The fastest growing sport in terms of popularity isn’t soccer, basketball or even football. It’s wrestling, with its rosters of heroes and villains, high-flying maneuvers and muscle bound men and women. Yet for every wrestler that lands on WWE’s Raw or Smackdown!, there’s easily ten wrestlers that toil in relative obscurity in local leagues and neighborhoods, holding onto the dream of one day entertaining the millions (…and millions!) of wrestling fans around the world. Due to the lack of publicity or money, many of these independent leagues take their matches “to the extreme,” hosting matches that feature barbed wire, shovels, and other implements of destruction, but attract crowds of people. Feeding upon this phenomenon, Eidos is getting ready to present the definitive extreme wrestling game with Backyard Wrestling: Don’t Try This At Home. One of the hardest tricks for many recent “extreme” games is actually boasting gameplay that lives up to that name. Don’t expect to see any stadiums or large crowds waving signs. Instead, get ready to fight in strip clubs, gas stations and slaughterhouses, as well as the eponymous backyard. Backyard Wrestling features virtually dozens of weapons that can be thrown, swung, or smashed into opponents. We’re talking about classic wrestling items like tables and chairs, but other unique weapons like cattle prods and light bulbs. However, this isn’t a gimmick, because there are plenty of rasslin’ moves included within the game. Each wrestler has a different set of throws and slams available to them based upon their wrestling style, as well as a specific finishing move to finish off opponents. However, we’re not talking about unknowns or wannabes here. The Insane Clown Posse themselves, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope (wrestlers themselves), as well as female fan favorites like Tylene “Major Gunns” Buck and legendary hardcore wrestlers like Sabu. Along with the create-a-wrestler mode found in every wrestling title, there’s the standard exhibition mode for quick bouts. Unlike other wrestling or fighting games, the customary survival match is considered more of a mini-game than a mode itself, with other mini-games waiting to be unlocked through successful progress of the single player, or talk show, mode. A parody of Jerry Springer, the talk show mode introduces each new stage like a talk show host would, with a topic, guest and overly vocal audience. Successfully winning over opponents in this mode unlocks wrestlers and other features in the game. Take a quick glance at the game, and you’ll see just how mature, but also well animated Backyard Wrestling comes across. Wrestlers have plenty of animations to back up their malicious intentions towards their opponents, and watching some of the combinations that can be strung together will easily make you cringe. The more impressive feature is the soundtrack, which easily has upwards of 40 licensed songs from a variety of bands. We’ll try to take another look at this title before it actually hits store shelves in early October, so check back for more! Questions or comments about the upcoming release of Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At Home for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox? Talk to us! [ E-Mail Jeff 'Linkphreak' Haynes ] [ Comment in our Forums ]

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