Geekscape Games Reviews WWE All Stars
Generations clashing are the stuff that nerd rage is made from. In the case of wrestling, which stars are truly the greatest? Could Hulk Hogan in fact, see John Cena? Would The Rock beat down The Miz for stealing his name and catchphrases on The Real World? And can Ultimate Warrior do more than three moves? WWE All Stars look to answer these questions and more, with an arcade style wrestling game that aims to be as over the top as the characters it portrays.
All Stars puts you in control of over 30 of the greatest WWE Superstars of past and present, (oh, and Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger and Drew McIntyre made it in somehow.) All of the wrestlers are roided up to look far bigger than their real life selves to give them a caricature like appearance, (except for Ultimate Warrior and Hogan. They look pretty accurate, but then again, they popped steroids like Pez.) Each character is broken down into a class type, so acrobats can spring to the top rope at any point, brawlers can link together air combos with their long punch strings, big men can overpower opponents and punch them clear across the ring and technicians can link multiple grapple moves into one set. And if you don’t like any of these guys, you can create your own monstrosity, although the creation tools are extremely limited. When’s the last time you couldn’t create a move set, the N64?
The more attacks your wrestler lands, the higher their momentum meter builds. Using a third of the bar activates highly exaggerated signature moves where characters leap as high as the nosebleed seats before slamming the opponents down. Traditional health bars are used in this game as opposed to the limb damage found in modern wrestling titles, so it becomes a matter of trying to wear down your opponent for the pin, or deplete their health before nailing them with a finisher for an old fashioned knock out.
A wrestling game wouldn’t be anything without a variety of match types, and All Stars doesn’t disappoint. Single, tornado tag, extreme rules, cage, triple threat and fatal 4 way matches are all found here, and are all displayed in the single player modes. In Path of Champions, you take your chosen wrestler through a gauntlet of 10 matches. Aside from the awesome cut scenes between matches, (and the return of digital Paul Bearer,) running the gauntlet feels like a glorifies survival mode. And guess what you get for beating it? A costume… whoopity doo. While the costumes are great for the nostalgic fan, the amount of time and tedium it takes to get through the gauntlets over and over again wears thin quick.
The other single player mode is Fantasy Match, where one Legend and one Superstar are pit against each other in preset matches that usually follow a theme. Is the Straight Edge Savior, CM Punk, a better role model than the beer swilling Stone Cold Steve Austin? Who is the better snake between Jake the Snake and “The Viper” Randy Orton? Not all of the comparisons particularly fit, but you can tell the production team put in a lot of effort into making the pre match vignettes as epic as possible. But when you get down to playing it? It’s just a series of single matches without any kind of payoff except for unlocking new wrestlers. Aside from achievement and trophy hunting, there’s little reason to run through it more than once.
So with both single player modes getting winded quick, what happens when the online mode is tagged in? While all of the modes and characters are available, the matches have about a half second delay between inputs and the response on the screen. Did I forget to mention that the timing for reversals is incredibly brutal? The game features a neat reversal system where moves can be countered and even re-countered mid animation, but online, you’d be better off just randomly guessing when to press it because the lag is killer. Whoever gets the first knock down is usually the winner because coming back from a laggy beat down is about as difficult as escaping Cena’s five moves of doom.
So while it’s a little rusty, I’m hoping All Stars comes back for another round in the future. The game play is solid and the game is a blast to play, but with online that’s about as fun as a chair shot to the head and single player modes that are shorter than Rey Mysterio, it’s hard to stay in the ring for long. It’s at its best when pulling a few nostalgic buddies away from their UFC fights and reliving great wrestling moments while making new ones. All Stars turns out to be a contender, but it’s still far off from main event level.
