WWE 08... wait for 09!
note, this is an old review i updated to let you all know what is up with this game!
One of the biggest things that helps with the look of the game is the camera. Imagine where it was before and then pan it into right on the ropes. It is probably twice as close as before and it really helps when playing the game. if you have listened to a few of the other reviews they mention that there are a few quirks with the targeting when you attack multiple people and with just hitting people. The camera is probably a cause of this, not because it is so close, but because it isn’t at such and angle above the ring anymore. You see the match at the level of the wrestlers and you need to calculate this when you are targeting and opponent.
Well, I’m going to keep saying it, but if you have played the games before you really have been messed with in terms of the controls in the past few years, this year is no different. The grapples are now mapped to the right joystick, and the special/finisher moves have been tweaked a bit. You hit triangle for the finisher, and to do the super specials (the superstar styles deal with this) then you hold R1 and triangle. Some pretty cool stuff, minus the gunshot I mentioned in the audio review.
The sound design and overall design of this game is far beyond anything I have seen in this genre before. For instance, you do a flip or something, maybe a suplex, and they will hold onto someone’s arm while they get up or something. These new animations help to streamline the game and increase realism, but it doesn't make up for its other flaws. The sound, it’s just a phenomenal example of what Foley artists are good at. As usual the announcers don't speak properly (worse than before because JBL is just a jerk) and they have the AI equivalent of a brick in this game.
The AI really has some faults as well. When you wrestle your opponent, if you don’t move it will probably take about 5 seconds for the enemy to hit you depending on who it is. The usual stuff, but it is starting to get old.
Not to much more to say, well two things. First, whenever you do a match there is a scene of your wrestler walking through the hallway getting high fives or something, and in another sites review it was mentioned as a negative. Well, it happens before every match, and THAT is more annoying than the fact that you could shake the hand of the guy who just sent you a mean voice mail.
When you do season mode, you need to save before you shut off the game if you want. It won’t save automatically if you stay in season mode, it doesn’t usually, but I felt I should mention that.
Last thing, unlockables. As I mentioned the game has some very new features in terms of movie premieres and what not for raising your character. It has training modes, as well, but you get paid for some of them, for matches, and then you spend it as well for raising your stats and what not. what I’m getting at here is that there is no way in hell I have money to unlock the move sets and characters, so it means I will just have to play more than before. This is a slight negative, but it’s good to have to work for something this time around. (note: this killed the game for me in the long run. it takes way to long to do anything)
-nabokovfan87
Update: I tried the game on my HDTV (19″ Samsung via HDMI in 720p), and it didn’t look good. a lot of the icons and images in the menus were blurry, and the loading screens aren’t centered.
