Legends Of Wrestlemania (Ps3/360/IPhone) 2009
Finally in a bit of variety, Legends of Wrestlemania was the first different wrestling game in years. Released to coincide with Wrestlemania 25 it was a celebration of the Wrestlemanias of the past. Legends was an attempt to stand out from the Smackdown series and did so with a whole new combat system and arcade style. The game now used the four face buttons rather than the analog controls. As you beat down your opponent a number would rise from 1 to 3 beside your HUD indicating that stronger moves could now be performed, eventually leading to being able to finish your opponent off. It introduced chained moves in the form of quick time events, which were different but got annoying after a while. New game modes were added based on the games premise. Wrestlemania Tour was made up of three concepts: Relive, Rewrite and Redefine. As you might guess, Relive allowed you to relive particular moments in WWE history, Rewrite to change the outcome of historical matches and Redefine took historical matches and added gimmicks. Each classic match came with a video package of highlights to remind you what happened in real life then the matches had certain optional objectives that recreated famous portions of the matches. For example, while playing as Austin vs the Rock at Wrestlemania 15, fighting near the entranceway would trigger a scene recreating Austin throwing the Rock into the hanging event logo that made up the stage that year. This mode (and its approach to objectives) seems to have influenced the 30 Years of Wrestlemania mode in WWE2k14, which have similar classic moments that can be triggered and relived. While that mode was a good hook, the gameplay wasn't so great. It did allow you to import the Smackdown vs Raw 2009 roster to deepen the gameplay, though it didn't do a LOT to prolong playing the game and didn't have the extra modes that kept players coming back to Smackdown. It was a fun but brief distraction and the change in style ultimately wasn't for everyone.