Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home

If you were a fan of Backyard Wrestling before the game then this title was made just for you. If you enjoy ultra-violent games like Tenchu or Thrill Kill then you will definitely want to play this game. Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home is a fun diversion that will let you exercise those demons of frustration after a hard day at work. And unlike the video series, you can finally ignore the warnings (and even the sub-title) and finally “try this at home”.

As offensive as it is, I do not recommend it to the young ones in the house. If you have patience for the obscene, this is a fun game.

You would not believe it, but there is a growing movement out there in the wrestling fan community. And it's all becoming focused on the sport of Backyard Wrestling. The want and need for young up and coming wanna-be wrestlers to prove their skills has cultivated in this almost underground swell of Backyard Wrestling "promotions" around the country. If you need proof, simply go to google and put in "Backyard Wrestling", and see how many sites come up. You can go to any local video shop and see the videos on the shelf of this stuff. They show some things that make hardcore WWE matches look like pillow fights.

The developer of the infamous Thrill Kill brings you Backyard Wrestling, a deceptively innovative title that glorifies the frighteningly popular antics of such backyard wrestling phenomena as Josh Prohibition, MDogg20, and Madman Pondo. Chances are you haven?t heard those names before, and that?s okay; the game relies little on personalities in its odd blend of wrestling and party-game combat.

Backyard Wrestling is a guilty pleasure for millions of Americans. Whether you’re buying a Video/DVD or participating in Backyard Wrestling, Backyard Wrestling is becoming a popular subculture. Kids and adults are now running their own wrestling leagues in the confines of their backyards. With Backyard Wrestling on PS2, now you have the opportunity to try it at home, but in a much safer environment.

To prepare for this review, I rented a DVD featuring all the Backyard Wrestling crew and what I saw left me with my jaw dropped down. A young man from New Jersey climbed up on his roof and threw himself off it just to land on his buddy who was laying flat on a table and shattered it while really hurting his friend. In another segment, two combatants are at each another’s throats when one of them picks up a garbage can and slams it into his opponent’s head to the point that the man starts bleeding profusely. Sounds like fun? It might be but thanks to Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home for the Xbox, it’s best do that in a video game . . . unless you think spending the week in the Intensive Care Unit wing is your idea of a weekend getaway.

When evaluated on some of its more technical merits, though, there are still plenty of issues that hold it back from reaching the same success as THQ's bigger line of grapplers. Overly shallow in the mechanical department and not quite sure if it wants to be a fighting game or a wrestler, Don't Try This At Home isn't as fulfilling as it should be. If given the proper amount of refinement in the gameplay department, however, and if expanded upon in the create-a-wrestler and the story modes, then this new approach to a dominated genre could definitely have potential. But as it stands now, we can't see ourselves recommending this beyond a rental.

As the popularity and size of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment promotion has increased over the years so too has the number of independent wrestling organizations. Though WCW and ECW have gone the way of the dinosaur, a number of smaller regional federations have been popping up all over North America. Reminiscent of the old days before the WWF, NWA, and AWA had begun their "Big Three" push of the 1980s; this latest rebirth of sports entertainment has provided plenty of options for disenchanted fans on the lookout for something new.

Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home has its own audience. For fans of the sport, you have no doubt already purchased this title and have mastered all of the characters. For everyone else, there isn't nearly enough substance to warrant handing over your hard earned $50. What could have been a very unique and innovative title failed in several key areas. With a very clunky wrestling/fighting engine that will leave the player frustrated, and more than lackluster visuals, Backyard Wrestling needs plenty of touch-ups. For diehard fans of Backyard Wrestling, or fans of the wrestling genre looking for a departure from the norm, this title might be worth looking into. Otherwise, Backyard Wrestling is only worth a rental for those gamers looking for an extreme violence rush.

Podsumowując można powiedzieć, że Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home jest nienajgorszą grą, jednak o nieco kiepskim wykonaniu, szczególnie w kwestii grafiki. Gdyby ją nieco poprawiono można byłoby wystawić grze znacznie wyższą notę, bo spora ilość przeciwników, swoboda ruchów, a także niezła muzyka, to plusy tego tytułu. Jeśli jednak lubicie prać się po pyskach, to średnia jakość grafiki nie powinna być dla Was przeszkodą.

This game does get very repetitive and this hurts the game a lot. Only a few different places to fight in makes this worse. Most of the characters aren’t that different from one another and is mainly affected by how much you like the person. The Create a wrestler is pretty crappy. You only get like 15 different bodies and 12 colours of the body, not in depth faces or effects like other wrestling games.

Backyard Wrestling tries to be different than the competitors - which is commendable in concept. But in trying not to be either wrestling or fighting the game has mangaed to avoid providing enough depth for itself, meaning although Backyard Wrestling fans will be pleased, everyone else should seek their wrestling/fighting joys elsewhere.

Even though wrestling games don't appeal to me, Backyard Wrestling was a worthwhile title that I would consider renting, but if you are a fan of the genre, go out and purchase it.

Wer kennt sie nicht, die Szenegrößen des Hinterhof-Wrestlings? Sie kennen sie nicht? Brauchen Sie auch nicht, denn der "Sport" dieser "Athleten" besteht darin, sich im Vorgarten die Schädel einzuschlagen. Das Videospiel zeigt sich ähnlich hirnlos. Zwar sind die interaktiven Hintergründe nett, die schwammige Steuerung und die lächerlichen Animationen machen die Prügelorgien aber auch vor dem Bildschirm zur Tortur. Besonders daneben ist das "innovative Schadensmodell": Wirft man dem Gegner einen Basketball an den Kopf, spritzt das Blut in Fontänen!

Backyard Wrestling attempts to take a totally different approach on a market which is already lead by games such as WWE Raw 2, the idea is golden, but it has not been put to good use, the game could have been better in so many ways of gameplay, audio and graphics. I respect Eidos for trying out the idea, but sadly the only people I see playing this game for longer than a week is hardcore wrestling fans, for anyone else I say rent it instead if you really must.

When you are going against a powerhouse franchise like THQ's Smackdown you have to do everything right. Unfortunately Backyard Wrestling Don't Try This At Home has flaws by the truckload, and that is a shame because the idea behind the game is good enough. It just lacks the polish, features and control systems of the better grapplers out there. It’s a shame but only hardcore fans will get much enjoyment out of this game, there are simply too many better titles around to warrant buying this game.

In an attempt to appeal to the fans of wrestling games who have grown somewhat weary of the less-than-stellar WWE products, numerous companies have been licensing their own non-WWE wrestling games. Everyone is starting to get in on the fray, including EA, Bandai, and, now, Eidos Interactive. Developed by Paradox Entertainment, the development house behind the Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and Activision's X-Men fighting games, Eidos' first effort into the wrestling genre is Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home. The game is licensed by the Backyard Wrestling franchise, which specializes in DVDs that compile footage of average kids bludgeoning each other with every blunt object they can find in the relative comfort of their own yards.

Hello. My name is Jimmy Farrow, and I’m a wrestling game-aholic. Yep, that’s it. There can’t be any other reason than that for me spending my hard-earned cash on this game. What makes it worse is that I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be that great long beforehand, and I went ahead and bought it anyway. I’m an addict; what more can I say?

In an attempt to appeal to the fans of wrestling games who have grown somewhat weary of the less-than-stellar WWE products, numerous companies have been licensing their own non-WWE wrestling games. Everyone is starting to get in on the fray, including EA, Bandai, and, now, Eidos Interactive. Developed by Paradox Entertainment, the development house behind the Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and Activision's X-Men fighting games, Eidos' first effort into the wrestling genre is Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home. The game is licensed by the Backyard Wrestling franchise, which specializes in DVDs that compile footage of average kids bludgeoning each other with every blunt object they can find in the relative comfort of their own yards.

Sans revenir sur le fond du jeu, la forme n'est pas vraiment brillante non plus. Dans le genre jeux de combat, on a déjà vu beaucoup mieux, bien mieux réalisé et surtout beaucoup plus fun. Allez, on oublie.

With a name like Don’t Try This at Home, I should have taken the title as a piece of advice. Unfortunately, I did try this game at home, and next time, I’ll listen to the game's title.

The developers wisely avoided actually trying to simulate backyard wrestling – since god only knows how sad and boring that would’ve been – and instead chose to ape the jacked-up, outrageous Def Jam approach. Although, since most of the budget went into licensing the soundtrack, there probably wasn’t enough left to hire anyone fulltime. It would explain why the game contains more arbitrary, easy violence than wrestling, gameplay so simple it makes State of Emergency or Dead Rising look complex and elaborate.

The core audience of Backyard Wrestling is wrestling fans, and it's doubtful they'll get much more from this game than novelty. The fighting system is the centerpiece of any good wrestling title, and this one is full of gimmickry to cover up the otherwise one-dimensional punch-kick-smash workings. Even though the overall package captures the sophomoric mood that Backyard Wrestling embraces in real life, as a game it won't light anyone on fire.

No other "sport" in the world seems to have more natural affinity to video games than professional wrestling. Unfortunately, the ins-and-outs of the ring and the schizophrenic nature of the business itself has facilitated the creation of countless confused titles. The question persists ... should a game focus on re-creating the actual "sport" of wrestling, or should a game create the "mood" of sports-entertainment?