Many a moon ago when shell suits were in fashion
and the Turtles were cool a craze of WWF
wrestling swept across the UK. Now it’s 2004 and many of us have grown out of these
things… 2/3 however is not bad. For some reason the appeal of seeing someone smashed
over the temple with a steel chair or driven through a table has never left me. At least I
hope it is this and not the spandex shorts and oily, muscular over steroidal men?? Hence whenever a new wrestling game appears on,
well quite frankly any console, I slap on the knee high boots, blue shorts, sling my chair
over my shoulder and head off down town. Naturally after the short stint in the cells for
that silly public order violation I eventually acquire the games.
Now it’s a well known
fact that the Smackdown series on the
PlayStation2 is the daddy of all wrestling games so it’s no surprise that we bring
you a brief look at some of the other titles just a few weeks prior to the newest Smackdown release; Smackdown Vs. Raw.
Firstly - the GameCube. Oh
how it has struggles to live up to the expectations of the greedy masses when it comes  to wrestling games. This is definitely the case with Wrestlemania 18 and 19 but much like a fine wine the GameCube has
matured with age. The newest title Day of Reckoning
has added some interesting new ideas to the genre. With the inclusion of a must win Story
Mode and the requirements of actual talent, as opposed to just letting rip with a steel
chair (nothing against it mind) Day of Reckoning
combines good clean fun with a real challenge and a bonus system that has rivalled the
great Smackdown, secret wrestlers can be
unlocked by certain achievements as well as the standard points related purchases. Graphically it still seems to be stuck behind the Smackdown series, which to most gamers remains a
surprise. Many multi platform titles are better represented on the GameCube than the other
two ‘big guns’. Whether or not this is down to the license that the PlayStation2
developers have with the WWE remains to be seen.
In the meantime the Xbox has
been toying with the Raw series. Personally I am
not a huge fan of the series for pure playability reasons. I never found that with either
of the two games in the series that I could seriously sit down for 10 minutes and play off
a couple of matches then retire to bed.
Again the only wrestling
game I ever find myself going back is Smackdown,
and in all honesty I will undoubtedly be slapping on the knee high boots and oiling up the
body in time for November.  Putting aside the appallingly bad Legends of Wrestling series and Showdown: Legends of Wrestling, the PlayStation2 is
truly the heavyweight champ of wrestling games.
swoop
27/10/04
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either independently of Electronic Theatre or by an external viewer. The opinions
discussed in these articles in no way reflects the opinions of Electronic Theatre.
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