Wrestling MPire 2004

You can dress this game up, but you can hardly get it into the ring to wrestle. While MDickie’s Wrestling Mpire offers plenty of character-customization features, poor controls and miserable graphics barely make it a contender. The action of the game is straightforward: you train your wrestler to take part in matches with the goal of winning the cash prize. You can construct your ultimate wrestling machine with the game’s ample character options (even choosing his clothes) but given the poor graphics resolution, the athlete resembles a brick wall more than a svelte wrestling star. The game’s biggest problem aside from its poorly drawn world is its game controls. There’s little guidance to show you how to take down your opponent, and none of the action is intuitive. While we were impressed with the more than 20 camera angles through which you can observe the action (or lack thereof), the angles don’t help you move your character any more effectively. As a final blow, the program’s hefty download (85MB) is hardly justified given the game’s poor graphics. While wrestling fans might be able to overlook all these shortfalls, we weren’t. MDickie’s Wrestling Empire has plenty of tricks, but it’s just not a whole lot of fun to play.