On startup you are greeted with one of the intros you would now expect from this style of game, an intro in a similar vein to the RAW ads on TV. Simply video clips of different wrestlers montaged together with some heavy metal music. But that's the thing, the presentation of this game is extremely misleading, infact its misleading to a point of frustration. The menu system is easily navigatable, the line-up of wrestlers and question marks -- that show you have more to unlock -- are then followed by a rule and arena selector. Once rules and arena is chosen the load screen shows who is about to enter the ring in the typical A vs B screen we are all accustomed to. To make things even better -- and to raise the hype even more -- the whole wrestler entrance scenes are done extremely realistically using camera angles and music that appear on the TV show. The crowd cheers excitedly, banners are raised, lights flash, fireworks erupt and the big screen shows the wrestler's corresponding video. All of this is done very intensely and really does a great job at hyping you up for a great match. The only gripe is that the wrestler just appears during one of the camera changes and doesn't actually walk out from behind a wall or curtain. Once both wrestlers have entered the match gets underway. Sounds good, right? And so far it is.

So you want to beat the crap out of another wrestler and don't know how to do it. Depending on what style game you have chosen you have many ways. In your normal match you have your standard 3 count, submission, ring-out count, or disqualification (the last 4 optional of course). Other means to an end include escaping the cage, getting your hands on a title belt suspended above the the ring, smashing your opponent through a table and in the Royal Rumble it's the traditional over the rope rules. The quickest way to jump into the action would be to select Exhibition mode, you get to set all the rules, who fights, and where you fight, but that can get boring so try and mix it up a little. Path of a Champion seems to be where it's at for single player mode. Pick a title you want to claim and then pick the wrestler you want to get it. Fight your way to the title holder, beat him and win yourself a nice new sub-title to your wrestler's name. The nice thing about this is that you can save at anytime and carry on at a later date, as well as compete for the other 5 titles as you see fit.