There's no beating around the bush. Xbox wrestling games suck, and THQ knows it, which is why it's put the RAW series behind it and gone in a totally new direction with Wrestlemania 21. Developed by Studio Gigante (from Tao Feng fame), WM21 is probably the most ambitious American wrestling game ever developed, but that doesn't make it the best. I spent over an hour pummeling the game's virtual superstars, and while I bathed in its visual brilliance, I couldn't help but wish I was playing SmackDown.

In terms of options, WM21 comes fully loaded with all sorts of match types, venues, and WWE superstars. If you want to do ladder, TLC, Hell in the Cell, Cage, Tag, Hardcore, or Bra & Panties matches, it's all in there, and the game's 20 arenas, which include the Wrestlemania 20 setup in Madison Square Garden, Summerslam, Armageddon, Velocity, Heat, Raw, and SmackDown are all represented, even a gymnasium and a wrestling club. There are also 45 wrestlers in the game including The Rock, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Eugene (but no Steven Regal), Booker T., Christian, Edge, Shawn Michaels, Trish Stratus, Triple H, Ric Flair, Batista, Randy Orton, Lita, Kane, and a host of others (including legends Bret Hart, Andre the Giant, and Mankind as well as NPCs such as Jim Ross, Jerry "The King" Lawler, and Taz, among others), so you'll definitely be able to find someone you like. Plus, the game features online play via Xbox Live and unlike in SmackDown Vs Raw, you can wrestle in a host of different matches, so if you want to do a four-player Royal Rumble it's no problem whatsoever. Also, you can even create your own belts and defend them online! Can you imagine the trash talking that's going to ensue? All I know is; no one's going to take my "Buff" belt from me! No one!!!

Lastly, the game features an evolutionary career mode where you create a wrestler, and as you progress through the story you can upgrade his or her abilities as well as their costumes and ring entrances, and this is further enhanced with the finest superstar voiceovers in a videogame. Featuring 50% more dialogue than last year's SmackDown Vs Raw, the game's cut scenes are a lot more intense and better acted.

Each year wrestling games get better looking but WM21 has taken a quantum leap past its competitors. We're talking character models that are at times damn near photorealistic. Studio Gigante decided to use motion capture (the first for a wrestling title), and the gamble definitely paid off. The wrestler entrances look just like they do on the Raw and SmackDown TV shows, and even the arenas, with the spotlights that zip around and the crowd, which is THE BEST looking crowd in any game looks spectacular. Other nice touches, like pyro, the Titan Tron videos, blood (sorry, the ladies don't bleed), and the fact that the mat picks up sweat as bodies "hit the floor" is amazing. I will say that some of the wrestlers' trunks (Kurt Angle's in particular) look like they were painted on, but that's a very small gripe. What we're looking at is one of the finest interactive visual achievements in history, and Studio Gigante is to be commended.

Even with phenomenal-looking graphics, we all know (at least, I hope we all know), that great graphics never make a great videogame, and it's here where I'm conflicted. There are some nagging glitches in the WM21 demo that I played but I'm not going to mention them in detail because more than likely they'll be fixed. What I'm really not sure about is the gameplay. On the surface everything seems fine. We've got lots of match types, you can go grab and use weapons like tables, ladders, chairs, the ring bell, and others, and there are tons of moves, all of which can be countered using the game's Pro Reversal System. Plus, you can easily execute finishers by pressing A and B at the same time. The problem I have with WM21 (and it's worth mentioning because the THQ rep confirmed the game's speed) is it just moves slower than what I'm used to. It's not grandma slow, but it's not WWE 2005 fast, either. It provides a very methodical wrestling experience that feels more old school. At times I was actually expecting one of the wrestlers to put the other in a head lock for an hour. It's not that the game's bad by any means, but compared to SmackDown it's just doesn't move as well, and I'm not sure whether it's the motion capture that's the reason or because the Xbox hardware is set to burst because of the game's graphics.

I'm also a little upset that some of the female wrestlers aren't properly animated. Any WWE fan knows that many of the company's women are just as tough as the men, so why do Trish Stratus and Lita "fight like girls"? I'm not saying that the WWE has a shortage of girly matches where both women $%&#^-slap and hit one another with pillows, but Studio Gigante really animated some of them out of character, and just like in the SmackDown games, I'll unfortunately have no desire to play as them.

WM21 is without question the greatest Xbox wrestling title ever made, and I'm sure that the developers will address and fix the small glitches that kept popping up in the display build. Unfortunately, I'm still not sold on its gameplay. It's a fun game, but when compared to the last two SmackDowns I'm still on the fence. Look for my review when this action-packed title releases in early March.