Calling Wrestling Spirit the best professional-wrestling management simulation available for the PC may seem like damning the game with faint praise, but this is one excellent sports sim regardless of the diminutive size of the genre. Designer Adam Ryland, a wrestling expert best known for Total Extreme Wrestling, and publisher Grey Dog Software have put together a captivating look at life inside the squared circle. And although living the career of a Triple H wannabe makes the game more frivolous than the usual stat-heavy sports sim, the absence of serious depth is offset by the entertainment value of role-playing a muscle-bound freak who bashes people over the head with chairs for a living.
Sports simulation and role-playing neatly cohabitate here. Instead of managing a wrestling organization like the WWE or TNA, you guide the career of a single worker trying to make his or her way in the world of sweaty behemoths and steroids. You have the option of taking the easy road and picking an established ring legend from a selection of fictional wrestling promotions (such as the WWE-like, and awesomely named, Burning Hammer of the Wrestling Gods) in superstar mode, or doing things the hard way and building up a nobody in rookie-to-legend mode. Both play in a similar fashion, although of course the latter is a lot more difficult in that you have to start at the bottom of the ladder.
Going the harder way is the most rewarding, though, as you get to create a rookie wrestler from scratch. You give your creation a name, a date of birth, and a size, and then you further refine your character with training. You select a wrestling style from options that include a high-flying Mexican luchador, a technician, and a psychopath, and you tweak slider bars to set stats in such areas as charisma and wrestling fundamentals. All of this training translates into 10 core stats (power, technique, speed, stamina, psychology, toughness, safety, charisma, microphone, and superstar look) that then determine how well you do in your upcoming career.
After this, you work on a move set. Here you browse a huge list of classic wrestling maneuvers and concoct an arsenal of strike, standing, ground, top-rope, rebound, and corner moves from choices such as the "bionic elbow," the "headhunter special," and the "brass-knuckle punch" (nobody says you have to play fair). All are rated in terms of effectiveness and entertainment value. Moves are available only if you have the requisite skills and style to employ them, so you can create wrestlers with diverse talents and personalities. The world is your oyster, whether you want a spry high-flyer who loves coming off the top rope or an Andre the Giant clone who lumbers about squeezing necks. Replay value is tremendous, if you like the idea of experimenting with different wrestling styles, seeing if a brawling, psychopathic heel can reach the big show ahead of a baby-faced technician, and so forth.
Skills and moves are fully utilized, so just about every aspect of a pro wrestler's life is depicted. The most important feature is, not surprisingly, bouts in the ring. Matches in Wrestling Spirit are real, too, unlike the scripted soap-opera affairs seen weekly on the likes of WWE RAW. So you have to actually fight here, by employing the aforementioned moves in a turn-based system where you choose actions, moves, and counters (each is illustrated by a graphic of a wrestler pulling off the move in question, which is a nice touch that adds color to a genre that's too often drowning in text). Spanish Superfly, for instance, might try a running dropkick on you, and you can attempt to avoid it or throw some countermoves at him. Conversely, when you're on the attack you can Irish-whip him and then grab him with a DeColt thrust and bodyslam him to the canvas--if all goes well and he doesn't break or counter those moves, of course. Many moves link up, so you have to plot out combinations to get your opponents sprawling on the mat. Flailing about only drains energy and puts you at risk of a pin.
This is wrestling, though, so the idea is both to win matches and entertain the crowd by whipping out moves that satisfy the audience and demolish the opposition. Blowing past rivals in quick bouts does little to please the audience or the big boys at top promotions, who want to see long, dramatic scraps. In practice, this means you have to alternate between cool-looking attacks with a high wow factor, like "greetings from the islands" and the "kikkawa forearm," and routine moves like the "running clothesline." Of course, you can take things too far. It's easy to get so caught up in pleasing the fans that you wind up losing the actual match. And nobody likes a loser, even an acrobatic one.
Sometimes, however, you'll consider losing intentionally just to get the bout over with. As much fun as it is to strategize your way through matches, they go on too long, with one last-second kickout after another. The average match lasts a good five minutes, and the action can become repetitive well before the referee pounds out a three count. While there are dozens of options and moves, most involve the same principles, and you can whip someone into the ropes to set up a flurry of punches only so many times before you get bored. And since the longer fights tend to be the ones that garner the highest ratings and get you the best gigs with the highest-paying federations, you can't avoid these marathons. The only option is to hit the emergency finish button, but that ends matches immediately and declares a winner based on the events thus far. So you can't hit it at the start of a bout and expect to emerge a winner.
Wrestling's showbiz side is also well represented with loads of behind-the-scenes stuff. Just as the matches are realistic here, so are the feuds. In the locker room before matches you get to interact with other wrestlers through dialogue trees. You can offer up effusive compliments that will get you branded a baby-face, or you can toss around insults and become a heel. All you need to do to get something going is insult the likes of Joe Sexy, Burning Takashita, or any of the other hundreds of wrestlers featured in the game, and start a brawl. Nature takes its course from there, although you can help things along by asking the promotion bosses for a push or turn story angle. Midcard interviews take the form of a dialogue duel with a fellow grappler for the attention of the fans. The only drawback is that the dialogue choices are inadequate. You can exhaust all of the backstage conversation options after a couple of bouts, and the microphone choices are limited to themes like "toilet humor" and "mixed metaphor."
Add in a great, colorful interface with personal assistants to walk you through everything, customizable workout regimens, and even the ability to accumulate a fortune and buy luxury items, from restaurants to pet monkeys, and you've got one well-rounded wrestling sim. Even if you can't tell the difference between Hulk Hogan and Paul Hogan, and wouldn't know a hammerlock if somebody put you in one, Wrestling Spirit is a fascinating oddity of interest to both role-players and sports simmers.
