In the ring, these slabs of well-greased flesh perform the impossible. Small men, like Roddy Piper, ripple with stone-sized muscles and big men, like Andre the Giant, blot out entire corners of the screen. %Gallery-114622%The roster, split evenly between oldies (Legends) and upstarts (Superstars), is injected with enough anabolic steroids to power the 1985 Russian hockey league. It's not: Its wrestlers are brawny theme park caricatures its drama is shallow and direct and its rules are nonexistent. WWE All-Stars, the latest wrestling game from THQ, sounds, in name alone, like another addition to this long, dull line of reality-fantasy-simulators. And yet, developers and publishers have, without asking why, fed us real-fake wrestling games, where punches whiff and luchadores disappointingly obey the laws of gravity. It is a strange, slightly silly pursuit: creating a realistic replica of a fantasy.

In the last decade, wrestling video games have done an exceptional job of recreating the dense rules, convoluted dramas and worn bodies that comprise the popular television enterprise that entertains the red meat-eating swath of America.