WWE 13, Wait for The Revolution.

WWE 13, Wait for The Revolution.

The Tag line to WWE13 is Live the revolution, with Pennywise’s “Revolution” being the sole theme. One thing many WWE games had in the past, was a wide collection of songs, but this year, just limited to superstars, and maybe 3 or 4 others, but other than that, it is a fairly standard idea… so What is so revolutionary about this title…. NOTHING! Hate to break the news so hard, but this game is FAR from worth it.

How I feel while playing the game.

A week has past since this game was released and well….

When this game does Work, It doesn’t work well, what it does great, should be a minor foot note, and where this game lacks the most, is the general game play. I can create my own stories, Play in a season! make my own Tag team, YAY…… these ARE NOT SELLING POINTS, those are suppose to be icing on a cake, and this cake is under cooked, underwhelming, and made up of dirt. This game is a horrid mess beyond belief.

When WWE13 was announced early this year, for some reason it clicked in my brain that this might be a good idea to actually look forward and buy a new WWE game, the last one I was really excited for was WWE Day of Reckoning 2 for The Nintendo Gamecube. Was never too big with The Smackdown VS Raw series, as its dynamic was constantly changing to please a wider branch of gamers each year, and the glitch fest that was WWE12 was laughable at best. But Recently I heard THQ was under stress and needed to produce good games otherwise it would be shutdown time for the once great branch, and they actually had a good line up going into this year, with War hammer 40K, Saints Row the Third, Darksiders II, the upcoming Southpark game, so with a fairly great line up coming up, it was time to see what WWE 13 was all about… This was mistake number one.

WWE13 like the WWE in general, feels that over exposure is better than a simple basic product this year. I will be comparing WWE13 to Day of Reckoning 2 in this review, as I feel when it comes down to the CORE game play, WWE Day of Reckoning 2, still holds to this very day, and the only dated parts to that game are graphics and rosters.

Speaking of Rosters…. Holy hell, this game has one of the worst/best ones to day, 105 wrestlers to… oh wait, doubles…

2 versions of
Chris Jericho
Edge
John Cena
JBL
Lita
Undertaker
The Rock
Kane
Big Show
Christian
and 3, 3 VERSIONS OF TRIPLE H…

The Multiple Mick Foley Ill let slide considering they are billed as 3 separate people, and there has been multiple times the WWE has tried to pass them off as such, even to have sit down interviews between the 3. But having multiples of any wrestler is beyond pointless since Most, if not all of the move set is the same, most of the attributes are unnoticeable, and could really be done in alternative attires. Having most (if not half) of the roster also be from the Attitude era is also nothing new, as there have been games already devoted to this, WWE ALL STARS, WWE Legends of Wrestlemania features an ability to import from Smackdown VS Raw (I don’t remember which one, but it doesn’t matter does it).

Another aspect is, since Half the roster is made of wrestlers who no longer wrestle… this game is just another dream trip, something we got multiple times in the past, Again I love the Attitude era, and I am enjoying the retelling of this amazing time (a cleaner version, no chyna, benoit, and many others…) but this comes full circle to what I normally say, if today’s wwe Didn’t suck, we wouldn’t need to live in the past. And in fact that is what it comes down to now even for WWE GAMES, the main product is so crappy, that it feels like the games cannot even save it and need to remind us that Wrestling was once cool.

When I say that WWE Day of Reckoning 2’s roster is dated, at least they are only 10 years dated, WWE 13’s half attitude era roster puts this game decades behind now.

But enough nit picking at the rosters… To the core game play.

WWE 13’s game play is one of basic, but annoying complex at the same time, I know that sounds difficult to understand at first, but lets start with the grappling system.

WWE Day of Reckoning 2
– You had a light grapple, and a Strong grapple, depending if you would tap the ‘A’ button, or Hold the ‘A’ button, and you would have 5 different grapples for both light, and Strong grapple, giving you a total of 10 standard grapples, while your opponent was standing, This isn’t even ground grapples, or Back grapples, or anything else, standard facing each other.

– Block Grapple, One of the two trigger buttons, Block Attack, The other of the two trigger buttons, Block Finisher, Both Triggers.

WWE 13
– You have a strong grapple, a Submission one, Or one of 4 pin point ones. All while entering the grapple state, to pin point, you need to hold a trigger button, and pick a face button, to enter a submission, direction pad in any direction, and hold down X, to heavy grapple, Just hold down X, and hope the game doesn’t glitch and force you into a submission one.

– One button, BLOCKS EVERYTHING.

There is no standard face to face grapples, which means you need to lock in one of the 4 spots, and hope to nail your move to the best that you can, because the REVESEAL SYSTEM IS BULLSHIT!, and Oh one button Reversal, Way to take the element of thinking out of your games! Again, back to Day of Reckoning 2. This makes matches almost pointless, as there is no element of surprising your opponent, buy following his pattern. In Day of Reckoning, you really had to put your mind to the test, and predict if your opponent would grapple, throw a kick, or try to nail his special.

The Basic game play of style of WWE Day of Reckoning was one of those, easy to learn, difficult to master, you had many basic elements in motion that everyone can learn, but it also had critical moments where how good you were at reading your opponents, measuring your own wrestlers vital signs, and how well you can manage the pace of the match really set the standard on how matches can be played, in WWE 13, there is no skill at all what so ever, I instantly played on legendary and had the same results as if I was playing on normal, the skill less abilities of WWE 13 is not only insulting to gamers, but down right pathetic when developing a game.

There is a laundry list of issues with this game, and it is all centers around the sluggish game play, the lack of any skill going into a match, even with people, it feels like an empty experience, I don’t get motivated when I lose to try to get better, because there is nothing to get better at, I cannot read my opponent, because it is down to one button blocking, I cannot measure my own signs, because there isn’t any, I won’t grow tired constantly kicking my opponent, I won’t feel any effects constantly preforming heavy moves without rest, and I don’t feel good when I win, all it means was I can hit the R2 button faster than my opponent.

Other element issues include.
Story mode. – I love the attitude era, and while I do find this mode engaging, a little part of me is yelling, WHY? and I have no answer, this is a legit question, why is this mode in the game? Sure it is fun to relive, but the tag line is “Join the Revolution”, not “Live in the past”.

Audio – Oh God Audio is at its worse now. Limited extra song choices, generic calls from the announcers… I never thought I see the day where I wanted Jim Ross to NOT talk. When they use the real lines from the attitude era, the actual audio used on those events, it does feel genuine, but once the moment is done, and you go back to regular gameplay, the generic strikes again. I would rather have an option to play music, over listing to the announcers… (OH WAIT WWE Day of Reckoning, DOES THIS ALREADY!)

Create an Enterence – This feature is fine for a few things, but put all that work aside, once your character wins a belt. There is no option to just have a regular enterence and keep the belt, and tag team… still bland as normal.

Season Mode – Unless you like playing with multiple characters, Season mode can get down right boring at times, playing with only my custom character, It took around 3 months (of season time) to even get involved with a storyline, and then after 3 wins, nothing came out of it, My character wasn’t any closer to the title, it felt like a Real WWE experience, where Most of the build up led to nothing, I found myself inserting my character into matches to stop going weeks at a time with nothing to do, while Yes I could make my own show, PPV events, and change the current formula to reflect of the post attitude era time, back when brand extension was taken a bit more seriously, it still felt like a hallow experience, also considering that PPV can only have 2 sets of rosters, meaning if one of the major 4 events came around, I couldn’t have my custom show join in Raw and Smackdown, kind of a letdown to say the least.

The Glitches, Oh god where to begin!
Setting up matches in Universe Mode = Freeze
Grapple from behind results in body contortion of some sort.
No sound on the impact of Kane’s Big Boot
JR randomly joins commentary team (in current era matches)
Game continues after someone taps out to a breaking point submission. XBOX only so far
Strange camera angles – gets stuck in close up after replay of finisher resulting in a stuck game post the 3 count XBOX only so far
Wrestler stuck in position
Takers leg drop on ring apron glitches.
Ring Announcer fails to announce entrant
Royal Rumble Glitch
Game freezes after pinfall – maybe just in AE match
Music not playing for IN GAME wrestler post match.
Wrong post match arena for NAO post match celebration
Announcer fails to call winner of match
Wrestler not on screen/invisible/in a random part of the screen ruining the segment
Road Dogg’s Tron and music are listed as Custom Video and Soundtrack and so cannot be edited or they will be lost forever.
Unlocked Kane attire remains locked (can be gotten around by selecting the unlock all feature
Character no sells/doesn’t get involved in a move during the move selection in the CAMoveset
Announcer makes a mess of his lines when two custom titles are put on the line.

This game is downright Awful, while the extra bits are nice touch, that is all they are, extra. I can live without a season mode, I can live without a story mode, I can live without all the tidbits of creating a ring, a story, or even cut scenes, while they are all nice to have, it doesn’t and shouldn’t allow a poor game play experience come with the cost.

THQ needs to get their act together for the next game… oh and since half of the roster will not show up in the next game, I will end this on one final note, for WWE14, HAVE AN IMPORT FEATURE, I do NOT want to recreate everything I did for WWE13. if all you do is import custom characters that is still a step up over nothing, but import the roster from WWE13, the arenas, and everything user created would be nice.

Cool thing to point out… When making a match, Player One always starts off as CM Punk, and Player Two is always Stone Cold, nice little hint there THQ.

Overall – 4/10
Game play 5/10 – THQ did better in the past, and while some of the things are forgiveable, most are not.

Audio – 0/10 – I cannot stand the announcers, the ring announcers, the commentators, the “WWE Live” venue feel, it all feels emptied, bring back music for matches.

graphics 8/10 – This one isn’t that bad to look at, other than a few clipping issues, it is a great looking game.

Replay 6/10 – While I did say I can live without it, Season mode DOES save this game in the long run, just a foot note save, but a save none the less

Lasting 1/10 – Considering this is an annually released game, I don’t see any reason to pop this game back in years down the road, maybe for the video packages, Like most WWE products, they will deliver on the video packages. (Hell it is a Main reason to get WWE allstars)
—————————-

Thanks for reading here on WrestlingRambles.com. We want YOUR opinion on our columns and here’s an easy guide on how-to comment. Be sure to stay connected with us by following us on Twitter and by ”Liking” us on Facebook. Hail The Villains!