Review: WWE All Stars

Developer: THQ
Publisher: THQ

Have you ever wondered what would happen if “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka faced off against Triple H? What about if The Ultimate Warrior went one on one with Sheamus? How about if Eddie Guerrero had one last match against C.M. Punk? Wonder no more wrestling fans because WWE All Stars is out to settle those burning questions. How does WWE All Stars measure up? Here’s the New Gamer Nation review.

Two Generations, One Ring

15 WWE Legends and 15 current WWE Superstars (not including Downloadable Content) make up the roster. The first thing you’ll notice about the visuals of this game is that it is nothing like the WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw series. WWE SvR is more of a simulation, where WWE All Stars is more of the arcade style fighting game. Everything looks, and feels “over the top”. The superstars represented in the games are not so much scanned replicas, but more of a caricaturisation of their overall look. The superstars are even more muscle bound, and their facial features are exaggerated.

Arenas have for the most part been made from scratch, drawing some inspiration from their real life counterparts. Audience members remain the same handful of models with the same animations spread throughout the arena. The Superstars entrances have been cut to a 30 cut of a full entrance giving the ring announcer (Howard Finkel) enough time to give an introduction to who the contestants are.

Business is about to pick up

Gameplay is vastly different from the Smackdown vs Raw series. Where SvR is more of a simulation of the televised product, WWE All Stars is an arcade style button masher for the most part. Attacks range from regular strikes and grapples to strong strikes and grapples. Every superstar in the game uses one of four styles: Acrobat, Big Man, Brawler and Grappler. The Acrobats will rely heavily on the ropes and running moves, Big Men rely on their sheer power to juggle their opponents, Brawlers rely on strikes, and Grapplers can chain multiple grapples in a row for a combo.

Be prepared to press the face buttons a lot. At it’s core this game is indeed a button masher. The biggest key to really being good in this game is working on your timing for countering. There is a prompt that comes up when you have the opportunity, but ignore it, that will not help you at all. The best way is to try to counter right before contact is made. The game itself is easy to learn, but very difficult to master.

The irresistible force meets the immovable object

Along with the standard exhibition, triple threat, and four way, and cage matches, WWE All Stars offers up a series of one on on one matches, under different rules, between WWE Legends and current superstars in Fantasy Warfare. Each match has a video set up which is produced by the WWE’s own TV people.

Path of Champions is the closest thing to a “story” mode as you choose from 3 different choices from Randy Orton, The Undertaker, and Degeneration X. Each path is 10 matches leading into the superstar(s) you chose to face. These have cutscenes that are in game and are voiced by the WWE Superstars themselves.

The bread and butter to most wrestling game fans is the creation mode. Though not as deep as it’s SvR counterpart, WWE All Stars has a very basic creation mode. Players choose a pre-set entrance, pre-set moves from other superstars in the game, and a finishing move. The looks of a created superstar still isn’t as deep, but still can be altered to fit the feel of the game.

OOOH YEAH, DIG IT!!!

The Cons of the game are the lack of depth in the creation department, though that is understandable for what the game was going for. The button mashing nature of the game is another drawback to the game, simply because once you have a strategy for a certain wrestler it will be hard to apply real strategy for some others. Finally the unforgiving AI in this game gives this game almost a major disadvantage when it comes to the sheer difficulty of winning matches at times. This is especially true in steel cage matches in which you must hit the target on a prompt on the screen 5 times.

Fantasy Warfare is fun to play, and has great videos done by some of the best production staff all of television has to offer. This game offers up the combination of a fighting game, and a wrestling game, turns it up to 11 and delivers an enjoyable experience for wrestling fans of both the past and present. The over the top nature of the game adds to the fun of WWE All Stars.

In the end, WWE All Stars does a great job for a game that can doesn’t necessarily need to have a series because it was done a very good job with creating an experience that is worth buying for every wrestling fan.

WWE All Stars gets 8 flying elbow drops off the top rope out of 10