Okay, I finally got this game on Monday as a birthday/Holiday gift from one of my close friends. I've wanted a wrestling game for some time now, and since I only have a Gamecube, it's not like like I really have any options. Unless, of course, I wanted to pick up WrestleMania X8, but that's not really an option. So yeah, I've been playing this since Monday, and overall, it's a pretty good game, but it has some gaping flaws.
The Good:
-The in-play graphics. While you're playing, the game is just really cool to look at. Smooth design, but with enough detail for realism.
-The controls. Easy to remember, easy to use, but still with enough surprises to keep you playing a little longer.
-Building up to the special. On RAW 2, you have to win the crowd to do your special move. Here, all you have to do is just kick the shit out of your opponent more and more. The more you kick his ass, the more you build up to do doing your finisher. That's the way it should be.
-Blood. Huh-huh...blood...cool.
-Rotating costumes. Even though it's just the same wrestlers, the costumes change from time to time. I've had the game less than a week, and I've already seen Stone Cold in three different outfits.
The Bad:
-This is probably what bothers me the most. There are TWELVE WWE PPV events during the year, but on this game you can only choose THREE. What is the point of that. The choices of arena are RAW, Smackdown, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and of yes, WrestleMania XIX. Couldn't they have at least included Survivor Series, one of the orignal PPV events, which originated
before the Royal Rumble and SummerSlam anyway? Instead, I get to choose from a lousy three PPV's and two TV shows, where as Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain offers not only the 12 American PPV's and the two shows, but the UK events Rebellion and Insurrextion. This bothers me most of all.
-How do I put this? There is no "VS. screen. You know like when before a match is going to happen, they show a pose of Goldberg and then a pose of Triple H, and put them next to each-other with the word "VS." in the middle and a whole bunch of designs? Nothing like that here.
-Story mode sucks. Plain and simple. RAW 2 for X-box has the season mode (I don't know about Smackdown), but that was so much cooler. Play in season mode from the day after WrestleMania X8 to the very day of WrestleMania XIX. THAT was cool. But what do we get here? You get kicked out of the WWE by Vince McMahon and Stephanice McMahon, ever the rebel, takes you back in, but gives you a mission: destroy Vince's plans for WrestleMania XIX by going on all types of shitty missions to battle police officers and construction workers to prevent WM19 from happening. Why is this? Who cares, because it's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen. I know WWE is more "entertainment" than anything today, but come on, this is just plain weak.
-Graphics for some of the entrances are weird. I can't put my finger on it, but some of them look like puppets. Some of the more jumpy wrestlers (Rey Mysterio, for example) look fine in the entrance.
-Missing some characters. A-Train, Mark Henry, Kevin Nash, Rhyno, Val Venis, Rodney Mack, and Shane McMahon.
Overall, a slighty disappointing game that could have been so much better, but is still worth playing for a couple of hours every night. Without a story mode to keep my interest or a choice of arenas to even
make up a story in my sick little head, I'm sure I'll give this game a rest sooner than I would have liked.
6 out of 10.
Linear Mode
