Usually grading considerations don't pop up in the first half-hour of play, but this game is just special like that.

Off the roof, through a table, and straight into the ground

Backyard Wrestling takes Powerstone and Def Jam Vendetta, sets them up on a flaming table strewn with thumbtacks, and elbow-drops them straight through. It mixes exaggerated pro wrestling moves with moderately large areas littered with throwable, smashable items. It's got wild finishers, unlockables, and a soundtrack featuring rap and metal original hits by the original artists. There's even a unique story mode and a create-a-wrestler.

Okay, let's pause a moment to allow Eidos to copy-and-paste that text into its next wave of advertising. That's just the kind of ambiguous "recommendation" you normally see when a major release is this bad. Since the developers made it so easy to write my review, I'll save them the trouble of wading through a ton of articles and snipping out phrases like "thrill ride," "sexy models," and "extreme brutality" to use out of context.

Good. Now we can go ahead and see what's really buried in this backyard.

There are twenty wrestlers to choose from initially, including members of the Insane Clown Posse and independent wrestlers like Sabu. (Those three are the only "big" names I found, unless you count video footage of some other wrestling stars.) Each wrestler has a striking combination, eight standard moves out of a grapple, an Irish Whip, two throws and two dives that are used off elevated surfaces, and little else.

The action takes place in various venues - pretty much anywhere but a wrestling ring. Players bemoaning the lack of blood and backstage grappling in Raw 2 or those who felt restricted by the mission-based Revenge mode in Wrestlemania XIX might be expecting redemption with BYW. Unfortunately, the shallow engine and the sheer repetitiveness of the game will quickly pound such hopes into a bloody mess. This is quickie-friendly stuff: attack the enemy using your very limited move list (which probably resembles his very limited move list) until he falls unconscious, let him have a rematch, then turn off the Xbox and do something else. You aren't going to work on your characters' stats and you certainly won't be need to spend hours mastering the nuances of the fighting system.

The typical play field consists of vertical surfaces you can ram your opponent into (cars, posts, aquariums, gasoline pumps), objects you can throw or slide across the screen (chairs, televisions, shopping carts), and flat surfaces you can climb onto (tables, crates, dumpsters). Scattered on the ground are various friendly items you can throw. I say "friendly" because they will graciously follow and pelt your opponent eight times out of ten, no matter how poor your aim or how fast he runs. Along the perimeter of each stage is someone throwing things, striking you, or setting you ablaze if you get too close. They are friendly, too, since they never give chase or throw very far. I guess they're supposed to represent the programmers.

The complex moves of a good fighting game and the strategy of a good wrestling game are nowhere to be found. You can light some things on fire and you can trigger some stage-specific events involving the non-playable characters, but once you've seen it and done it, you will probably just put it aside and forget it.

Not ready for prime time

The season mode is easily completed in a couple of hours and consists of matches interspersed with segments of a trashy talk show. The show is not very entertaining, but it's something to break up the first few hours of play. The curse words are bleeped out and the naughty parts pixilated, to add an authentic feel.

The create-a-wrestler is about as limited as you will find. You name the combatant and choose from among fifteen character models; each with four palette-swapped outfits and three skin tones. Then you chose from a list of styles to determine the strikes, throws, and taunts that will be used. Finally, you pick four grapples for the A button and four for X. That's it. No interchanging body parts, no making your friends - unless they happen to look like one of the pre-rendered characters.

It's interesting to watch one or two of the movies if you haven't seen any of the dozens of news reports on backyard wrestling that run during network sweeps, but so much footage is recycled and it is somewhat poorly produced due to the nature of the beast, that you might not even feel like watching all the movies. The women constantly pull at their bikini straps and arch their backs, but the clothes stay on, despite the games "M" rating. This is a good thing, I guess - I don't particularly want any naked people in my games, but I am just pointing it for those who care.

This is one of those times I can't even recommend a title as a rental. Unless you get to play this for free or you are obsessed with seeing grainy footage of clowns wrestling while Sepultura plays in the background, stay far away.

· · · Nick