Think of a child scribbling on a bit of paper. Concentrating, eyes full of intent and tongue sticking out. He hands you a picture. It's a mass of legs, ears and eyes, all crayoned with loving imprecision. Above the mess reads 'woof' and it's only then you know it's a dog. Well, that's Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At Home. It's a mutated, unrecognisable flailing mess of body parts with the word 'wrestling' written on it. Only its mother could love it.

Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This At Home is WWE skewed through Jackass and You've Been Framed. The participants brutalise each other with fire, lightbulbs and barbed-wire because they're, well, stupid. Blood and mayhem typify the sub-culture but cripple the game.

The fighting system is a cluster of difficult-to-line-up button pushes, with the shoddy 3D engine making every move a lottery as to whether it hits or not. There's nothing worse than lining up a swift fist to the face, only to find you've aimed 2ft to the left! And it becomes doubly frustrating as the camera spins around like soiled paths in a hot wash. So you hammer the kick button in hope of a solid connection, and leave your character goose-stepping through insanity. It could just about work if you were given more than a handful of moves allowing some variety, but the scant number of actual assaults you can pull off exposes the game's tediously repetitive core.

Because the bouts take place in unconventional areas - like meat factories or truck stops - and there are essentially no rules, you can get away with slamming a strip-light over someone's head, or tearing at them with a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. Fire can be used as liberally as punches, with each 'foreign object' regenerating so you don't run out. But it's all so poorly implemented. You can barely dodge anything the opposition throws at you, which knocks you right on your ass and unable to defend yourself. Also, the objects feel arbitrarily placed, so you'll run and fall over tables, mattresses or whatever else passes as a vicious wrestling implement.

There's simply no pace or structure. No sense that Paradox Development has sat down and really thought about the gameplay. Even in the career mode, the unlockable wrestlers aren't worth fighting for as they follow the same, ridiculously basic fighting pattern.

BYW is enjoyable for about twenty minutes. It's repetitive and sadly fails to deliver on its near-perfect gaming subject matter. Don't try this at home.

Graphics 50%
Average, with occasional neat touches.

Sound 50%
Nu-metal rap that punishes the ears.

Gameplay 30%
Shakier than the original camcorder footage!

Lifespan 30%
Stuff to unlock, but why bother?

Overall 40%
It gets fighting and wrestling wrong. We're not sure how it's possible for a bloodbath to be this uninteresting.