Eidos announces Backyard Wrestling 2
It'll be a yardstick for the genre. An online yardstick. With location-specific damage and licensed wrestlers.
Eidos has officially confirmed the multi-platform sequel to Backyard Wrestling, which was first mentioned in a financial results document accidentally uploaded to a public area of the publisher's website last month.
Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighbourhood is due by the end of the year on various systems (no specifics, but PS2 and Xbox seems a safe bet), with developer Paradox promising a lot of improvements including online play.
As with the original, you'll be tussling in burger bars, houses, junkyards, pubs and even office buildings, and Paradox indicates we can expect more interaction with each environment and non-player characters. We've also seen shots of chainsaws and the like, so we're guessing weapons aren't off the menu...
The idea (at least in single-player) will be to build up a character using the expanded create-a-wrestler mode (allowing for tattoos, face paint, custom clothing, etc) and take on the ranks of combatants filing into your town to try and claim the BYW belt and a huge wodge of cash.
Wrestlers range from the average Joe on the street to professional types (including licensed characters), and the actual combat will be enhanced by standing and ground-based submission moves, grapples, and an improved location-specific damage system.
Backyard Wrestling 2's online options remain under wraps (presumably until its planned debut at E3 next month), but we do know that voice comms will be on the menu ("Whooo waaaants sooooome!!!" etc) and that the developer is employing Quazal's SyncSim for Net-Z anti-lag engine to try and keep things smooth.
Expect more soon. In the meantime: shots!