What has ITV, Kendo Nagasaki, onion sauce and racing pigeons got to do with a 3DO game?
Saturday afternoon visiting my name sake, affectionately referred to as: ‘Granddad with the pigeons’. Every week we witnessed said Grandfather munching down his enormous Saturday lunch. Potatoes, meat, carrots, gravy, Yorkshire puddings and complete with daunting amounts of thick and heavy Onion sauce.
My brother, sister and I operating under strict orders not to go outside, for fear we would upset his beloved racing pigeons. Therefore we were trapped in the unbearably hot living room. Ex-miners get concessionary coal – and my Grandfather made the most of it, keeping the coal fire burning at the same searing temperature regardless of season or climate.
The only thing vaguely representing entertainment was the TV. My Grandparents had ‘Colour TV’ while at home we endured black and white. While the naive may believe that this addition of colour to our monochrome lives may have been something to look forward too – the truth of matter was it was 1979 – Saturday TV still belonged to the adults.
Huge men. Big Daddy. Giant Haystacks and of cause Kendo. Throwing each other about. Lying on top of each other. With lots and lots of yelling and screaming. The twisting and turning of appendages. Gallons of sweat and of cause - Lycra.
The relationship therefore is ‘Wrestling’.
From those distant childhood memories one thing lurches to the fore of my mind when presented today, some twenty years later, with wrestling.
I don’t like it. In fact I cannot stand it.
It was only later that American wrestling became popular in the UK, and as far as I was concerned it was more of the same – save for the American accents and the women in limited clothing.
Royal Pro Wrestling on the 3DO is everything I remember about wrestling.
Firstly – it is slightly confusing. I should point out the game is for the most part in Japanese. However from the manual there seems to be a bewildering thirty characters to choose from including Hulk Hogan and, I believe, the Undertaker. There are also a healthy number of Japanese and Mexican wrestlers. Each with about twenty moves that can be used to wrestle your opponents to the ground for the count of three. Like I said though – confusing. The manual clearly has thirty characters to choose from – each one listed with their moves but no where in the game could I find them. I could find around ten – so perhaps the remaining twenty are locked in a sub-menu somewhere – of which there are a lot.
Secondly – Royal Pro Wrestling is confusing. My character, after a very 2D introduction, entered the ring and was almost immediately beaten to the floor. After a few presses of the controller he got up and was promptly knocked down again. He then got up again. So- far-so-good. He than charged backwards, hit the ropes, then ran at full speed at his Sumo like opponent. It looked like my first victory but my opponent stuck out his arm and my character hit the floor. And so it continued. It seemed no amount of frantic switching between the manual to see the moves available to me or wild button bashing seemed to make one-iota of a difference. Disappointed by my lack of skill, my opponent added variety by flinging me out of the ring. Then climbed out to meet me and then hit me with a chair. Eventually, somewhat stunned, my character climbed to his feet, only to be tripped-over by someone else outside the ring.
Eventually I managed to get back in the ring. Only to be sat on and wrenched about by my opponent again. In all the whole experience was confusing. Plus I was lead to believe there were ‘rounds’ in wrestling – but Royal Pro Wrestling didn’t seem to feature any.
So, I move to the third and final thing. Royal Pro Wrestling was confusing. My character seemed to enjoy more second winds than baked-bean taste tester. He would take a thrashing, then wobble a bit, then appear to be as right-as-rain, only to be thrown, squashed or beaten some more. Also, whether I actually did anything or not seemed to have little or no bearing on my success. Sure, my character would stop moving if stopped pressing but that ultimately seemed to have no effect on the game or its outcome – I lost.
The graphics while from the whacky world of 2D scale nicely and are well presented and the same can be said of the sound.
In summary it was all too confusing.
In Japanese rareness terms it is not very, however in the US/Euro zones it is pretty rare.
3DO Kid.
Oh how I loathe wrestling. Sounds like granddad knew how to eat though!