also, the game does serve notice that something great can come out of wrestling. Expand upon this game, and we could have elements of wrestling, action, and role-playing, which would be one heck of an experiment. Hopefully, though, it will be more of an interesting idea than a video game based on "Rent" or "Cats."