"NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!!!!!" as far as acurately portraying what wrestling really is.
In the game you can pick from 10 different wrestlers and then choose to do a WWF season, which is just a series of matches, or you can go for the Intercontinental or Heavyweight Belts. Going for the belts is just the same as the Season mode but features more opponents.
There is also a 2 player mode where you can face a 2nd player or team up in a Tag match.
There is a decent variety of wrestlers in the game, from technical wrestlers like Bret and Owen Hart to Power wrestlers like Undertaker and Vader. Also included are Goldust, Shawn Michaels, British Bulldog, Triple H, Ultimate Warrior and Ahmed Johnson. Each wrestler is pretty balanced and are all worth trying out at least once as they all have certain strengths and weaknesses.
The gameplay is like a fast paced, cartoony version of Mortal Kombat. To pull off moves you have to do various button combinations. Most of the these are simple combinations but doing the flashier moves will require longer sequences. The matches are very fast paced, to the point where sometimes a match can be over in as little as 15 seconds. Throught the matches, Power Ups and Power Downs (at least I think that's what they're called) will appear in the ring. Walking in to Power Ups can give you a full combo meter (allowing you to do multi hit combos), make you move faster, or make you opponent move slower, among other things. Walking in to the Power Downs will have the opposite effect, like giving your opponent more speed or a full combo meter, or taking away some of your health.
Overall the matches can be quite decent as long as you're not expecting a lot of depth. The game is better being played with a 2nd player though.
The graphics are decent enough to show what's going on and the bright colours overall style match the fast paced matches. Saying that though, they're not great. The wrestlers are done using digitised graphics, similar to the early Mortal Kombat games. For those that don't know, this method is like a 2d motion capture. The wrestlers do the moves in front of a camera and green screen, then the footage is edited and animated properly. For the most part, the wrestlers do look pretty good. The sprites are nicely detailed and most of the animations are done decently.
The only real problem is that they don't really fit in with the backgrounds and the rings which are hand drawn. The backgrounds and rings are ok but after a while they get quite bland, although some are just bland to begin with, like Owen Hart's background which is just made up of playing cards.
The animations are ok but some of the more complex moves lack detail and end up looking quite choppy. This does take away quite a lot from the game, especially when you're performing finishing moves that look amazing in real life but look like a mess in the game.
The sound is probably the worst part of the game. The menu music is pretty good, but the sound effects are really annoying, as is the sparse commentary from Vince McMahon and Curt Henning. While the effects do fit with the cartoony style of the game, they're too cartoony and it won't be long before you mute the TV and listen to the stereo or something. What there is of the commentary is generally ok but some lines (mostly from Vince) will make you want to smash up your Playstation. It's just something about exaggerated lines like "DID YOU SEE THAT???!!!" after a simple kick that make this game unplayable if you aren't in a good mood.
Overall, apart from the sound effects, this game is pretty good and is alright for playing every now again if you've got some friend's over. As far as the single player goes, it's decent enough, but after you've played through it with a most of the wrestlers (which will take about half an hour), you probably won't play it again for about 5-6 months. Still, it'll only cost around £2-£3 nowadays so it's a fair deal.