E3 2003: WrestleMania XIX Hands-On

WrestleMania XIX isn't the wrestling game to die for, but it's fun nonetheless. Here's out hands-on report from THQ's E3 stand.

THQ's booth was home to WrestleMania XIX for the Gamecube. As I've done with every wrestling game release, I went in praying that the developers finally got it right and produced a stellar wrestling game filled with slammin' fast paced arcade style action, great auto targeting, and a variety of bone crunching wrestling moves. Did WrestleMania XIX fit the bill? Not even close, but unlike THQ's other wrestling offering, RAW 2 for the X-box, WrestleMania XIX was at least a little fun.

Developed by Yukes, WrestleMania XIX contains close to 50 WWE Superstars that you can select from to battle your way through five stages and 30 missions in the game's Story mode. Additional modes such as 'Sweet Revenge' and 'Challenge' adds to the Story mode by allowing you to defy Vince Mcmahon and become a legend by wrecking his empire.

Throughout the missions you'll earn money that you can shop with at the WWE Shopzone, hosted by the beautifully long legged diva, Stacy Keibler. At the Shopzone you'll be able to purchase new costumes as well as upgrade your wrestler's attributes such as speed, strength, and stamina among others.

The gameplay, while nowhere near as superb as Sega's Giant Gram series, still worked well. The E3 edition only offered 4 playable characters and limited game options.

Playing as RVD, I took to the mat and had an easy time performing plenty of moves quickly. The controls were pretty easy to learn quickly and the pacing of the game was a bit speedier than RAW 2 and worked somewhat well with this game. WrestleMania XIX was a little fun at first, but doesn't feel like the type of fun that will last long after the initial cool factor of the game wears off.

New to Wrestlemania this year is the location-specific damage feature. This gameplay feature lets you target specific body parts on your opponents and wear them down. Repeatedly attacking an opponent's leg or arm for example, will damage it enough to where they have to limp around on their damaged leg or hold their arm. This is a fairly cool new feature that'll add some unique strategy to the play mechanics of the game by allowing you to create some great setups for submission maneuvers. But come on - is WWE about strategy with Fighting Vipers and Tao Feng style body damage? No, it's about showmanship and fast, entertaining action.

Blood will also be included, a feature that was nixed from the last version. And what's old is now new again, as the game will feature a grapple system reminiscent of the one from WWF NO MERCY, a system that allows you to do two types of grapples. A strong grapple for performing a variety of wrestling moves and a weak grapple for nailing your opponent(s) with shorter and faster moves. Fortunately there are also counter moves for breaking out of grapples and counter attacking an opponent.

WrestleMania XIX supports 4 player multiplayer action so you and a bunch of friends can get together and Lay the Smack down. The game runs pretty smoothly with all 4 characters on screen simultaneously and the camera does a pretty good job of tracking and displaying all of the wrestlers on-screen - even when they're all at different sides of the arena floor.

The graphics are solid and feature some good character models of the WWE superstars. They all have their own ring intros complete with videos playing on the Titantron and music blaring in the background as they're making their way to the ring.

The overall graphics of the game to be good but to tell you the truth, I haven't really noticed much of an improvement in the graphics of the WWE games ever since they made the move to the next-gen consoles. Smackdown kinda looks like Wrestlemania, Wrestlemania kinda looks like RAW, RAW kinda looks like Smackdown.

Fans who have enjoyed the past WWF/WWE games such as the Smackdown and Wrestlemania series will probably love WrestleMania XIX. It provides the same basic core gameplay features as its predecessors while introducing some new ones that add new elements of play.

WrestleMania XIX is set for a Q3 2003 release so there's definitely enough time for the developers to fine tune the game a bit more before releasing it, but from past experiences with THQ's E3 wrestling offerings, what you play at the show is pretty much what usually ends up on store shelves. But personally I think Bandai's forthcoming wrestling game, Ultimate Muscle seems to be the best next-gen, non-Dreamcast wrestling offering.

Joseph Jackson
Staff Writer, Kikizo Games