When people hear the name Spike they think of the Dragonball Z series from Atari, but my association with the popular Japanese developer is a wonderful wrestling game series called Fire Pro Wrestling. I have had an on-again off-again relationship with this series over the years, having imported multiple titles and having played anything that has made its way stateside including the popular Game Boy Advance games. But here's the thing that I have learned over the years with this unique 2D wrestling series: you either love it or hate it. You either get what this game is all about and ignore its shortcomings or you absolutely loathe it for it. The latest title brought to America by publisher Agetec -- Fire Pro Wrestling Returns -- will either make you jump for joy or rip your hair out of your head.

Fire Pro Wrestling Returns is a pretty deep 2D wrestling game offering a whole lot of variety for its $20 price-point. The first thing to note is the sheer number of included wrestlers in the game. While the names have been changed to protect the innocent, it doesn't take a detective to figure out that this guy is Andre the Giant, that guy is Kevin Nash, so on and so forth. Many Japanese wrestling games do this and it is one of the many reasons why the best games are stilled developed in Japan. Among the different groups represented are plenty of high flying luchadores, technical wrestlers, brawlers shoot fighters, and more from all around the wrestling world. This variety has always been one of the strongest points of the series and Fire Pro Wrestling Returns delivers.

The 2D wrestling remains unchanged from the last title to hit America, and for those that love it that's a great thing. In the game your wrestler will use light attacks and simple moves to slow wear the opponent down. After awhile your opponent will get fatigued and you'll be able to do even more powerful moves until eventually you are able to pull off your special move. Grappling simply requires you to walk into your opponent and then hit a button to do a corresponding move. Just like any other wrestling title, you'll have access to different moves based on the positioning of your opponent or his physical condition. Wearing your opponent down is important because if you don't like being countered every time you do a big move and opponents that aren't softened up tend to fight back. The AI in the game is very aggressive even on the easiest of difficulty settings, so chipping away at your opponent is the key to not getting your butt kicked.

Besides offering deep wrestling action and a multitude of wrestling stars from around the world, Fire Pro Wrestling Returns offers an obscene amount of match types. There's the standard types like Single, Tag, Cage and Hardcore and the more exotic match types like Barbed wire deathmatches, octagon style fights and landmine deathmatches! There are so many match types, and match settings that setting up even an exhibition can take a few minutes as you ponder all the possibilities. This is one of the reasons that Fire Pro Wrestling is so popular - the sheer amount of options and variety is mind boggling.

One thing there is not in this game is a straightforward, story driven season mode. Instead you get a sandbox approach to wrestling. There's exhibition mode, tournament (a series of matches set up as a ladder), Team match (5 vs. 5), League ( 6 - 64 players are selected, with the last one with the most points battling to be the champion), Battle Royal, Title match and Match Maker (which has you set up matches as a promoter). Then there's the Create A Wrestler mode, which is a very deep and satisfying way to build a grappler of your own if you have the patience to take the time to sift through all the data.

What really hinders Fire Pro Wrestling Returns isn't the action, the game modes or even its admittedly dated 2D graphics - it's the interface. In some parts of the game it is absolutely archaic. Instead of simply navigating through a section it requires you to hit a button to make an additional set of options pop up. It is very confusing, and even more so to new players who want to give this game a chance. It's kind of hard to fathom why the interface is like this - it's not like this is the first Fire Pro title to come to America - and previous titles in the series didn't feature this awful menu system. Still, if you can figure out how to navigate through this mess of menus you'll have a lot of fun.