The Backyard Wrestling phenomenon – and it is that, a phenomenon – isn't hard to understand. The sport's draw is easy to comprehend; any time you can watch a couple of guys alternatively beat the snot out of each other, stapling dollar bills to foreheads and body-slamming them onto a bed of florescent lights or pulling off wildly acrobatic moves, you're bound to be a little entranced.

If nothing else, Backyard Wrestling works because it's infinitely more real than so-called "pro" wrestling. Sure, there's still plenty of acting going on, and the majority of the flips and turnbuckle jumps that the more flashy wrestlers pull off wouldn't hurt a fly, but for the most part you don't get some coked-up announcer scream his head off about a punch that landed about six inches from someone's face while he friggin' stomped to make it look like it landed.

So, simple concept; seemingly easy execution, a world born to become a videogame, and that's where Paradox, they of X-Men fighting game fame, comes in. BYW the game does a fine job of combining the stuff you see in videos with an over-the-top style that makes it a video game. No, the moves that are pulled off in the game couldn't be done in real life, but if you want realism, feel free to pick up a copy of one of those other wrestling games where you can grapple in slo-mo and geek on your favorite bad actor's intro.

After a couple weeks of tooling around with a near-final build of the game, we're happy to report that BYW is looking rather solid, and damn if it isn't fun. The entire gameplay experience seems to embody the antithesis of the major wrestling games out there; it's fast, incredibly easy to pick up and play, and offers a wealth of interactivity. Even a couple of our significant others got into the act, and until you've had a girlfriend digitally smack the crap out of you a few times, drag you onto a table, then climb to the top of a stage lighting rig and soar head-first into your gut, you haven't spent quality time with your loved one.

BYW's controls are deceptively simple; Square punches, X kicks, O grabs (opening up a host of different slams, throws and special moves), and triangle interacts with the different objects (bricks, sticks, car doors, gasoline) in the environment. Nearly everything the game can be reversed as well, requiring only a direction and button press at the moment a character flashes. It's brief, but it's there. Get two decent players together, and you can literally watch them slip out of multiple slams, all executed with a surprising amount of fluidity. Each stage has multiple climbable objects which can be jumped off of for extra damage. The higher you climb, the more the damage, but the easier it is for your opponent to avoid incoming damage.

The single-player campaign actually takes place in the form of a talk show, introducing characters from each of the game's different levels, and providing a bit of back-story to the fights. Eventually, the matches make their way onto the talk show itself for a final brawl, but it's a long road from a backyard to a talk show stage. The trip can be taken with either actual BTW characters, one you create yourself, or the hilariously awesome winner of the game's contest, a seemingly wimpy kid that ends up being easily the coolest character in the game.

We've still got a little more time to spend with BYW before it hits in a couple weeks, and we'll be back later this week to fill you in on the multiplayer modes, but for now, feel free to sink your teeth into these screens.

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<<2.24.03>>

There are few things in this world that I abhor as much as "pro" wrestling. I just can't take it. I can't watch some guy stomp his foot as he "punches" some guy and obviously pulls the punch about two feet from his face. Yes, I understand this pisses those of you who watch wrestling off sumthin' fierce, but put down that Budweiser, dust off that Doritos-encrusted tank top and pull up a chair, cause I've got something to say that might ease your ire a bit.

Oddly enough, as much as I hate actually witnessing filmed wrestling matches, my hatred for them pales in comparison to wrestling games, which consistently sell like crazy, yet carry precisely the same amount of gameplay as me picking my nose, and play better if you randomly press buttons and directions than if you try to actually play them. Gasp in shock and disbelief, then, as I tell you with all seriousness that I friggin' enjoyed Eidos' Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At Home. And gaspitty-gasp-gasp, I wasn't the only one.

Now, I'll be the first to laugh and point fingers when I see a license like Backyard Wrestling get picked up for a video game, and I even had to hide a snicker as Eidos pulled the wraps off the digital version of the game with a brief video introduction that featured some footage from the BYW videos. Sure, it's over the top, and it borrows some of the more flashy elements from pro wrestling, but BYW is a whole lot more realistic, and that alone made it a little easier to buy the concept of a video game, simply because it seemed like more fun.

Then I got to see the game.

Then my interest was piqued.

Then I got to play the game.

Now, I really think it bear repeating that I loathe wrestling games with every fiber of my being, I really do, so let this statement sink in a bit before reading on. Backyard Wrestling could end up being good. Not just playable or enjoyable for people that are into the videos and events, but good. Like you could show your friends and amaze them good. Yes, I know, it's a lot to take in. We'll give you a second…

Ready? Good, let's continue.

The biggest difference between BYW and any other wrestling game is the speed. Sure, there are interactive environments filled with stuff to chuck at your opponents, makeshift turnbuckles to climb and descend from as a human meteorite of pain, but the main draw is simply the fact that you can run around, throw kicks and punches and just plain ACT in a timely fashion. No stuck-in-molasses grappling, no painfully slow "signature" moves, none of that. It's just beat your opponent stupid and win either by knocking him out or pinning him.

And that's the gist of it. Developer Paradox (of Thrill Kill, Wu-Tang and X-Men: Mutant Academy series fame) has basically boiled down the experience to a couple of buttons. No unnecessary presses to climb things (just walk up to them), nothing fancy to pull of dives or combos (a triple-tap of X or Square yields an easy combo), and nothing to picking up objects in the world and using them (either to bash over the head or toss). The whole focus of the game isn't a laundry list of moves (though any combo of three presses of either (or both) the X and Square buttons will yield a variety of combo moves), it's just administering beat-downs with as little distraction as possible. Each level can have multiple places to climb and jump from, on three different height levels, each offering the obvious trade-off of more set-up time but more damage dealt as you climb higher.

If you were expecting Paradox to follow in the footsteps of their previous brawlers, you'll be surprised. BYW feels very little like Wu-Tang or any of the Mutant Academy games, due in part to the company lifting technology for the engine and physics from other companies. This helped things look and feel dynamically different from the developers previous games, and let them concentrate on building something that was fun to play. The licensed Havok physics engine provides some amusing rag-doll physics and collision, and the engine is a bit more adept at delivering a more interactive space than has been seen in the aforementioned brawlers. While we were only able to take a look at the mansion-themed level, the final game promises to have plenty of variety, with a smattering of backyard levels to keep things in line with the game's namesake.

Yes, we're just as surprised as you are. The build of the game shown off at the event was early, and so we're going to hold off on really critiquing it until there's a more polished preview build to play through, but if early indications hold, we could be looking at a wrestling game for people who hate wrestling games, and that in and of itself may be enough to win some gamers over.