WWF Raw Is War for Xbox

Overview:
The WWF, now known as the WWE, is the most successful sports entertainment brand today. They changed from old-school standard wrestling with over-the-top gimmicks to rougher fights with a little soap-opera mixed in.

Graphics:
The arena looks detailed and the crowd is electric. The atmosphere is nothing short of perfect. It's vibrant and full of life. No arenas, in any game, have looked this good. period.

The wrestlers are the most detailed player models seen in any other wrestling game. Nothing else can touch them. Their faces change expressions based on the situation, whether it be them getting whacked in the head with a bat, or taunting for the crowd. The all look identicle to their TV counterparts (with the exception of them being rendered, obviously). After the match goes on for long periods of time, the wrestlers actually sweat and it gets the mat stained with it in the appropriate places. The various weapons and items, for just essencially being pieces of junk, look really cool. There's all kinds of them too. From native American headresses, to gasmasks, to baseball bats.

Sound:
The sound effects all work well, but are definitely nothing special. They sound no louder than they should, but they seem a bit flat. The weapon attacks however sound really awesome.

The music is crisp and clean. The entrances are as loud as they should be. The ingame music can get repetative, but that doesn't matter as your focus will be on the action.

The crowd noise is phenominal. The respond well to things and the timing is spot on. They cheer for the wreslters loud as can be during the intros (except X-Pac, he gets booed so much to the same degree you almost feel pity for him).

Gameplay:
The control aspect is mapped decently and the buttons work responsively. Stuff happens when you want it to, which is very important. It's easy to run, pick things up, and whatnot. It'll take a little getting used to to put on a varied match, but that doesn't mean its difficult. Everything's fairly easy to execute. There's no set reversal button in this game either. Now you have to press the same type of button as the attack in order to do a reversal (ie- he presses grapple button, you have to press grapple to reverse it).

The speed of the gameplay is a little slow it seems, but it still moves fluidly and doesn't have any problems. I didn't find any clipping issues or frame drops ever in this game. It looks awesome with all of the life in the crowd, and doesn't miss a beat with pace.

Weapons seem to be a big part of this game. They can, for the most part, be damaged or broken by beating your opponent with them. Some weapons, like chairs, can break and then you can use the pieces to continue the beating. Very neat. Another nice little addition is the ability to knock certain items off opponents and use them as weapons or wear them yourself. You can also attack people on the way to the ring now. Either from behind or run from the ring at them (depending who came out first).

The create-a-superstar mode is lackluster at best. It gives you decent options, in theory, but within the options there's not too much variety. Smackdown's CAS is far superior, as this one basically sucks without question.

This game's biggest fault though, is a lack of modes. It has singles, tag-team, 2 vs 1, 3 vs 1, tornado-tag, battle royal, and championship (a bunch of 1 on 1 matches until you reach the champ and win, like the way you got the belts in WCW/nWo Revenge). The modes can be fun, and would've been more than acceptable a few years ago. By today's standards the mode selection are pretty bad.

There's a few hidden characters to unlock (the McMahons, and unfortunately, Fred Durst), as well as many items and accessories to find and use in the CAS. Some of them are nice additions, like the Hurricane's mask (which is necessary to make him in CAS).