Showdown: Legends of Wrestling

Showdown: Legends of Wrestling is a professional wrestling video game and the sequel to Legends of Wrestling II released by Acclaim Entertainment for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 in 2004. A version of the game for the Nintendo GameCube was also planned but was canceled. Showdown is the third game in the Legends of Wrestling video game series. It was the last game published by Acclaim Entertainment before the company's bankruptcy on the 1st September 2004.

Roster
A significant coup for Showdown: LoW was the inclusion of Ultimate Warrior who had been in legal disputes with WWE and successfully had his likeness excluded from WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain the previous year. Also noteworthy is the absence of Von Erich brothers, Mike and David from Showdown: LoW, who were in the previous two Legends of Wrestling games.

New Legends

 * "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig
 * Diamond Dallas Page
 * "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes
 * Jake "The Snake" Roberts
 * Nikita Koloff
 * "Macho Man" Randy Savage
 * "Ravishing" Rick Rude
 * Sting
 * Ultimate Warrior

Music

 * The theme music in the last two games was composed by "The Mouth of The South" Jimmy Hart. Hart appears as a manager in all three games. He also composed some of the theme music for World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment.
 * A cover of "Metal Health" by Quiet Riot was used in promo videos for the game and the instrumental is played at the main menu and Create-a-Legend screens.

Features
Some minor new features included a tribute to deceased legendary wrestlers as well as a tutorial fully narrated by Bret Hart.

Arenas
Another major point in the game's favor was the inclusion of many famous arenas used for pro wrestling and many other sports. They included:


 * Madison Square Garden in New York City
 * Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan
 * Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan
 * The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia
 * Cow Palace in San Francisco, California
 * The Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 * Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 * Boston Garden in Boston, Massachusetts
 * Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan
 * Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina
 * SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 * Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee
 * Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas
 * L.A. Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California
 * Wembley Stadium in London, England
 * Moscow
 * Dory Funk's Gym in Ocala, Florida
 * Legends Coliseum in Austin, Texas

Reaction
Showdown: Legends of Wrestling was met with very mixed reception upon release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 57% and 55 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version, and 55% and 57 out of 100 for the Xbox version.

Xbox Nation called it "a steaming doodie. With extra stank on it." Consumer reaction was negative too, though not excessively so, primarily tempered by the stellar roster available in the game. The inclusion of former WCW commentary team of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Tony Schiavone, and "The Living Legend" Larry Zbyszko was welcomed. The commentary system turned out to be a failure, however, being unsophisticated and repetitive. It has arguably the best roster of popular 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s pro-wrestlers, including many 'legends' who didn't appear in the first two games.

The game was riddled with many serious bugs, glitches, crashes, and lock-ups. This suggested that Showdown: LoW was a rushed product with little attention to quality assurance on Acclaim's part. Other major negative aspects of the game are terribly lacking opponent AI, sluggish character movement, and clumsy game controls. Errors and omissions in the accompanying instruction booklet compounded this. The game's box also advertised commentary from Jerry "The King" Lawler which also was omitted from the game.