Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home

The Good
Well, where do I begin? Before I talk about the whole game itself, I would say a positive thing or two about this game: The Xbox version has custom soundtrack support. In the game, I can add my own custom soundtrack into the game since the game's soundtrack is horrible (I'll get to that later). Songs I added are songs by the industrial metal band A Dark Halo (best known for doing the soundtrack for the 2005 game "WWE Day of Reckoning 2"), comedic musician Tom Lehrer, DJ Zapper, Basshunter, ChaseR Basse, Bassuckerz, Amboza, BassFinder and other swedish Eurodance/Hands Up! artists.

The settings in the levels are cool, well made and looks nice. There are plenty of weapons to choose from such as a bat, fluorescent lights, barb wire bat, chairs, etc. and have some killer finishing moves. That's not saying much really, and the unlockable videos are also the good parts of the game.

The Bad
Now to the problems with the game. The gameplay is pretty disappointing. The A.I. will constantly throw weapons at you, which gets annoying. Another problem is the violence can come off too cartoonish (that's what LionsEdge from YouTube says in his review), also the A.I. can kick your ass good unless you can pull off a comeback. The game is fun for a while, but here's another problem, it gets old real quick.

Single player campaign (aka Talk Show mode) is actually a gauntlet. The cutscenes are obviously a parody of a talk show (such as Jerry Springer), sometimes it's humorous and most of the time is not-so humorous (and the Santa Claus one is cringe worthy), and the cutscenes looks like the game is trying to preach to the people who like BYW is that BYW is for dumbass morons WTF?! No one wants to play to have opinions shove to their faces. After you complete talk show mode, you unlock wrestlers and you go straight to the end credits after beating the game, that's it. Talk show mode is mostly for unlocking wrestlers and it's not worth doing again and again (unlike the WWE games like SmackDown!: Shut Your Mouth, Raw 2 and SmackDown!: HCTP, you can play season mode again and again because it's super fun).

The soundtrack is the worst I've heard. There's mostly pop punk music (which is cancer to the music industry), metalcore music, nu metal music, horrorcore music, etc. and they all suck. Like I said earlier, Custom soundtrack support is the saving grace so I can put in my own music, like some Eurodance and Hands Up! music.

The create-a-wrestler mode is a *ing joke. You're not creating anything, you're just choosing a pre-set model. There are moves to choose but you can't preview it (on a side note, what's with the ridiculous names for the recognizable moves (i.e. Frog splash is Launching Pad, Rock bottom is Freefalling, Death Valley Driver is Over the Rainbow, etc.)) Having said that, the C.A.W. mode sucks.

*The Bottom Line
Overall, the game is okay (or nearly bad). The gameplay is not great (and it gets old quick), the controls are awkward (in contrast to the WWE games from THQ), Talk Show mode is meh, the Create-a-Wrestler mode is a joke, the roster is decent (most of the wrestlers are from JCW, Backyard Wrestling and it also features Sabu from ECW), the soundtrack is horrendous, and the cutscenes in "Talk Show mode" can get cringe worthy at times.

The saving grace to the game is the custom soundtrack support in the Xbox version, that's it, and to a lesser extent, unlockable videos and the settings of the level.

Do I recommend this game? I would say not really. If you like this type of game, this one is for you. If you like good wrestling games, don't bother with this game. Good wrestling games I highly recommend are WWF WrestleMania 2000, WWF No Mercy, WWE SmackDown!: Shut Your Mouth, WWE WrestleMania XIX, WWE Raw 2, WWE SmackDown!: Here Comes the Pain, WCW vs. nWo: World Tour and WCW/nWo: Revenge.

On a side note, The Xbox version is better than the PS2 version solely for the custom soundtrack support.