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Featuring the Mexican wrestling antics of Jack Black as well as several other masked luchadores, Nacho Libre piledrove its way into American theaters earlier this year. Some six months later, the video game adaptation finally makes waves as a Nintendo DS exclusive. visuals Developers Budcat Creations chose a unique visual style for Nacho Libre, which is reminiscent of a Monty Python animated sketch. The odd bobbling heads and choppy animated gestures really synch up with the farcical feel of the movie, providing entertainment independent of the actual gameplay. audio The sound clips taken from the movie suffer the translation to DS, and aside from a bit of ring-specific voice acting, the game is void of notable sounds. Music is all but non-existent. The sole track consists of a five-second strain repeated until a guitar chord punctuates a transition. gameplay The core of Nacho Libre is the wrestling. Ignacio, a poor friar and cook at a rural orphanage, moonlights as a masked wrestler in order to win prize money to help his charges. Clips from the movie are scattered throughout the action, providing a plot for the wrestling antics. Funnier than the story-based videos are the random short clips that appear after Nacho has lost a match. The gameplay is fast and somewhat challenging, but the learning curve is fairly steep. The manual explains the controls, but not when they should be used or how, so a good deal of trial and error is required before understanding the controls. Veterans of wrestling games will likely have a leg up here. Nacho, Steve or any number of a dozen other unlockable wrestlers in Quick Match mode can use a few select melee attacks to slap or kick opponents, but the meat of the wrestling game is in grappling with the other luchadores. Either wrestler can throw or pin out of a grapple, but the one who initiated it has the advantage. Each character has his or her own special throw or slam, which corresponds to a series of directional presses and the Y button. The Y button, or Struggle button, is one of the most important in the game, as in addition to throwing and pinning, it also is used for getting out of a grapple by gradually lighting up the word "STRUGGLE" under the wrestler's stamina bar. The wrestling itself is solid and comparable to many good 2D wrestling games of the past. Interspersed with the wrestling segments are touch-themed mini-games. Most of these are funny, but the quality of the diversions is rather hit-or-miss. Objectives range from keeping bees off of Steve to training Nacho by shooting melons at his bare chest to prepare a salad for the orphans. The touch control is spot-on in some games and yet oddly unresponsive in others; Nachoball in particular seems to randomly throw basketballs no matter how the shot is directed. Winning a game results in a stat upgrade for Nacho. multiplayer Up to four players can join in the fun locally with Single-Card or Multi-Card play. Matches can go tag-team or free-for-all, although the free-for-alls generally end up with the groups splitting up into two separate two-on-two matches. Two players can also match up against one another directly, using any of the unlockable wrestlers from the story mode. overall Nacho Libre isn't perfect, but it is a game with a lot of character. The sense of humor lends a lot to the title, and the wrestling game is entertaining, once the controls and rules have been puzzled out. Since the core game plays well, the mini-games become diversions rather than distractions, and don't really drag the game down too much. Nacho Libre may not be for everybody, but it is a unique experience that can only be found on DS.
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