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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I Hope You Like Playing 1-On-1 Hardcore Matches Over And Over And Over Again, April 7, 2007
Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars
This is a review of this product: Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood (PlayStation 2 video game). Amazon may display this review on the page of another version of this product, for which this review may not apply. After reading this review, please click on the link so that you can be assured that the product this review applies to is the same one you thought it was for.
(This is a review that I originally wrote on 12/20/2004)
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The first Backyard Wrestling game (subtitled "Don't Try This At Home") received poor reviews from just about everyone who played it, so you'd expect for Eidos to learn and make a better sequel. Of course, you'd be wrong. Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighborhood (BYW2) is pretty much the same as BYW1, for good and for bad.
The Basics
The game includes 25 playable wrestlers (all unlocked from the start) and 5 CAW slots. Of the 25, only 4 are female: Adrienne Pain, Sunrise Adams (adult film actress), Tera Patrick (adult film actress), and Tylene Buck. The other 21 are male: Andrew WK, El Drunko, Kelvin Finn, Luke Hadley, Madman Pondo, Masked Horn Dog, Messiah, New Jack, Ruckus, Rude Boy, Ryuji Ito, Sandman, Shaggy 2 Dope, Sick Nick Mondo, Sonjay Dutt, Supreme, Vampiro, Vic Grimes, Violent J, and Zandig.
A big problem with the game is that there's very little to do in it. Up to two players can duke it out in a 1-on-1 exhibition match, or a single player can go through the Career mode (you can have up to 10 saved careers). That's it. There's nothing else to do. One of the reasons WWE games are ranked so highly is because they give you a wide variety of match types. This game is just one match type: 1-on-1 hardcore. Although the game tries to give you the impression of variety, the entire game consists of you playing this same exact match over and over and over again. There's no reason a BYW game has to stick to non-ring-based action. Heck, watch the BYW Videos in the game's Media Room and you'll see that 95% of the action in the real-live events takes place in a ring. There should be the following match types: tag team, handicap (not the fight one guy then the other "handicap" match that this game has as it's career finale), lumberjack, steel cage, Hell in the Cell (though they'd have to use a different name since WWE probably has that copyrighted), plus the non-ring hardcore action. In short, everything you see in a WWE game should be here, but with the violence and blood turned up to the EXTREME! The rings should have regular, barb wire, and electrified ropes (player's choice). There should be thumb tacks, barb wire bats, panes of glass (they should be held and set up like tables in a WWE game), and other assorted "ultra-violent" weapons. Tables should not be part of the environment (they're "Enviro-Mental Throws/Attacks" in this game). They should be items you can pick up, place somewhere, stackable, and do moves onto - like you see in the WWE SmackDown! games.
Loading times throughout the game are 15-20 seconds each, but they happen right before every single opponent, plus short ones before going back to the menus. I shutter to think of how many minutes total of loadings you will sit through by the time you're done with Career mode.
Create-A-Wrestler (CAW) sucks, which is sad because you're forced to use it for career mode the first time you play it. There are so few options that I can practically list all of them here. There are only 6 body types: 4 male (athletic, muscular, overweight, slim), 2 female (athletic, muscular) with 16 different skin tones (most of which are useless unless you want funky colored wrestlers). There are 6 different face styles for each gender. There are 7 different hair styles for each gender with 16 different hair colors (again, most are rather funky). In terms of clothing, each gender has 18 upper body (shirts), 18 lower body (pants), and 6 footwear (including bare feet) choices. You can choose two different colors for each, assuming the piece of clothing has a base and a stripe.
Rounding out the CAW options are a few custom logos/tattoos, a limited selection of moves, and 35 mostly useless CAW accessories that you can buy for $200 each in the shop section of Career mode. How useless are they, you may be wondering? Take a look at this list and judge for yourself: Top Hat, Cowboy Hat, Football Helmet, Do Rag, Skater Helmet, Headband, Bowler, Visor, Sun Hat, Beanie, Beret, Headphones, Hard Hat, Baseball Cap, Ear Muffs, Biker's Helmet, Sunset Shades, Round Glasses, 3-D Glasses, Eye Patch, Painter's Mask, Clown Nose, Corn Cob Pipe, Bandage, Big Ears, Tiny Shades, Left Arm Band, Double Elbow Pads, Double Wrist Bands, Gauntlets, Biker Gloves, Bandoleer, Messenger Bag, Backpack, Bow Tie, Single Gun Belt, Double Knee Pads, Shin Guards, Wallet Chain, Tool Belt, Knee Brace, Spurs, Leg Garter, Studded Belt, and Snow Shoes. Nothing says "I'm a hardcore brawler, don't F with me" more than a guy wearing a Bowler hat, 3-D glasses, a clown nose, and a pair of snow shoes. To the game's credit, though, a few of these looked great on a gal wearing the default thong outfit (cowboy hat, biker gloves, and leg garter).
On top of that, you can't even delete CAWs. The best you can do is revert them back to their default appearance and moves, but the CAW slot will still be filled - even after you've deleted your Career save and the CAW no longer has a use. Also, you can't import CAWs from another game save/memory card.
Besides the CAW accessories, the game has a few other unlockables, but they're really not worth the effort to unlock. If you can manage to make it through the game tedious and boring Career mode, you get the option to play it all over again, but this time with one of the in-game wrestlers. Since the story is exactly the same as the first time, there's nothing new to see by playing it again with an established character instead of the CAW you used the first time. As an added bonus, completing Career mode also unlocks all of the "Game Videos" in the Media Room. These are the same video you've seen throughout season mode (actually, each one is unlocked after you view it in the course of your career).
These videos are only marginally better than the ones you can buy from $1000 each in the shop. The five purchasable videos are short highlight reels of these wrestlers: Zandig, Ryuji Ito, Sick Nick Mondo, Vic Grimes, and Sandman. Before you get too excited, you should know that they each run a mere 35-40 seconds and contain no audio at all. In fact, almost all of the "BYW Videos" in the Media Room are 35-40 second audioless highlight reels. These are the same clips shown on the main menu. However, there are more clips shown on the main menu than there are in the Media Room. All of the main menu videos should be viewable in the Media Room, where they're displayed full screen. I, personally, would have rather watched the clips of the ladies (Tylene Buck, Tera Patrick, and Sunrise Adams) in the Media Room than a clip of Andrew WK singing, made pointless by the fact that there's no audio in it.
The only "BYW Videos" that have audio are three relatively short music videos and the promo/newspiece ("Pulse"). I have never seen a wrestling match from BYW or any of the other feds represented in the game. It would have been more beneficial for them to include one or two whole matches, instead of all these pointless, short, and mostly audioless video clips. Maybe *that* would get me interested in buying one of their videos.
The "Pulse" video is a TechTV story about the game and a wrestling event held to promote it several months (?) before its release. One of the game designers proudly mentions that BYW2 was the first wrestling game with confirmed online capabilities. There is no online mode in the final product. Oops!
The design of the different fighting areas is pretty good overall, though of course, some are better than others. I, personally, like the Office because you can break ALL of the cubicles in the middle of the room, and when that's done, you're left with a TON of weapons and one open area to fight in.
Gameplay
The game engine is essentially the same as in BYW1, but with a few additions, such as submission holds and a block button. There's also a new type of environmental attack, appropriately titled an "Enviro-Mental" attack. You can perform these attacks when you have your opponent in a front grapple and you're positioned in the right spots of each fighting area. You'll know when you're in the right spot because an exclamation point inside a triangle will appear on the screen. All you have to do is press the Triangle button and a cutscene will pop up showing you doing an extreme move to your opponent, like powerbombing him through a picnic table, hitting him with beer bottles, or frying his face on a fast food grill.
The problem with the environmental attacks, as with ALL attacks, is that the wrestlers don't sell their moves. They'll pop right back up on their feet as if you just blew air in their face. In WCW Kevin Nash once sold a finger poke to the chest as if he had just gotten hit with a bowling ball, yet here they act like nothing happened if you repeatedly slam their head in the truck of a car. The only time wrestlers act like a move really hurt them, is when they MISS a move that THEY were trying to perform.
One of my biggest grievances about the game engine is that reversals require guesswork, not skill. When in a grapple, you have to guess which of the four face buttons your opponent will use for his...
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