OK, I have to admit when I first heard of this game, I was skeptical…. ok, I flat out laughed at the game, “What kind of crap is this?”. But finally the demo came out and the first words that came to mind was…. “What kind of crap is this… THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUT AGES AGO!”.
First, the roster: Jack Swagger, Drew McIntyre, Shawn Michaels, Mankind, Mr. Perfect, Sgt Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka, Eddie Guerrero, Kane, Stone Cold, and the list goes on and on. Basically all the big names in the old school camp vs. The new age, including The Rock, … yessir, the rock is here. To the point, if you’re a wrestling fan, then there is someone here for you.
Let’s get into the gameplay. Not going to lie. If your looking for Smack Down Vs. Raw gameplay, you’re not gonna find it here. This game has it’s own style of arcade style wrestling. In fact, it reminds me of the old school wrestling game like Super WrestleMania or WWE The Arcade game. No tactics here folks, just pure fun…. that being said, there’s a good amount of tactics to have here too. Don’t think this is a mindless zombie fighter. You have light attack, hard attack, light grapple and soft grapple. They change depending on which way your pushing the analog stick. there is also block, counter, and of course the “might as well give the controller to the next person”, button. … OH! and if you hold light and hard attack together, you do a special move as well; it’s pretty simple. The game is far less grapple and slam, and more about “OMG! How dat can of you know what taste like!”. Like any other fighting game, you tear into you’re your rival and rip him a new one. Here, the moves are very over the top, which gives it the arcade feel. And there’s no out of the ring so don’t go trying to cheat. Overall, it’s more of a “you gotta try it to understand it” feel. Another thing is, big guys are good grapplers and smaller guys are good strikers…. and they look VERY awesome doing it too. I picked who Ray and started striking. It was just fantastic fun doing it. Then I choose Hogan and did grapples and laughed as I would smash guys into the floor. The move set was pretty well put together.
Graphics are also over the top. Ultimate Warrior and everyone else seems to have hit the steroid farm hard. But that’s also the fun of it all. But it’s STILL crazy. Big shows nipples are the size of my leg. And the fighting locale are also nice to look at. It seems they took advantage of both new age and vintage locales, which was a smart move. How come THQ hasn’t done this more often? Finally, for special effects, when you do a special/finishing move, you’ll notice everything changes. The world goes black and white and only you and the opponent are in color…. and depending if you’re the giving or receiving 🙂 you may/may not see the rest of the match after that. But in itself, the special effects are beautiful here and suit the game very nicely.
In the game, this game isn’t for everyone. It was not designed to take life seriously, and if your one of those who take life seriously, you might not wanna pick this one up. But if you’re looking to have a blast kicking someone’s you know what and then laughing about it in the end, then yes, this bud’s for you.
