This game is sick!
It’s a shame that more moves aren’t included in UM. As it stands, though, the move selection is decent, and its brevity does lend itself towards thinking about things less, which isn’t always a good thing. On the upside, some of the characters feature great little nods to pro wrestling with their moves. For example, the “Terry” characters, Terry “the Grand” Kenyon, and his father, Terryman, each have a spinning toe hold as a special, a move made famous by the Funk brothers, especially Terry Funk. Another fun little nod to pro wrestling lays in the names of some of the characters, in particular to the Kevin Mask and Bone Cold names, and the dMp name, which is the NWO-ish group in the series that features a logo identical to the NWO one, only with dMp lettering.
The story mode shows off the corny humor quite well. Before you begin your first match, Meat (the little pig dude, not Shawn Stasiak) gives you a rundown of your character’s bio, and why he’s in the story mode. As you progress through the mode, you’ll meet fighters and engage them in many humorous conversations. Kid Muscle’s story mode, in particular, is quite funny due to the character being a complete and total coward, and the mentions of him loving cow and rice, which is a nice nod to one of the show’s funniest moments ever. The story mode is fun to progress through, and as a reward, you’ll unlock new characters for use in the story mode, as well as coins that can be used to buy toy versions of Ultimate Muscle characters, many of which aren’t in the game.
One nice addition to the gameplay that I haven’t seen in a wrestling-style game since WWF WrestleMania on the NES is the use of power-ups during a bout. These power-ups can do things such as give you a level on your special meter, or hit you with a bolt of lighting. While there aren’t too many of them, they all do serve some useful function in the game, and add an element of strategy to the mix once you figure out what each of them does.
The controls in UM compliment the fast-paced action quite-well. The controls are pretty simple, barring the special move commands, with a different two-button command for each level of a special move. Even then, the commands all use the L button, and all of them use buttons that are easily accessible when pressing the L button. Grapples are done with the Y button, along with a flick of the control stick, while strikes are handled in a similar fashion with the A button. The controls for everything (what I’ve gone over is just a small taste of what you can do) are responsive, which is very important in a game where speed and quick reflexes mean the difference between a win and a loss.