| advertisement |
|
|
WRESTLING GAMES ALWAYS DO well, not matter how good or bad they are. What wrestling fans want are the names, faces and moves of their favourite wrestlers plastered all over a game full of ring entrances, authentic pay per view events and realistic commentary. THQ came to the party with their last PlayStation game, WWF Smackdown, which also offered a highly playable control system and superb graphics. Now we have been presented with WWF Royal Rumble, which appears to use the same controls and an improved graphics engine, whilst also being chock-full of wrestling superstars with their own signature moves. That's a sure-fire recipe for success right? Wrong.
The developers have seen fit to cut the roster of wrestlers this time quite substantially, and while all the big names are there (Chris Jericho, The Rock, Kane, Triple H etc.) many of the lower-ranked but still popular wrestlers have been cut out completely. There doesn't seem to be any logical reason for these dismissals except perhaps because THQ may have been putting more care and attention into their other wrestling title, WWF Smackdown 2 for the PlayStation, to really concentrate on making Royal Rumble a worthy game.
What makes this worse is that each wrestler is almost exactly the same! Apart from the character models, which distinguish each wrestler from the others, the moves for the different opponents are identical (apart from signature moves). Each character might as well be the same guy, which is a huge step backwards in wrestling games, harping back to the days of the useless WCW Nitro and Thunder games (both made by THQ incidentally). It's strange that if the developers have chosen a control system as shallow as this, why did they not increase the roster of wrestlers to make up for it?
|
