Action Arcade Wrestling
07:08
ITSMYYARD
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There's not much these days that you can buy for less than a quid is there? A bag of sweets? a newspaper? a condom? How about a game? Well for 80 MSP you can play Action Arcade Wrestling (AAW for short). It says exactly what it says on the tin. It is a wrestling game but adopting the arcade style that made Wrestlefest in the early 90s such a great game.
AAW is an Indie game so you'll have to dig around the dashboard to find it. For 80 MSP you don't expect massive details or even complexity for a small independent game but with AAW there is alot of customisable options. Firstly much like Fire Pro, making wrestlers is pretty quick and easy to do, I made several WWE look a likes in a few minutes, as well as editing their moves. You can also change the arenas not just in the options but mid game if you don't like a certain look of one. Changing the colour of the apron or ring ropes is done by the flick of the wrist.
Onto the gameplay, AAW is pick up and play at it's easiest. Initiate the test of strength against your opponent, hit the right button first and you gain control of doing a grapple move or irish whip. Don't take too long or you're opponent will re-take control. The more damage they take the bigger the grapple moves you earn, such as piledriver and powerbomb, which replace your smaller moves. Do more damage and you'll be able to hit your finisher grapple or even a finisher top rope move or running move. Set in a 2D style using 3D sprites it does feel very much like Wrestlefest. The graphics are nice and bold for this sort of game and reflects the Arcade style.
The AI does need tweaking, when climbing the top rope they will stand perfectly still. While you don't have much access to hitting loads of moves to begin with, the amount of different moves on offer is rather limiting, but the creator has promised that more moves will be added in the future.
AAW has the familar types of matches, Singles, Tag, Battle Royals, Rumble, Steel Man (Ironman), Steel Cage and a nifty 4 Way Ironman match called Steel Men. There are championship modes ala Wrestlefest but you can decide on the wrestlers for each stage.
You can't win by submission which is quite a let down despite having moves like the figure four in the game. Despite requiring you to be online to play the game (due to the silly dashboard nature of all indie games), there is no online match playing. If it was included I would expect a lot of people playing it, specially with their own creations.
Overall though if you have a few mates round you can play some great 4 player action and relive some old memories of Wrestlefest, because this is the closest thing you'll get to the actual game. For 80MSP you can't go wrong, and if you're a tight git, why not download a trial of it?
AAW receives a slightly above average 6/10, you don't expect much for 80MSP but it's worth the money.
