I (of course) purchased the Legends of Wrestlemania game for the XBox 360 when it first came out this Tuesday and feel as though I have had ample time to play it enough to review it. First of all, if you are looking for a Smackdown vs Raw clone or a "wrestling simulation" game then this is not for you. LOW is all about going retro, from the more simplistic controls to the more arcade style graphics. A lot has been said about some of the wrestlers looking "abnormal" but the only ones I can notice looking different offhand are Hulk Hogan looking bulkier than he was in his heyday and Andre the Giant looking more toned.

Like I said the controls on LOW are simpler to use to master than those of SvR09: the top trigger buttons and right analog stick are not used, but this lends more to the retro feel that the game makers were going for. The entire roster of legends (which I went through in a previous post) is playable immediately, with alternate costumes and matches being available for unlocking throughout the game. If you have a save file from SvR09 you can "import" that games roster into the LOW game. If you don't own the SvR09 game you can do what I did and rent it then make a save as it's much cheaper than plunking down another $60. I put "import" in quotes because my spidey senses tell me "unlock" would be a better word. Not every single character in SvR09 will transfer over to LOW: the three new wrestlers you can get from the new DLC (downloadable content) pack (Evan Bourne, Charlie Haas and Ted DiBiasi Jr) apparently will not transfer over, neither will the women and a few of the guys who are no longer employed by WWE. This leads me to think that the guys you get are already on the LOW disc and the save unlocks them. I was skeptical about getting the wrestlers of today at first but if anything it was worth it just to get Vince. There are less than a handful of repeats, (HHH, Taker, Flair and HBK) but I suppose you could set up "old school vs new school" matches if you felt so inclined. The two rosters mesh really well graphics wise.

The meat and potatoes of the game are the Road to Wrestlemania and Legend Killer options. In Legend Killer you need to create a wrestler and then run him through various tiers or gauntlets of legends (there is also a tier of current wrestlers if you unlock the SvR09 guys) to earn points to build your CAW's attributes. Road to Wrestlemania is broken up into three parts: Relive, Rewrite and Redefine. In Relive you take the role of a winner of a classic Wrestlemania match (such as Hogan vs Bundy from WM2) and try to repeat history. You are given a set of goals, or certain moves to accomplish during the match to score points and try to earn gold medals, which is key to unlocking items. I sometimes found that this slowed me down somewhat as not only did I have to pause the game from to time to refresh my memory as to what needed to be done but I also had my opponent beaten before I accomplished enough the goals (thus having to drag the match on longer), especially as I got to the harder levels which required more points to get the gold.

Rewrite puts you in the role of the loser the actual WM match (for instance you are JYD in his WM1 match against Greg Valentine) and your goal is to change history, while Redefine changes the match altogether (Andre vs Studd at WM becomes a Hell in the Cell instead of a Body Slam Challenge match), and again they have goals for you to set during the match. Each match comes with a cool video package to refresh your memory and the goings on if you're a fossil like me or give you a history lesson if you're a punk kid who wasn't around to see what unfolded. These are beyond awesome, in my opinion.

You have 16 arenas to choose from, the first 15 Wrestlemanias and the first PPV Royal Rumble. It would have been nice to include a retro SummerSlam and Survivor Series arena as well (not to mention the option of Survivor Series matches). Trying to be objective as possible I'd probably rate the game an 7.5-8/10. I hope LOW gets some DLC like for instance Macho Man and Tito Santana added on.