Wrestling Encore is the kind of game that will grab you by the shorthairs and take you along on a ride fraught with triumph, tragedy, hardship and fame - provided you're into the source material and you can forgive it's few shortcomings. This latest wrestling game for the PC from MDickie is a culmination of all his work, taking the best features from his wrestling titles, his wrestling management sim series and his other interesting games to create a pretty well rounded game. The biggest drawback to the game is its controls, which are adequate but could use a little refinement. We'll get into all that shortly, but first some details on the game's finer points.

It's All About The Game:

At its heart Wrestling Encore is a wrestling game that lets you take a pre-created or modified wrestler through a career in a variety of organizations modeled after real world wrestling groups. Players start the game out in wrestling school, win matches and hope for a deal from one of the minor and major league wrestling camps. In this developmental territory you'll learn the basics of the game, but you won't earn any cash - luckily you got an allotment of the green stuff at the start of your career but if you stay in school too long you'll watch it get drained by living expenses and other charges you might encounter as you complete match after match.

One of the neatest things about Wrestling Encore is that everything affects your statistics positively or negatively. Players have eight stats that they should keep an eye on - which are pretty self explanatory: strength, skill, agility, toughness, happiness and attitude. Players will also want to keep an eye on their overall health (which fluctuates depending on how your matches go and what you're doing outside of the ring like your training regimens. Players will quickly learn that even the most hardened wrestler can suddenly have a run of bad luck and see their stats drop like lead balloons - or have a random event make them stronger, faster and even happier. This is isn't necessarily a bad thing because it adds some nice unexpected gameplay that you can't always predict.

There are so many things that can affect your stats, but a few examples are losing a match, winning a match, having your gimmick changed by the booker, taking painkillers or steroids, joining or leaving a wrestling group, and a myriad of random events that do all sorts of good and bad things. But one of the most dangerous things that can happen is taking a serious injury during a match. Players that get injured can find themselves out for weeks and see their stats plummet in the blink of an eye. Players should do their best to take it easy when they can and avoid insane activities like high flying moves, brawling outside the ring etc. Just like the real thing injuries can happen at every turn..

Backstage Madness:

As with every other game, the end goal is to plow through as many wrestling organizations as you can and take the top spot as champion. There are seven organizations to choose from, along with two others dedicated to legendary wrestlers and deceased wrestlers. To join one of these groups, you have to have a meeting with a booker, who will offer you a contract. Luckily you can negotiate the terms - and it's important that you do - because you could end up working for peanuts and lost control of just about everything. Each time you negotiate a contract you should think about what you're looking to get out of the deal. The first time you encounter this, you won't have much leeway because you're green but as you gain more experience you'll want to be a bit more picky about what you will and won't find acceptable. The key elements of your contract are your base weekly salary, the number of weeks your contract will last and the lump sum payoff. The amount of money you make weekly and the length of your contract are pretty important, but each contract also has three other hidden clauses - control of your identity or gimmick (if you give control to the booker he may change your name, what you wear or what moves you use), performance penalty (if you lose a match this decides whether or not you get some compensation or nothing at all) and health benefits (do you get paid if you are out for 4 weeks on an injury? If you don't pay attention you get nothing).

Some bookers are pretty picky about what they'll give you but unless your desperate for work it's a good idea to try and get some reasonable extras. For seasoned veterans it makes no sense not to negotiate, so you'll want to try and squeeze as much value out of a contract as you can.

We should also mention WHY there is money is in the game. Besides making you feel like you're earning something money can be used for all kinds of things- living expenses, hiring a manager, buying illegal substances, bribing wrestlers and officials, paying for damages, getting plastic surgery or making changes to your character. Money makes the world go round, and in this game you'll want to fill your pockets anytime you can.

Random Encounters:

A good portion of the gameplay features random events. This could be anything from an exchange of information (gameplay tips), to your booker telling you you need to get stronger. There are lots of activities in the game that center around this and can alter how other wrestlers, the fans and your booker feel about you. Just like the way stats are an affective element in the game, so too are all these wonderful random happenings. These elements lend a great deal of replayability to the game, because some of them can lead you down the path to destruction. Burn the wrong bridge, lose enough matches and tick off a booker enough and you'll find your career heading straight to the toilet. 32 weeks of active wrestling can lead you back to wrestling school - and not getting out of wrestling school with a solid contract ultimately leads to your retirement. And let's face it, nobody wants to retire at the age of 25.

Flies In The Soup:

Finally we should talk about some of the game's shortcomings. One of the biggest problems with Wrestling Encore is its controls. While some of this is an affect of having low stats like agility (which is a good thing BTW), there's definitely an issue with focusing on an opponent in certain situations. For instance when you get up from the mat you'll often be facing in the wrong direction, leaving yourself vulnerable to an additional attack or grapple. While this is a minor gripe, it pretty obvious that the controls need to be tightened up a wee bit. We should also point out that the game's controls work a whole lot better with a decent PC gamepad.

Another small problem I encountered was clipping in certain situations like when you're near the outside of the ring. To be fair, Wrestling Encore 's clipping problems are any worse than the SmackDown series, but they are there nonetheless.