Today, WCW and the nWo have been reduced to names from the past and World Wrestling Entertainment is the only major player in the United States, with only one federation on the horizon that is considered a possible threat to its dominance. That reduces the number of major wrestling licenses available, and with developer Yuke's holding the WWE rights for the PS2 and GameCube and Anchor doing the deed on the Xbox, AKI has had to get creative to stay in the public eye. Games like rappers-as-wrestlers Def Jam Vendetta show that it is willing to think outside the box a bit, but with Ultimate Muscle, AKI has taken the box, mule-kicked it 40 feet into the air and driven it to the mat.

Based on the Japanese comic and cartoon series Kinnikuman, Ultimate Muscle stars twenty of the most unbelievable wrestlers in a game since, well, the last Kinnikuman game. A couple resemble animals, one's a noodlehead with a Fu Manchu moustache; there are armored knights, wrestlers with giant chess pieces on their shoulders, a shape-shifting creature made of tiny movable blocks, and more that are even harder to describe.

But the characters' looks are only part of the appeal. Each has your average repertoire of kicks, piledrivers, and body slams, but here's where it gets more interesting. As your wrestler's energy meter builds, three levels of super moves become available. The first two levels are highly exaggerated as it is, with characters leaping up ten feet and tossing their opponents with outrageous force, but once you get to that third level, the moves take on a whole new weight.

Push both triggers in at level three and you are treated to a Fist of the North Star-type light show just before your guy grabs the poor soul in front of him and dishes out the nastiest combos you have ever witnessed. Remember Captain America's Final Justice from the Marvel Vs. Capcom games: Cap carries the opponent off the top of the screen then plummets headfirst while holding him, driving his enemy's face into the ground? Well, turn that up a few notches and you are in the right neighborhood.

The super moves look deadly. You will twist, throw, spear, bounce, and impale your competition with extreme impact. But what would be a fatality in most other games gets shrugged off here, leaving room to perform more supers. You can skip the animation if you've seen it too many times, but the first few times, at least, you will be enthralled. Though there have been attempts at this kind of thing before, notably with the Mega Moves in WWF Raw for the 16-bit systems and the finishers in Blazing Tornado, this intensity here positively eclipses any previous efforts I've seen.

The extreme nature of the supers and the very attractive cel-shaded graphics make this an excellent show-off game. Once your friends are through gawking, they can step into the ring for a four-way match. Don't look for ladder matches or Royal Rumbles in this game, though. This is a button-mashing fighting game at heart. There is a create-a-wrestler, too, but it has so few features that I probably should have just told you there wasn't one. You pretty much just mix-and-match a few parts from about a dozen wrestlers and slap a name on your creation.

Wrestling and Ultimate Muscle fans, as well as those who like to fight in groups of three or four, might be interested in giving this title a spin. It's scheduled for release this April.

· · · Nick