Way back in the good old days of the SNES when I was mooching off my parents and the WWE was still the WWF (well the mooching hasn’t changed), we were treated to a multitude of button mashing wresting games. Now the genre has faded into the corner of the ring as well as our minds. However as Hulk Hogan managed to re-pop up as a current TV persona, so has a retro-like wresting game. In the right corner, its first appearance in the Mac AppStore (OSX), Powerslam!

Powerslam at its core is a button masher but if you’re one to really focus on attacks you’ll be pleased with the small variety of moves that’s included to break up the button mashing. All the moves are lined up on the keyboard allowing a swift line of attacks from kicks, grapples to even taunts. If you’re new to the fighting genre and you find yourself getting pulverized instead of landing attacks, you can adjust the Ai difficulty anywhere from very easy to very difficult. If you play it on very hard you’ll need to break away from button mashing and focus on lining up a string of attacks as well as a good defense. In other words,Powerslam will allow the most novice to succeed while still bringing a challenge for the more advanced.

Throughout Powerslam you’ll come across a wide variety of matches that change the gameplay experience. With the 11 types of fights you’ll encounter a variety that ranges from wrestling one on one to a massive brawl with four wrestlers at once. Best of all is that some of the matches include objects such as chairs that you can whack the opponents with. The amount of variety helps make up for the short comings of the graphics (all the characters for the most part look the same) as well as limited variety of attacks.

Powerslam contains a couple unlockables that will push some gamers to play through the whole tournament (it’s a long tournament made up of 48 rounds and a final boss battle). You can unlock “Big Head Mode” that will totally conjure up memories of anyone who played games on the PSX (or earlier). Also if the standard 18 wrestlers are not enough for you to choose from, you can unlock an editor mode that’ll allow you to create up to 95 custom wrestlers!

The Bottom Line: 6.0

PowerSlam is a decent wrestling  game that’ll bring some enjoyment and nostalgia to fans of this genre.

Powerslam not violent or bloody enough? Well you’ll love the new 1.1.0 update then! As a big thank you to everyone who purchased Powerslam (I truly appreciate the support!) the action can now spill into the parking lot with the new Street Fight mode. Imagine how brutal a wrestling match in the arena parking lot would be with so many weapons at your disposal. Well imagine no more and download the update now.

Are you ready? At long last the arrival of POWERSLAM is in sight. Australia Day 2012 (26th of Jan) will see the release of the first ever Macintosh wrestling game.