Even The Simpsons Can't Save Wrestling

Author's Rating:

Pros: It's funny.

Cons: Shallow gameplay, unbalanced characters, graphics.

The Bottom Line: 
There are better wrestling games out there and The Simpsons is funnier on TV.

Author's Review
What happens when you throw a popular license on an unpopular genre? The Simpsons Wrestling. Not that throwing a license usually helps any game, but it looks like it takes a bigger name than The Simpsons to make a decent wrestling game.

I'll admit, I hate wrestling games. Mostly because they are never about the actual olympic sport but about the lowest common denominator shows that you see on UPN every other night. Reviewing a wrestling game is an exercise in objectivity for me.

But this is The Simpsons, really, and the wrestling here is more like a toughman contest. About the only wrestling type reference is the fact that you have to pin your opponent. The rest of the game focuses on merging whacky Simpsons personalities into a fighting game.

The problem is that The Simpsons isn't an action show. As wrestlers the characters' moves are very limited. Each character has only a few moves. This also calls for some very unbalanced gameplay. Each character has 3 move types: a low power attack, a mid power attack, and a high power attack. The mid power attack for most characters is a projectile. For some it's an attack that must be aimed, for others it's an attack that stays on screen until it hits something. The game does feature power ups here and there but nothing that changes the characters attacking abilities. Bouts between such characters are more frustrating than they had to be.

The game also features combos for the characters. The combo system is very weak- relying on repetitive button mashing to execute them. Even more ridiculous is that what combos you can do are presented to you as you play. The square, triangle, and circle buttons appear on screen and light up when that button should be hit next. I hate memorizing a billion combo for all my fighting games, but at least you can choose what you want to do that way.

Even in the graphics department the game disappoints. On the surface the game looks fine; it is a cartoon after all. Once you get into the game, though, you'll see that in 3D some characters just don't look right at all. The rendering engine tends to lose certain outlines in characters which completely changes their appearance. Some of the fighting venues are cool, but there aren't enough.

The one place where the game did something right is in the sound. All the voices are done with the actual voice actors for the show. Most of the characters' one-liners are pretty funny, too, with a few exceptions. Just hearing Apu's introduction almost makes up for the rest of the game. The music is another story- it's horrible and doesn't really fit in with the show.

The Simpsons Wrestling proves you can throw a license on anything- it'll still suck, but you can do it. Even with friends this game is unplayable (I couldn't even convince one person to try it out). Simpsons fans, stick to Fox.