Backyard Wrestling

Backyard wrestling is extreme, more extreme then that of WWE and WCW. With No Rules except Gravity, there is more chance of fatal injuries. Eidos has a winner in this game, as the fun factor of smashing heads open can not be denied by anyone.

Firstly the In game music is rock, which fits with the violent nature of this game. But if rock isn’t your cup of tea, you can play your tracks from your Xbox playlist. The game playlist includes American Hi-Fi, Sum 41, Insane Clown Posse, Machine Head and other hardcore metal/rock bands.

The graphics are not the best ever, but are up to par and has minimal lag at any point during the game. Whether throwing yourself (or your opponents) from rooftops to doing tricky backflip slams of tables, everything shows up smooth and clearly.

The Battlegrounds range from a backyard in some backwards Texan Hillbilly town to truck stops, to even Bar Brawls, and in each battleground there are 'special' tricks you can do, for example setting a bed on fire, smashing people into exploding gasoline pump's etc. Weapons in this game are spectacular, such as bikes, trolleys, barbed wire bats, and other stuff. You can bash people's heads in, and as you go on during the game, blood flows from open gapes on your head, and you get more bruised.

You unlock modes such as tag, battleground, etc, for multiplayer modes, and a survival mode for single player, and you unlock new characters as you beat them, and new battle grounds as you fight and complete the levels on them. You also unlock movies by completing the game as a person, or beating special people (the only one we unlocked was Backyard Babes).

Gameplay is easy and simple for anyone once you learn the buttons (hold - punch - kick etc.)but this does limit things, for example you can only do so many punch attacks, so many hold/throw attacks, so many kick attacks etc. but it is fun to beat people to a mindless pulp, and then when they are in the last quarter of there health, using the special attack on them (done by grappling then pressing the black button on Xbox) causing a mind boggling slow-mo finisher to pound there limp bodies into a pulp and leave them begging for mercy in a pile on the ground. The lack of moves leaves something to be desired, as there cannot be any combo attacks, etc.

The game would be a great rental for a few nights of fun, or a great buyer if you want to let out stress on the Xbox after a hard day of school. But in the long run after about 2 months it will get kind of mindless and playing the same moves over and over again, and after getting all character's it will be very boring.

It lacks big name wrestlers like "The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Diamond Dallas Page, Kurt Angle, etc. But it still has lots of fun, for the most part anyway. It lacks Re-playability, unless you’re the kind to want to clock a game as every character more than once. But what it lacks in Re-playability it makes up in the head smashing fun factor. High Marks, Eidos.