In my high school years, before we could drive, many a weekend night was spent playing N64 with beer we stole from someone’s garage or got a homeless guy to buy for us. We spent those nights playing either Goldeneye or WWF No Mercy. The latter was an absolute masterpiece for wrestling and great beyond its years. THQ solidified themselves as the studio who knew wrestling and what its rabid fan base wanted out of a game. The SvR series has since replaced those titles and every year seem to get a little better, but falling short of overall greatness. In SvR 2010, they got it right.
It’s 1991. It’s Saturday morning. I’m 10 years old. Am I watching cartoons? No, cartoons were for pussies. Real 10 year olds watched Saturday Morning Superstars. Since you had no idea who was going to show up, you went ballistic when Hogan, or The Ultimate Warrior, or the Legion of Doom would come out and beat the living shit out of some jobber. These are the memories that WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania tries to bring back. They succeeded immensely in the nostalgic factor, but as far as the game play, not so much.
Fans of wrestling, especially from the good ol’ days when everyone was sauced up on ‘roids and pain pills, but still told you to take your vitamins, will give a good look to WWE Legends of Wrestlemania. There are some real industry icons in here and I cannot wait to have a chance to play the full version. Hit the jump for the full roster as of right now. I am not sure if any of these are unlockables or the default roster. I am also not sure half of these guys are still alive. Hit the jump for more »
My favorite gaming memories are the ones I experienced when I was sitting in my dorm room, half-bombed with my roommates playing WWF No Mercy. Wrestling games were the total multiplayer experience. It was often every man for themselves and more often than not, alliances were broken and deals were made so the best player did not always win. Or that feeling you get when you are doing a Royal Rumble and its on random and your buddy gets Stone Cold Steve Austin and then you run out as the Faboulous Moolah. Wrestling games were as unpredictable as they were fun and WWW Smackdown vs RAW 2009 may be one the best wrestling games to come out in awhile.
Fans of the WWE SvR series will notice that not a lot of changes have been made, but there have been some nice upgrades and tweaks to make the game very enjoyable. There are a ton of match options, rules, and match types that you can experience in the game and they make it very easy to choose which. Every match can be easily chosen and/or tweaked to your liking and this makes for a great overall experience. People had complained that the menus were not changed from years’ past, but it is not flashy yet it gets the job done. No one crucifies EA Sports when their menus have had little change in the past. A great tweak this year is the ability to change the AI of your opponents creating a truly customizable difficulty. Veterans of the franchise will likely turn it up for a challenge while newcomers will start out at retarded levels of intelligence.
Check out a nice steel cage match between Shawn Michaels (aka HBK) and Rey Mysterio. Looks pretty cool, but the menu system leaves a lot to be desired. Can’t they make it a bit prettier?
THQ recently announced WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw 2009 for all platforms under the sun. While not everyone is a wrestling fan, it’s tough to argue that the games provide a good bit of enjoyment, if not for the sheer pleasure alone of throwing someone through a table. The 2009 iteration looks to build upon the solid graphics and gameplay of 2008 with a new stable of wrestlers and a bevy of game modes to choose from.
Check out this latest video about the latest wrestling game from the always fun SvR series. The graphics look even better this year along with the new grappling system. 2007 was pretty good; 2008 looks to be better than that.
There’s a new demo out today for the Xbox 360 for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008. If you’re a wrestling fan, go grab this one quick.
“How will you play?” The WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 demo introduces you to all new game features such as Superstar Fighting Styles and Struggle/Submission system. The path to WWE glory is your choice alone
The demo weighs in at 1.21GB, so go download while you make breakfast or something. Showering might be a good idea (we can smell some of you through the internet… yeah, it’s that bad).
Turns out, the CEO of the WWE is not really dead. His alleged car bombing last week on Monday Night RAW was a staged event and he is alive and well, probably swimming in his pool of twenty dollar bills. I have not really followed wrestling for the past 7 or so years ever since there roster has grown to Mormon sized proportions, but I saw an actual news report from a very reputable news service that Vince McMahon had been killed in a car bombing. Maybe being a little naive, I checked around and sure enough it was a stunt. Since when did car bombings become fodder for story lines in pro wrestling? I am fully aware that professional wrestling is not real and its a soap opera for men, but this seemed a little much. There are people out there right now who fully believe that this man is really dead. This isn’t a “Who shot Mr. Burns” thing, this is real people thinking a man has been killed. Remember Owen Hart? Brother of Bret “The Hitman” Hart and long time wrestler? He fell to his death in 1999 onto a ring post from a botched stunt. This guy seemed pretty upset(Click on the picture for video)
Go to www.wwe.com and read about tonight’s program. They don’t tell you this is a hoax. Is it even legal to fake a fake death? During a time where bombings and assassinations are a reality, playing on the emotions of people may just have over stepped the bounds. Furthermore, I am not a bleeding heart liberal. I’ll be voting republican next November. People accuse video games of being too realistic and are the source of all the world’s problems. At least we know the game isn’t real. I don’t have to do a google search to see if the Covenant have landed.
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