WWF Raw Is War for Xbox

One of the key reasons I decided to buy an X-Box in December was because of the game WWF Raw. I have now learned that was a bad, bad mistake. While I don't regret the purchase of my X-Box, I still think I would be using it much more often than I am now if this game had been any good.

Now, on to the game. I was planning on instantly buying the game when it came out, but I had seen many mixed reviews. I decided to play it safe and just rent it first. Boy, am I glad I did that...

When I first started the game up, I wasn't disappointed. The intro movie was exactly like the entrance clip when you are watching the WWF Raw TV show, which is great. When the options menu came up I looked around to see what the layout was like. Not a bad design, things were looking good so far. Then I started up a match, and saw the match types...


The Matches

Ok, this was the first thing I had a major problem with. They had some general 1, 2, or 3 Vs. 1 handicap matches, 2 v. 2 tag, submission matches, and some other general types. You can make it so any match is a hardcore match or not, despite multiple reviews that I have read claiming there was no hardcore match option. But still...No Hell in a Cell match? No TLC match?? No tables match??? No ladder match???? NO CAGE MATCH?????

This was starting to look pretty weak, although I had my hopes up that you could unlock them later in the game.

THQ: No.

Ok then, maybe not. Let's move on to the roster...


The Roster

Right off the bat I can tell this roster is OLD. They have NO "Alliance" wrestlers on the roster, and considering those wrestlers came into the WWF over 8 months ago tells me that THQ was just lazy. Also they have people the likes of Eddie Guerrero, who was released from the WWF months ago. (But may shortly return, so maybe it's a good thing they didn't take him off the roster)


The Entrances

My spirits immediately lifted when I saw how great the entrances were. The character detail and graphics were outstanding. The Titantron was showing their real-life videos. Hundreds of Lights were flickering on and off in patterns, pyros were going off, and even mist rises in some of the entrances. It all looked great. Then the wrestler started walking down the ramp. The walking animations are HORRIBLE. Each wrestler looks like they are walking like a robot, and it immediately turns you off and takes away from the realism of the game.

In general I found the camera angles to be fine (It is automatic, and you can't switch them), but there is one angle which pits you directly behind a a person holding a sign in the crowd, not letting you see.

Another minus is the crowd animation. I was expecting the crowd to look a lot better than No Mercy because it's on such a more advanced platform, but it looks about the same as it did in the N64 games.

Speaking of the crowd, I recall the preview video for the game saying "Take the action into the crowd for the first time" (Or something along those lines). Well, that aspect is no where to be seen. You can't leave into the crowds, and there are no backstage areas (Although the ring area is very big, and you can go over near the entrance stage).


The Controls

No Mercy for the N64 had a great control and easy move execution method. I was counting on WWF Raw's controls to be similar, being made by the same company and all. Instead they felt like creating a whole new grappling/move execution system that I think is just plain horrible. That first day I played for hours, since I realized that I wanted to get the most out of the game because I knew I wasn't going to buy it at that point, and even by the last day I never figured out the controls very well.


Gameplay

Things are fairly fast paced, which is a plus, but even on the easiest difficulty setting the AI was very hard and the average time it took to win was 10-12 minutes, which is too long in my opinion. On the harder difficulty settings, I never won a match. There are nearly 200 different items in the game, and you unlock them to customize your created characters with during gameplay. Each time you pick up a new item, it will say "New" near your character. This is more or less what they concentrate on as your main objective in the game, to collect all the items (There is no story mode). One of the items is a ladder, but for some reason you can't even climb them. Another item is a table, and although I have heard you can put people through them, I never successfully did after multiple tries.

ANOTHER thing that I was very displeased with was the lack of any blood in the game, whatsoever. I was having high hopes in this category, and I had heard rumors before the release that went so far as to say there would be blood, it would be able to be rubbed off on the mat, AND it would stay throughout the rest of the match. We got none of that, apparently due to THQ not wanting to risk the game getting a higher ESRB rating. Let me clue you in on a little something, THQ. Wrestling on TV has blood. If you wanted to make the game as realistic as possible, you wouldn't have skipped over this. AT THE VERY LEAST You could have added the option to turn blood on and off, but alas your lasiness took over and it was not to be.

There is one feature that I did like, however, which is a first in wrestling games. This is the option of ambushing wrestlers during their entrances. If you come out before them, then when you interfere it's really just fighting out on the ramp because your opponent expects it, but if you are scheduled to come out after them and interfere from behind, they are usually caught off guard.


Titles

The way of obtaining titles is very hard and aggravating. You have to beat consecutive wrestlers (The better the title, the more and harder wrestlers you will have to face), but you can't save in between matches, which is VERY annoying. I'm guessing you would have to sit down for about 4 or 5 hours straight if you want to obtain the World title, considering it took me about an hour and a half just to win the Light Heavyweight title. By winning the titles, you also unlock secret characters.


Secret Characters

Ugh...This is one, if not THE worst aspect of the game. Normally I wouldn't spoil this, but believe me, I'm doing you a favor by not letting you get your hopes up (and eventually crushed). There are a whopping 4 hidden wrestlers that you can unlock. These people are Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, and if that weren't bad enough, the last character is...Fred Durst. FRED DURST. Much like what he did in Smackdown 3 for PS2, it appears that the only way he would let them use the "Rollin'" theme as the Undertaker's music is if he was added as a playable character in the game. Upon finding this out, I nearly smashed my TV.


Sound

Each wrestler's music is clear and accurate, and adds a lot to the entrances. Most of the title screen music is fine, but I recall that one of the songs they play in the background was so horrible, I think that upon hearing that was the final deciding factor as to not buy the game.

Another thing I was disappointed with was the absence of the uploading music function. This is a great aspect of the X-Box, and in the case of a wrestling game I think this function would be used the most, because wrestler's themes are changing so often.


Create A Wrestler (CAW)

This is VERY lacking, in my view. No Mercy's CAW would put this one to shame. There are about 1/3 of the amount of choices as No Mercy's had. Also, you can't edit the already-made wrestlers in the game (not even their clothes/appearance), which has always been a problem in THQ games (although you COULD edit their appearance in previous games).



Overall, this game was a major disappointment. It has its highs, like the graphics, but mostly it sucks. I would take No Mercy for the N64 any day over this. Let's just hope that THQ learns from their mistake, and actually makes their next game good.