Game Boy Advance

WWE Road to Wrestlemania X8

The game features a decent portion of the WWE's roster of pumped-up mayhem bringers, including big names like The Rock, The Undertaker, Rob Van Dam, Booker T, Kurt Angle, and Hulk Hogan. There are about 15 wrestlers in all, which will give players plenty of diversity, since each grappler plays similar to his real-life counterpart. So, a WWE superstar like RVD is a high-flyer who depends on speed, while Triple HHH is a slower, but stronger fighter who relies on raw power moves.

In the end, WWE Road to WrestleMania X8 is going to sell a ton of copies due to the strength of its license alone. That's not a terrible thing, because prospective consumers will get a game that's faithful to the televised broadcasts and offers a great deal of variety in terms of overall wrestler choice and match options. The absence of a create-a-wrestler feature is a glaring omission, and the game could still use a few minor improvements, but that's nit-picking. If you like the WWE, you'll probably enjoy WWE Road to WrestleMania X8.

Road to Wrestlemania X8 is a challenging and entertaining game that is well suited to this platform. The game does a good job in the options department, and should be a hit with fans of the sport and those up for an enjoyable foray into the fighting-game world.

I guess after reviewing Legends II (see above), I’ve lowered my expectations. Road to WrestleMania X8 plays and looks acceptable. The 15 Superstars have some nice moves, and matches keep up a decent pace. The Shopzone item unlocker is one of the weirdest, most self-serving things I’ve ever seen. This game is simplistic and primitive, but for the most part it works, and there are enough modes to give you a few hours of WWE entertainment.

There are some really, really good ideas in this wrestling game, from its use of the Pay Per View for its challenges, to the Shopzone item collection, to its record keeping that shows each of the WWE belts and which wrestler it was won from. The side-scrolling 2D engine does a great job letting the developers create some believable animations for each of the wrestler's signature moves, while also creating believable digitizations of those characters on the GBA's screen. The problem is in its challenges, and its computer AI. Oh, sure, you'll definitely find yourself kissing the mat several times before you fully learn the game's controls, but the holes in the opponents' behavior are wide open, left for you to exploit. Once you've found them, there's no stopping you from taking the belts. I do, however, recommend this game as a multiplayer design, because it's a lot more difficult to read what a human opponent will do in the action.

Though the gameplay leaves a bit to be desired, the extras and the innovative graphics engine should be enough to pull fans (and maybe even a few non-fans) into the action. The extras are nice (thankfully all saved by a battery backup) and you're sure to want to unlock a ton of the goodies in the shop zone. These additions keep the replay value high enough to warrant a purchase (retail is only $19.99 brand new) and the graphics are enough to show off some nifty 2-D effects.

Road to WM does have a good set of match types and features, however. There’s steel cage matches, tag team matches, tornado matches and even a King of The Ring ladder tournament to crown a King of wrestling (even though they haven’t done the King gimmick for years). As for modes of play, there’s 2 forms of the main single player mode (multiplayer is naturally done through link mode with 2 GBA’s), the Challenge. Challenge is split into the KOTR mode, or the Road To WrestleMania mode, where you fight a handful of wrestlers until your big fight at WM.