REVIEW - WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain (2003)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: October 2003
AVAILABLE ON: PS2
DEVELOPER(S): Yuke's
PUBLISHER(S): THQ, Yuke's
PLAYERS: 1-2

If there's one PlayStation 2 game that brings back memories, it's WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain. In 2003, my brother surprised me by buying us our first shared PlayStation 2. He had also bought a game for it, known in this part of the world as Project Zero, and as Fatal Frame everywhere else. This critically acclaimed survival horror game just didn't work for either one of us, and my brother went back out to trade it off and get another game. We both agreed that if he happened to stumble on Here Comes the Pain, he should get that one although neither one of us had fond memories of any wrestling games that came before. Well, he did stumble on it. We were a bit prejudiced, but as weeks and finally months went by, we had both clashed through countless seasons in the game. I could go out, have fun with my friends, drink myself piss-drunk, and return home with just one single thought in my head: the WWE Championship. "Fuck any amazing one night stands, I've got a virtual wrestling career to think about." When I was on weekend leave from the army, I valiantly defended my championship in one or two matches before heading out to see my friends - work comes first. Here Comes the Pain was the first wrestling game ever, that was so personal, that it really made you feel you were in it. When I finally got somewhat tired of the game, and when I finally had seen every possible storyline branch in the game (maybe), about two days passed and the sequel was released. Never since has my interest in one game in the series lasted so long. In fact, I'm not sure if there has ever been a game I've sacrificed more in-game hours to, except Final Fantasy games. Eight years later, I've had every WWE SmackDown vs. Raw game there ever was; eight years later, I dig up Here Comes the Pain from the hole it's been in for the last seven. Eight years later, Here Comes the Pain still OWNS.

Ask and thou shalt receive!

Finally, John "The Cleaver" Crane is ready to
kick some ass!

Graphics and sound are Here Comes the Pain's weakest qualities, but also pretty far the only reasons the game feels even the slightest bit tiresome these days. Again, some models look absolutely marvellous, especially The Rock, whose digital form has had a major overhaul from his wooden look in Shut Your Mouth. However, some look extremely awkward. Triple H looks like something I can't even rightly describe with his stiff hair and weirdly shaped face, and Shawn Michaels looks like a cancer patient, and his hair like a wig. The created superstars still don't look too shabby or dimensional, but at least this time they're not embarrassing to play as. There's an advanced body form editor that allows you to equalize your superstar's body and smooth out any deformities. The facial editor's more precise, which means you can make your wrestler's face a little more realistic than before. You can create two separate attires for entrances and matches, which on the other hand improves the overall realism. It's almost impossible for a casual player to make a character graphically up to par with the standard roster without some sort of tips 'n' tricks guide, though.

Commentary's been left out completely, rightfully so - the commentary in the last game was horrible. In turn, though, we get a repetitive soundtrack written by Nelson Bae, which plays in the menus, during the matches, during character creation - everywhere. You will grow extremely tired of the Raw and SmackDown! theme songs during Season Mode, too. They play on endless loop between matches. Noises from the audience are a lot cooler than ever before. While chanting the wrestlers' names they note the face/heel system ("Rocky!" / "Rocky sucks!"), they shout out real insults from WWE programming such as the "Shave your back!" jab at A-Train, and the epic "You suck!" anthem during Kurt Angle's theme song. The "Gooooooldberg" chant is just perfect. The audience sounds so good and authentic I wouldn't be amazed at all if someone recorded these chants at an actual WWE house show. However, they only boo to dirty moves. They don't boo heels during entrances, or at Vince whenever he's berating them. "YEEEAAAAAHHH, we're idiots! And our town sucks! YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!" It's authentic, but not always realistic. Same goes for the Season Mode... but make no mistake about it - it rules.

Before we get to the main feast, let's talk about a few things; the usual things. Roster, match types, controls, those sort of things. Before I begin, let me tell you one thing straight: when it comes to playability and lifespan (I can vouch for that one from personal experience), Here Comes the Pain was well ahead of its time. Being a sequel to the trinity of Raw, WrestleMania XIX and its actual predecessor Shut Your Mouth, Here Comes the Pain is that much more of an amazing trip. It's so ahead of those games that you wouldn't believe it had only been a year. Those who played Shut Your Mouth will immediately recognize this game. It's so similar on the outside. Once you break the surface, you will see that it's still similar, but everything that was even remotely good about the previous game, is done so much better. And it's got a truckload of whole new elements to boot. But let's not jump ahead of ourselves. First, the roster.

The most electrifying move in sports ent...
excuse me, ALL of entertainment!

Everyone who was anyone back in 2003 can probably be found from the list. If a guy or gal was worthy enough to be featured in an edited one-hour version of Raw or SmackDown!, he was worthy to be added on the roster. Main eventers are here all the way from cover boy Brock Lesnar to Bill Goldberg, from The Rock to Stone Cold Steve Austin. Ironically, all of these four greats make their last appearances in the standard roster of a WWE game. Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash return to the standard roster as an epic tag team. Mid-carders who may or may not have been pushed at the time, and may or may not be the biggest names in the company today, are here in numbers: Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista, Edge, Christian, Rey Mysterio. Divas? Well, for sho'! Stacy Keibler, Trish Stratus, Torrie Wilson, Lita, Jazz, Sable, Victoria... yeah, we got them puppies. Opening acts? The Hurricane, Sean O'Haire, Rodney Mack, Chavo Guerrero, Lance Storm. Something for everyone here... wait, there's more? LEGENDS? Oh, that's right. There are seven individual wrestlers and two tag teams from days past, unlockable via the WWE ShopZone - including Legion of Doom and the Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff (the original Un-Americans), Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Superfly Jimmy Snuka, Sgt. Slaughter and an old school version of The Undertaker. I'm almost soiling myself already, but there's more. You can also unlock Vince McMahon and his insanely hot daughter Stephanie, as well as her arch rival, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff. Now can you dig that, sucka?

Since bloodshed is finally possible, First Blood is one of the new match types. Bra & Panties is in, of course as a Divas-exclusive. Created in 2002, also Elimination Chamber is in the house - one of my favourite wrestling match types ever, and I must say the version in Here Comes the Pain might still be the best and most realistic setting for a Chamber showdown in any game. Here Comes the Pain fails to shake some old problems; there are not really any new ones when it comes to the new types of matches. I thought I'd make a list of some of the problems that may have bugged me over the course of a few games released up to, and including Here Comes the Pain. Here goes.

Here's what Austin's cookin'.

General: the default rules in the Season Mode. No count-outs, no disqualifications. Why? Where's the realism? I'm having the most epic, sanctioned championship match ever and Eddie Guerrero decides to steal the victory by nailing me with a chair while the ref just looks on. Why is the ref there, anyway? Also, the lack of collision detection prevents certain, singled-out moves from inflicting the sort of damage they should. For example, a flying crossbody/pin combination looks epic, but it doesn't work. You're lucky if you can even hit the top of the opponent's scalp with the crossbody, and since you can't connect with the dive properly, the pin attempt is deactivated.
Tag: if a member of the opponent's team pins you, it's OK. You can call your partner in to break the three-count. However, your partner cannot do shit whenever you're locked in a submission. If your head damage indicator is bleeding red and Benoit locks in the Crippler Crossface, it's over for you if you don't make it to the ropes in time.
Tables: let me put it simply. Bell rings. Punch opponent 'til he's down. Get a table. Put opponent on table. Bodyslam. Bell rings. Ever seen a real tables match that lasts for 15 seconds?
Ladder: oh, let me count the ways! However, this time the long-anticipated health meter / damage indicator makes things a little bit more sensible. The opponent actually stays down for a while after a Rock Bottom on the concrete floor, and reacts to strikes from the ladder as well. However, moving the ladder under the belt is slow, climbing it's even slower, and actually being able to grab the belt and be able to pry it off its hook is up to luck.
TLC (Tables, Ladders, Chairs): like a ladder match but cranked up to the extreme! It's incredibly hard to pick up the win in this kind of match, especially if it's a tag team match (which it usually is). In the later games, the TLC match was changed to end in a pinfall or submission, which was a fabulous idea.
Cage: it's like a ring with a cage around it, and nothing more. There is virtually nothing you can do with the cage, no ways to utilize it. Getting thrown into the cage with Eric Bischoff on the opposing side makes you wish it was a Last Man Standing match instead - you can't really dish out any punishment. Collision detection fails again, and I must admit I once accidentally lost to Bischoff since I simply couldn't rattle the cage for him to fall off. I kept kicking the cage wall, but the thing didn't even budge. Just to save face, I've gotta say the bastard couldn't hit me even once during the match (on SmackDown! difficulty), ALL of his damage indicator was screaming red, and he was bleeding. So yeah, I whooped his ass. He just got lucky. 
Royal Rumble: do you know how disrespecting it is to whip your opponent out of the ring and eliminate him from the Rumble while his theme song still plays? It has happened in real Rumbles - but I highly doubt there will ever be a #1 entry, who just stands in the middle of the ring and Irish whips everyone who enters his domain out of it simple as 1-2-3, and finally wins the match and gets to go to WrestleMania, never even breaking a sweat.
Backstage Brawls: since when have they been officiated by a referee, or dependent of pinfalls or submissions?

I guess I'll stop here, 'cause I like most of what Here Comes the Pain has in store. Hell in a Cell, Battle Royal and Last Man Standing are still my definite favourites and they're all better than ever. I gave off a lot of the general gameplay there, but only the negatives, so not enough. The new control scheme is awesome. Not quite as awesome as the modern one, but they were getting there. Counterattacks have been moved to the further shoulder buttons, while Square has been made the action button for picking up objects, entering and exiting the ring, et cetera. What's great about the shoulder buttons is that pressing them never breaks the action, and you can engage in amazing counter duels if you've got the eye to deduce the opponent's next move and the technique to respond to it. Yes, you can still counter a finisher, as well, by pressing both L2 and R2 at the same time, at the absolutely exact time the opponent readies to finish the match. Taunting the opponent's been moved to the usually useless right analog stick, and this time taunting actually means something. If you have time to perform a taunt in its entirety, you'll gain momentum the same as from any other move.

Get up from that one, and you're a legend.

The momentum meter is still with us, but this time, there's also a damage indicator to each limb and the abdominal area, which means there are visible attributes to each and every wrestler in the game - except for Jerry "The King" Lawler, who's not exactly a playable character, but may have a minor part in a Raw storyline during Season Mode. These attributes include Strength, Submission, Endurance, Technique and Speed. The meanings behind Strength, Endurance and Speed are obvious. The number of the Submission stat has a direct effect on how many seconds you can keep your opponent locked up, and in turn, how long and easily you can withstand a submission lock. Technique determines how easy it is for you to counter attacks, and how hard it is for the opponent to counter yours. Now why did it take so fuckin' long to add in a simple system like this? Should I care anymore? No, it's here. Rejoice.

Some people have criticized the attributes, not for their inclusion, but how they're applied to existing wrestlers. Brock Lesnar, Triple H, The Rock and The Undertaker look pretty much unbeatable if you look at their stats only, and I must say getting up from an F5 or a Pedigree is just damn near impossible. Since Lesnar's Strength is an absolute 10 and he has sufficient Technique and Speed stats as well, he can beat your ass in no time if you blink, and if your Endurance isn't leveled up to the hilt. On the other side of this debauchery, we have future champions John Cena, Randy Orton, Edge and Dave Batista, whose attributes suck, and their Star Points are quite insufficient. You see, back in 2003, none of these guys were really pushed. They were either mid-carders, faction members or guys that didn't even dream of a heavyweight title. You must do a lot of extra work to get these guys major title shots, not to mention win them the titles. By default, without the player's personal input, Yuke's and THQ wanted to keep the title picture as it was in reality, so we have Angle, Lesnar and Taker constantly quarreling for the title on SmackDown!'s side, and Triple H, Goldberg, Jericho and Nash on Raw's side. In addition, since there are weight limits, it doesn't matter what your Strength stat is - if you're too lightweight, you can't bodyslam a heavyweight. That's perfectly fine by me, but since when were Shawn Michaels, Eddie Guerrero and Christian so lightweight they couldn't even lift up Triple H (which Michaels has done countless, countless, countless times) and slam him to the mat? Leveling up helps with the attribute problem, but not the weight limit. ...How do you level up, you ask? Shall we finally go into the pros and cons of the Season Mode?

There is one thing you should know about the Season Mode before you even begin, and that is: no one's a god in the business. In other words, it doesn't matter who you play as, be it The Undertaker or Tajiri. Depending on your character's championship status, and/or his Star Points, you start off from a different setting. Every season begins right after WrestleMania X8 and ends in WrestleMania XIX, but if your Star Points are, say, 85, you're pretty likely to get a major title shot right away. If they're below 60, you're lucky if you even have a shot at the Hardcore title. Rivalries and storylines develop strictly according to your SP, and current status on the brand. Everyone's treated the same way along the ladder. Your character has absolutely no personality regardless who he is, he's mute to boot. Might sound pretty damn dull, but you've got to understand: the Season Mode is HUGE. There are dozens of storylines and it will take you ages to take part in them all. Very few of them are totally original - most are reinvented scenarios from the past. Some of the most intriguing storylines may last for months, usually those which you'll end up a part of once you hit main event status; during your possible time as an upstart, you'll find yourself engaging in a lot of minor rivalries against some less aspiring superstars such as Val Venis and Lance Storm, and company executives that don't have the most amazing attributes to go by.

Since the Season Mode is somewhat optimized to be played as an upstart, who should I roll with? My own character, of course - and when you do that, and when you really get into the game, you will see that playing as your customized character is just amazing. He needs the experience points. You can level up anyone - you can play as Lesnar and level him up to a perfect 100, but what's the point? Your own character starts from the absolute bottom, and you're given some experience points in the beginning of the season to apply to him as you wish, according to what sort of wrestler you want to make of him, but you'll end up with an approximate total of 48 attribute points - you'll need to work for the last 52. Your SP in the beginning is something like 48 as well (I'm just making examples, I don't rightly remember my humble beginnings), so you'll need to work for those points as well, by winning matches. You start from the minor circuit, wrestling guys like Rico - or, sadly, guys like Randy Orton or Dave Batista. It's all about their SP. Week after week, month after month, you progress through a whole year of WWE programming, and your main objective is to make it to the main event of WrestleMania XIX, in one way or another. If you lose matches, or fail to build up a reputation within the company, you might not even have the most irrelevant match on the grandest stage of them all. But hey, new year, new tricks, right? And a few new storylines to engage in. Believe me, once you play through a season, you'll want to go at it again.

You can play any match on the card and manipulate other superstars' Star Points that way. I won't even begin to list all the reasons why this is so awesome. Just think about it. You WANT Edge to become the WWE or World Heavyweight Champion. Well, whenever Edge has a match on the card, against anyone and for anything, take part in it and do everything in your power to hand Edge the victory, and you're one step closer to making Edge reach main event status. In Shut Your Mouth, you could just play those matches which were on the card before yours - and they made no sense or difference at all, therefore they weren't fun to play. All the matches in Here Comes the Pain don't make no sense either, but at least they're not anything as stupid as a couple of jobbers duking it out at a Summerslam main event. Besides, Here Comes the Pain has the face/heel system, which you are able to manipulate to the fullest in the beginning of each season.

Say what you will, but he was one of the best.
Sadly, also one of the most arrogant in real
life.

When you start off, you can decide for yourself who's part of WWE programming in general and who's not, just like before. You can't remove champions from the roster, and each show needs to have a certain amount of superstars. Customized tag stables can easily be made parts of the roster. After deciding on who you possibly never want to see during your career, you are taken to the whole new face/heel chart. Here, you can change each guy and gal's take on the world and the WWE fans. Each show needs a certain amount of faces and heels, but if there aren't enough of one or the other, the game will automatically decide on face/heel turns in the middle of the game - stables are usually broken whenever one member turns. The face/heel system can get quite ridiculous from time to time - after all, it's the SP that counts. The game doesn't just place certain superstars on your path, it generates them according to SP; for example, Rey Mysterio usually has incredible SP. If you're a face, and a heavyweight champion, don't be surprised if Mysterio suddenly turns heel (which would never, EVER, happen) and threatens to kill you over the championship... inside Hell in a Cell. It isn't even the most awkward thing - the most awkward thing is that even if you're a heel, your challenger is the one acting like a heel (those slimy grins, eww) and the one to use actual heel tactics throughout the rivalry. There are some exceptions, for example if you choose to form an alliance with Vince McMahon at one point instead of assembling your own faction to oppose him, you're pretty surely on your way to becoming the most hated guy in the company. The storylines have some incredibly weird turns, but all things considered, the realism holds together nicely. I really can't say how many possible storylines there are. I once made an FAQ of this game, and I ended up with a total number of something like 50 on the championship circuit alone, with an average of three possibilities how one single month can go down. Then, there are the miscellaneous storylines which may take place at any time regardless of your SP, and even if you end up as a jobber, you'll get your share of rivalries. Oh, believe me, you won't have seen all of the Season Mode even if you beat it three or four times. I'm not sure if I've even seen everything! I've tried to, though - by listing every decision I've ever made, championships I've won and lost and WHEN I've won and lost them, and the differences in my SP stats during certain time periods.

The Locker is your control panel for everything whenever you're playing Season Mode. It allows you to trade in experience points for attributes; you gain EXP from every match, but if you lose the match, you get a measly amount of points you really can't do jack with. You also gain SmackDown! dollars from each match - 500 for winning, 1000 (if I remember correctly) from winning a pay-per-view match and perhaps even more for winning and defending a championship, but only 100 measly bucks if you lose. The dollars can be used at WWE ShopZone at any given time - so you no longer have to play the Season Mode over and over again to simply be able to unlock everything in the game. The unlockable content is the same as before, but this time, the Legends are of course added in. What's crap about the Legends, as cool as their inclusion is, is that they're no real part of the Season Mode. You can play as them once you've unlocked them, and if you make them parts of the roster, you're pretty sure to entangle in rivalries with one or two of them, but even they are the same as everyone else; there are no Legend storylines. On top of all, their entrances suck. They have no theme songs, and they enter the arena riding the stupid-ass WrestleMania cart. They're only good for Exhibition, and certain types of matches, in my opinion. But, the concept of adding in Legends is priceless, and very much enhanced in the years that were to come. Where were we? The Locker, right. You can check the WWE Magazine for rightful contenders to each title and see if you're on the list. If you're on the list, you can march into the General Manager's office and demand a title shot if you're not actively engaged in a rivalry. If Stephanie or Eric won't give in to your demands, you can always jump ship to another show in protest. You can also visit other locations around the arena in a wholly different way than in the awkward, Shut Your Mouth first-person way. You should be careful who you talk to, and what you say to people, be they your people or villains. Wrestlers are very easily pissed off. It's nothing if Goldberg's in a bad mood and decides to whip your ass all around the backstage areas, but usually, if you piss someone off, you'll lose SP. So, be nice to people, and listen to what they say. Don't just blurt out something you might regret later. Kiss a little ass if you have to.

Deadman don't need no stinkin' permit to ride
his bike on his yard.

Here Comes the Pain's storyline will throw some nasty, nasty matches in your way, depending on how your career develops, of course. It's not a hard game, though. It's challenging in a fun way. If you choose the hardest difficulty setting, there are some epic matches to be had which are full of counters and fancy moves. The damage indicator makes it all so much more epic. I yell out "WOOOOAAAHHH!!!" loud every time, with sincere joy and satisfaction, whenever I manage to kick out from a Pedigree or Last Ride. Double that if I have just one red limb. Triple that: if I'm bleeding. It's so fucking epic! You wanna know what's even more fucking epic? OK, let's recap: I return home, piss-drunk from a night on the town. My brain tells me to get some sleep and suffer the consequences in the morning, but I say "NAY!" The WWE Championship is almost in my grubby little hands. I won the Royal Rumble and I'm heading to the main event at WrestleMania. It's me, versus my turncoat of a tag team partner, The Undertaker, at WrestleMania, in Hell in a Cell. It's my character - a puny underdog no one believes in, vs. The Phenom, Deadman Inc., 10-0 at WrestleMania (at the time, before WrestleMania XIX), inside a hellish structure he personally created in 1998. It's more than his yard, it's his WORLD. 15 minutes, 9 seconds. A Last Ride. A chokeslam. I'm still up. Two Fatal Skullcleavers (the name I unofficially gave my Brainbuster DDT), two of the most explosive spinebusters you've ever seen, payback for Mick Foley: I throw Taker off the top of the cell, and through the roof. Pin. Victory is mine! I won the WWE Championship, defeated The Undertaker where he possibly can't be defeated, and I'm heading to the next season as the most valuable superstar in the WWE. Life simply can't get any better.

WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain is a gold standard, an absolutely amazing game with a lot of flaws, but a downright incredible, epic aura and enhanced features so ahead of even some of the latest games in the series, to fully compensate for those flaws. The Season Mode has never been the same, and as replayable as it is in this one game; it branches to eternity and will keep each and every wrestling fan glued to the controller and the TV screen. Here Comes the Pain is not only the best professional wrestling game ever released - I also consider it to be one of the best PS2 titles of all time.

GRAPHICS : 8.2
SOUND : 7.5
PLAYABILITY : 9.0
LIFESPAN : 9.5
CONCLUSION : 9.2

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 86.46%

All of Jeff Hardy, Hulk Hogan (and his alter ego Mr. America), and The Ultimate Warrior were removed from the originally announced roster of the game before its release. Hardy and Hogan were both released in 2003, and Jim Hellwig objected to the use of the likeness of his gimmick with a lawsuit.

The final canonical WWE game to feature the following superstars as parts of the standard roster: The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash, Lance Storm, Rikishi, Rodney Mack, Scott Steiner, Sean O'Haire, Test, Ultimo Dragon and Val Venis.

Behold the terror...

I've been preparing myself for the coming summer's festival journal and taking some random videos of myself to get comfortable with talking to the camera after a lengthy break, so I decided to do one for VGMania. I won't explain it extensively like I usually do, I'll let the video explain itself.

REVIEW - WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth (2002)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: October 2002
AVAILABLE ON: PS2
DEVELOPER(S): Yuke's
PUBLISHER(S): THQ, Yuke's
PLAYERS: 1-2

Since WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain, the originally PlayStation-exclusive SmackDown! series has been the definite cornerstone of THQ and the WWE's business relationship. Although Here Comes the Pain was the first SmackDown! game I ever bought, the earliest installment that can be found in my shelf at this time is its predecessor, the fourth game in the series - Shut Your Mouth. Though being a good game in its own right, Shut Your Mouth suffers from flawed gameplay, lack of realism, inconsistency, occasional butt-ugliness, and the otherwise advanced season mode's lack of replay value. It's the best game out of the four World Wrestling games that came out in 2002, but I see it as merely a raw prototype of Here Comes the Pain.

Create-a-butthead

The graphics are of extremely mixed quality. Some models look extremely realistic, as in it's like you're watching wrestling on TV, but most have extremely big (and occasionally ugly) heads. Especially the baldies look like they have brain tumours the size of Texas; they look like their bald scalps are just planted on random heads. Since I always create a superstar after myself, he's bald too, but his strangely shaped head is the least of his problems; the created superstars look awful! I mean, extremely ugly and dumb. It's embarrassing to play as them when you have friends over. They don't even have teeth, just a pink light flares up whenever they open their mouths. You can't sensibly modify their shoulders; even if there's an extensive body mass modifier, you have to keep your created wrestlers' shoulders at a certain width if you want to maintain some sort of human look. Not really cool when you want to make a thin wrestler (I weigh about 134 lbs.). They're thin, all right - but their shoulders and arms must remain gigantic if you don't necessarily want to make your wrestler look like E.T. on diet. Since we got to this subject, I must say the editor is more comprehensive than ever, in theory. It's a good start, it just doesn't quite work. You can't create more than one attire for your superstar, which leads me to leave out some of my usual choices such as wearing a hoodie, bandana and sunglasses during the entrance. The editor for the entrances has been made part of the general moveset editor, and the list of choices is less than narrow. Quite a step backwards when it comes to customization, I reckon.

The game sounds fuckin' horrible at its worst, and I'm not talking about the fact that you'll be hearing Marilyn Manson on loop by an excessive lot while browsing through the menus. The repetitive original soundtrack's nearly OK when you compare it to the occasional voiceover work. In the Season Mode, you can't concentrate on the very slim, but moderately interesting plot since JR and King are constantly yelling random things in the background. The commentary is there for nothing. They just keep on commenting on certain moves and repeating random stuff and trivia about the guys involved in the match, over and over. "Kane is the Big Red Machine!" Yeah, we know. "Kane is the Big Red Machine!" Yes, that he is. "Kane is the Big Re..." Mute. Then there's stuff that might've become outdated info through the years. "During his illustrious career (or something like that), The Undertaker has never won the Royal Rumble." Yes, he has. They should've avoided using comments that had the slightest potential of becoming obsolete at some point in time. It's especially stupid when JR says that during Season Mode, right after the Royal Rumble - which I just won using The Undertaker. The wrestlers don't have voiceovers, but sometimes talking to them backstage may trigger a loud archive recording of a catchphrase - like "It doesn't matter what you think" or "Rest in peace". It's distracting and almost startling, not too cool.

The SmackDown! series is very dear to me and I know every game (from Shut Your Mouth forward) inside out. I no longer have possession of all of them, for varying reasons, and that is why I won't review the whole series - but believe me, I've played every game released since Shut Your Mouth to the absolute hilt of my capabilities. I was that much of a professional wrestling fan from 2002 to last year. Today, if it weren't for some occasional surprise returns, pro wrestling wouldn't interest me one bit. It's become all about pushing the new generation, no matter how untalented it is. OK, I like The Miz as a heel, but did he really deserve to be pushed to the "same league" as Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, The Rock, The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Bret "The Hit Man" Hart, Shawn Michaels, and all the dozens of other real legends that have held a world title? I like CM Punk even more, but he never was of a world title caliber in my opinion. Hell, same goes for Rey Mysterio while we're at it - but he was more or less granted his first title as a tribute to his late friend Eddie Guerrero. Not only is The Miz a shitty WWE Champion - the circulation nowadays, it's ridiculous. I've watched the results periodically. Most of the time, half of the results are of matches between guys I've never heard of. And will never hear of again, in just a couple of weeks. What kind of a Hell in a Cell match does not involve The Undertaker or Triple H? What kind of a Hell in a Cell match involves one of these guys, but not one absolute drop of blood? I'll tell you, the new "family-friendly" kind. I even stopped buying SmackDown! games. I used to do it every year, the same time of the year: I pre-ordered the new SmackDown! game about a month before its release, and it was a God damn miracle if I left the house the day the mail girl paid me a slightly heavier visit. I'm appalled of what the WWE has become.

Shut Your Mouth, however, was released at a time the WWE flourished. They had just bought out their competitor WCW and most of its essential roster, effectively ending the Monday Night Wars, as well as the Attitude era. However, the fanbase the WWE had gained during the Attitude era encouraged them to maintain its continuity on an unofficial basis. Problems emerged when they began scouting for new talent to outshine disgruntled main eventers, and some professional wrestlers found whole new interests in life. These problems, among others, resulted in many of the company's premium talent to leave the ring, indefinitely, most notably The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The developmental team of the WWE worked extra hard on storylines, new match types, and periodical bombshells to keep the company's cash flow in check. I think they made a great job and led the company into a new fantastic era. After all, that era made me a merciless professional wrestling fan.

He'll have to do.

That's quite an extensive bit of trivia there, and it's enough, at least for now. Shut Your Mouth has quite a roster. Both Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton make their debuts. Both The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and to many people's great pleasure, "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, are very central figures in the game, and the Season Mode's storyline. All of these three guys were on their way to leaving the WWE, while  Lesnar and Orton were to become two of the decade's most notable new superstars... except for John Cena, but since he's not in the game, let's save his story for another time. There's a total of 60 playable characters in the game, all of whom you can use in Exhibition Mode, but not Season Mode, since it's quite linear and some of the storylines involve superstars in crucial supporting roles that make it impossible for them to be members of the original, active roster.

The controls haven't changed a lot from the previous games and they're still a tad unpractical, like I've never understood why Square is the universal counter button, and the grappling moves are a game of chance since the directional controls are so damn sensitive. All in all, it feels like the order and purpose of the buttons is all messed up. However, they're quite easy to learn, not that easy to really sink in if you've played any of the more recent games though. And don't you go getting me wrong: in comparison to each and every Nintendo 64 wrestling game there ever was, the control scheme's a little piece of heaven. Wrestling games were definitely made to be played with four shoulder buttons, four action buttons, a digital pad and two analog sticks - not one analog stick and four camera buttons from which you never quite rightly knew what each one did, since everything was based on some half-assed button combos. The SmackDown! icon, which tells you when you should press L1 to execute your finisher, has officially been deemed most functional, as it returns once again, and has remained in every game in the SmackDown! series since, in some form.

If there's one thing I truly hate about the general gameplay, is once again the age-old nuisance of all the wrestlers being exactly the same; there are no attributes. Just Star Points, which I'll get to once I start bashing the Season Mode. If and when you are able to sink in the game's controls, not even the hardest difficulty setting gives you too much hell in standard matches at least, but a streak of bad luck can end in some really embarrassing losses, like Brock Lesnar getting pinned by Rico. I've never lost one standard match in this game if I haven't done it on purpose to see even the slightest twist in the flat storyline, but I know for a fact this kind of embarrassment is a perfectly possible event, especially if it's a triple threat or a fatal fourway match; without attributes, these kinds of matches are based as much on luck as they are on skill.

There are several match types which may have been present in some earlier games, but not THQ's last major title, WWF WrestleMania X8 for the GameCube: 3 Stages of Hell, submission, ultimate submission, special ref, Last Man Standing (one of my all-time favourites), and Slobber Knocker, a variation of Gauntlet from the past that somehow reminds me of a Terence Hill & Bud Spencer movie. There are many match variations that haven't been used before, but I don't feel a need to go too deep into them. Just imagine any sanction in any environment, and the option to go at it's probably here. Most of the match types are featured in the Season Mode, but at least when they don't directly concern your own character, they're like some really cooky demonstrations instead of really epic matches. Like, Al Snow vs. Maven in Hell in a Cell, as the opening match of Sunday Night Heat. That cooky. Let's take a look at the whole new Season Mode, featuring joint programming.

The first thing to note about the Season Mode is indeed that this was the first game in the whole franchise to have two different brands, SmackDown! and Raw, following the 2002 brand extension. The Season begins like the most beautiful dream - from a draft lottery between SmackDown! representative Vince McMahon and Raw representative Ric Flair. I'm with Raw all the way! Now, at this point, you can either let the CPU simulate the whole thing, choose one wrestler you really want on your show and THEN simulate the whole thing, or build the whole roster of your show by yourself. I won't even begin with measuring the awesomeness here... and I shouldn't, because the WWE roster at your disposal is indeed incomplete. For example, you can't pick Stone Cold Steve Austin. He's a free agent important to the first part of the storyline. So are a few other choice cuts. Vince already took The Rock, and The Undertaker is exempt since he's the WWE Champion, so hell, I'll just take Edge and simulate the rest. Oh, great. I got dudes like Billy, Chuck, Rico and Stasiak, while Vince got Triple H, Jericho, Lesnar and the APA. I haven't even got a team I would remotely like. That gimmick Billy and Chuck had at the time is just too much for me to handle - especially since there's already a homosexual vibe in some of the alliances that form during the game.

Playing as my own character is out of the question, I can't even stand to look at the guy in animated form. If you do play as your own creation or an existing superstar with low popularity, you need to start from the absolute bottom and work your way up from Velocity or Heat (depending on the show you're on), to main event status in either SmackDown! or Raw. That's another idea that's very cool on paper - I just don't understand why the hell I'm facing guys like Edge and Christian on Heat. It's embarrassing! Well, usually I play through the first season in all games as The Undertaker, but this time and this time only, he's the reigning champion in the storyline's beginning, so I think I'll let it pass for many reasons. I simply think working my way up the ladder to some extent is more interesting than playing as a champion, and at that time, there was only one heavyweight champion in the WWE, who had to compete on both brands. I think that playing as The Undertaker would make the game unnecessarily long (like this review, lol), since the Season Mode lasts for two in-game years as it is.

No one "thinks" of "entering" the Rattlesnake.
The Rattlesnake will be there.

Since the roster includes a graceful variety of people I'd gladly play as, I call a lottery of my own between seven people and end up with the Texas Rattlesnake, 3:16, the more recent WWE Hall of Famer, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin has about 90 Star Points, so he's automatically eligible for a major title shot. You gain more points as you win matches - and surprise, surprise - you lose them by losing matches, if you happen to have that mentioned streak of bad luck or keep losing on purpose. Otherwise, it's pretty damn impossible to lose. The storyline begins with a bang and I'm immediately feeling the game. Vince and Flair are fighting over who should have exclusive rights to the Rattlesnake, the glass shatters and Austin enters the ring, calls for a couple of cheap "WHAT?"'s from the audience, and stares down both executives. You are then given a choice of which brand to sign with, and regardless of your decision, Austin hits both men with a Stone Cold Stunner and leaves the arena, just like Stone Cold would do. Well, on to next week. You're suddenly just one of the guys. You're given the title shot, sure, but you're spoken down to by guys that wouldn't dare to be within two feet of Stone Cold's presence in reality. Test keeps telling you how you should enjoy your "small while" in the spotlight, since he's bound to kick your ass. What a fuckin' drag. I was just about to praise how this game notes your chosen wrestler's personality and already established status throughout the line much better than some of its sequels, including Here Comes the Pain.

Another problem sets in once I really get to the title hunt. I beat The Undertaker a few times during the weeks leading into Judgment Day, but he just keeps on talking smack on each show, fueling my anger. Then, he tells me the stipulation of our epic encounter; if I lose the match, I'm suspended from the WWE. Well, if Taker considers that a challenge, I'll gladly take it... but, I think silence speaks louder than words, so I just choose to stare the guy down when I'm given the option. Well, the game interprets silence a bit differently than us who have been raised on the motto "silence speaks louder than words": I actually just refused to take part in the match, like a coward. I didn't realize it at first, but when Taker started talking about me running home to my mommy, I figured something was horribly wrong. It just so happened that at Judgment Day, I suddenly didn't have a match at all. Wouldn't be much of a big deal, but I have unlockables to worry about. Well, then Kurt Angle comes and rescues me from total unemployment by challenging me to some sort of grudge match. I don't know what the grudge is about and he's on a different show, but of course I accept. It just so happens that this whole angle (no pun intended), like many others, is ripped straight off an old, actual WWE storyline. At Judgment Day 2002, Edge and Kurt Angle faced off in a Hair vs. Hair match, which Edge won and shaved Kurt Angle bald. Now this is cool and all, but where's the sense in Stone Cold Steve Austin participating in a match that has such a stipulation? Even to my created character, this would've been just a match among others. Hooray for baldies! ...So the point is, that the Season Mode's a bundle of inconsistencies, a puzzle game hastily assembled from random bits and pieces. It's fun to play to see what lies behind each corner during these two years and witness actual changes in characters (such as Hollywood Hogan reverting back to his old face gimmick), but the Season Mode in this game's no platform for a wholly interesting, flashy, consistent career.

Between matches, you can walk around the arena and the backstage areas in first-person view to meet up with other wrestlers and buy unlockable merchandise from the WWE ShopZone. The controls to this segment are so horrid I just needed to mention it. It makes no difference how you treat people, there's no real face/heel system. Even the audience reacts the same way to your actions, whether you're a pseudo-face or -heel. Just the storyline and match stipulations might slightly change, depending on what you say or do to folks, and on how much you respect the "ladder" which every superstar needs to climb. For example, you can rejoice and be proud of becoming King of the Ring, which is an accomplishment in itself, or wipe your ass on the flashy trophy to show how much of an arrogant asshole you are.

Open your eyes, ref! Y2J just kicked me in the
balls!

You need to play through the whole thing a few times to gain access to all the unlockables in the game: alternate attires, movesets, venues, additional superstars and some extremely cool video packages as cool as only the WWE promo team can make. Of course the storyline changes a bit depending on whether you're a champion, a challenger, a mid-carder or an upstart, but sooner or later, it starts to repeat itself either way, and it's not really entertaining in the proper sense. Especially since the game's so easy. There's still no health meter, there's just the momentum meter used in the earlier games of the series, that speeds up each time you gain access to a finisher, and just one finisher's sure to end a standard match about 99% of the time. No, that doesn't only apply to direct attacks, but also submission manouvers. If you get caught in the Walls of Jericho or the Ankle Lock, you will tap out. You will have no say in it. And, since neither you or the opponent can take any permanent damage, the positive outcome of ladder matches is still based on NOTHING except a great deal of luck.

WWE SmackDown! Shut Your Mouth is a good game, and might even highly entertain those who just can't get enough of the SmackDown! series' basic style, no matter how inconsistent the Season Mode, or unpractical the controls, or ugly the created characters at the very least, are. I think it was not quite ready to be released. I wouldn't have been too upset if they had just skipped the game altogether, seeing that THQ had their hands full with WWE games for the whole year of 2002, and seeing what kind of fantastic updates to this game's basic scheme they came up with in less than a year.

GRAPHICS : 7.3
SOUND : 5.8
PLAYABILITY : 7.5
LIFESPAN : 8.0
CONCLUSION : 7.7

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 83.74%

Scott Hall was originally included in the game as an unlockable character, and he can be seen in some early screenshots. Due to his release from the WWE just a few months before the game's scheduled release, he was removed and his scenes were seamlessly cut from the nWo storyline.

Mick Foley does not appear in the game in any shape or form - only his moveset can be applied to a created superstar. However, he appears as Mankind in the game's European box art.

The last WWE game not to feature blood. Strangely, adding blood to the later installments did not affect the franchise's ESRB rating (T).

REVIEW - WWE Road to WrestleMania X8 (2002)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: October 2002
AVAILABLE ON: GBA
DEVELOPER(S): Natsume
PUBLISHER(S): THQ
PLAYERS: 1-2

In the aftermath of their Nintendo GameCube-exclusive debut WWE WrestleMania X8, THQ saw necessary to release another WWE game exclusive to the Game Boy Advance in late 2002 - about a week before the release of their pet project, the fourth game in the SmackDown! series, exclusive to the PlayStation 2. No one knows why they yet again felt the need to prove that wrestling games didn't belong on a simple handheld. WWE Road to WrestleMania X8 sports better graphics and slightly better gameplay than its predecessor, but make no mistake: it isn't worth half the effort, no matter what sort of completist you consider yourself...

...And I quote, "being a handheld game is no excuse"

One of the most unexciting Tombstones I've
ever seen.

The graphics are good. Instead of the cartoon-ish caricatures of the previous Road to WrestleMania title, Natsume used fully digitized, large sprites. The entrances are now simple walks down the aisle, with decent-sounding MIDI theme tunes accompanied by quite damn polished voice samples. Audiovisually, the game does not disappoint - for such an early Game Boy Advance game and a 2D wrestling game, I must say it looks and sounds almost amazing. It's truly a shame the gameplay is almost as stifling and draining as it was before.

Due to the fancy graphics taking up most of the capacity, the game is very stripped of different features such as any sort of Career or Season Mode, and there are only 15 superstars on the roster, ten of which were featured in the previous installment; Booker T, Hollywood Hogan, Kevin Nash, Rob Van Dam and Test are the five new guys. Big Daddy Cool (= Kevin Nash for you non-wrestling fanatics) is the only dude in the bunch who I'd play as. There's some sort of a generic attribute system, which is manipulated by your progress itself. Your strength and defense may change over time, depending on your success in a championship run or the King of the Ring tournament.

Almost every grapple move in the game looks
the same.

Success is under a soil and black stone. The wrestlers move like robots (well animated ones, though) and controlling that movement is just as robotic. As before, if you get pinned, that's about it - there's not much you can do about it. One loss doesn't mean it's game over, any gameplay mode of the game kind of progresses like any Career Mode - you're simply given a new match, and in time, you'll get a title shot, assuming any interest remains after three or four matches. The game is so God damn boring I can't imagine twisting my palms or my nerves with it on a bus trip for five whole minutes. I'd much rather take Super Mario Advance, or Mario Kart: Super Circuit, any game that has even the slightest potential to really work on a four-button handheld. That's the main concern here: the game doesn't even _have any potential_ to work like an entertaining wrestling game on the smallest possible scale! So why bother?

If the game was any more responsive in general, as in realistic in tempo, and if the developers were even remotely interested in reflecting on how they could modify the well-received SmackDown! control scheme to fit the Nintendo handheld - in theory, it's possible, but unlikely - it still wouldn't be a great game, but surely a decent dose of portable WrestleMania madness. Not quite as heavy on the hands as the first game, which earns it a notably better overall rating, but it's still not worth two glances. Let's play wrestling games on the platforms to which they belong, shall we?

GRAPHICS : 9.1
SOUND : 8.6
PLAYABILITY : 5.0
LIFESPAN : 4.7
CONCLUSION : 5.0

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 64.00%

REVIEW - WWF Raw (2002)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: February 2002
AVAILABLE ON: PC, Xbox
DEVELOPER(S): Anchor Inc. (PC), THQ (Xbox), Microvision Inc.
PUBLISHER(S): THQ
PLAYERS: 1-4

I've never considered myself to be much of a PC player. Actually, when I first got a proper computer, a friend of mine burned a few relatively new games for me to test out the actual spunk of my hardware as opposed to its technical information - which usually doesn't mean squat just in itself. One of those games was WWF Raw, which was only a couple of months old, and although I was already quite a professional wrestling fan, I wasn't too excited about it since wrestling games had never made a very positive impression on me before, and it was a PC game - I was a console gamer all the way. In time, I found myself somewhat addicted to it, but after getting familiar with the SmackDown! series on the PlayStations, I forgot there ever was a WWF Raw - the SmackDown!'s were so much better. Raw's not a bad game, in fact it's even sort of entertaining, but all things considered, it was a huge step backwards by THQ. It's a sixth-generation game, it looks like one, but it plays out like it was released about five years earlier.

It's like sushi-raw

My character looks technically better than ever
before. Wish there'd be more options, though.

The graphics are excellent in comparison to every earlier WWF game, including the PlayStation titles. They really raised the bar here from every angle, although some models like those of Triple H and Jeff Hardy look downright ugly; long hair seems to be a common problem in itself, and sadly from this point of view, long hair was some sort of a fad at that time among professional wrestlers. Triple H looks like he has piggytails. The original soundtrack largely consists of generic and repetitive, but basically quite cool guitar rock, and some hectic techno stomp to balance it out. The audience makes no sound at all, and there's no commentary. During the matches, it feels like the game's muted and there's some MP3 playlist playing in the background. Detached and inconsistent is the best way to describe the game's audio policy.

The roster is the first stepping stone for us to come across. The game was released in February 2002, and apparently it was supposed to be released almost a year before. The roster's outdated and quite hastily put together all around. There are 39 male wrestlers, four Divas, and four unlockable characters in Vince, Shane and Stephanie McMahon, and... are you ready for this? Fred Durst. Yes, I'm very seriously talking about Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst. Apparently including him was THQ returning the favour to the band, for allowing the developers to use "Rollin'" as The Undertaker's theme song in the game. Whacked. Not as whacked as the game can be at its worst (or best?), though.

Some people complain about the blur effect,
I kind of like it.

Let's take a look at the create-a-superstar mode, first. This was actually the first game in which I even tried the editor, and back then, I was blown away by it. It was sooooo cool... until I realized that even earlier games in the WWF franchise indeed had more extensive editors. This game was originally released on the Xbox; it's kind of baffling that they really couldn't do better than this. You can choose from a respectable variety of accessories, hairstyles, facial models, body types, but you can't really extensively (or sensibly) customize any of them apart from changing colours. The game has the most believable entrances in the series up 'til its release, and the entrance editor is fairly comprehensive, but you can't preview your entrance, you must wait 'til your first match to realize your mistakes. However, since there's no Career Mode of any kind, I see no point in really working on my entrance. Which brings us to the match types and all the possible ways for you to take on WWF Raw. There aren't many.

It's time to play some other game!

The goal of this game is simple: to win EVERYTHING. Every championship belt, and become King of the Ring. Sounds easy, right? Well, it IS easy. Extremely easy. You see, attributes don't matter. Some wrestlers might be more resilient and aggressive than others, but there's no health or stamina meter. Instead, there's a "voltage meter", which is kind of like a momentum meter, but even if you keep using the same moves, it goes up for your benefit. In other words, you can keep punching the opponent until the meter flashes, deliver a Stone Cold Stunner, pin the opponent and the match is done, under one minute. You don't even need a finisher to win the match. Just reach a certain voltage limit, and the victory's yours. One thing that might make it a bit more difficult is the frustrating A.I.. The opponents are not as stupid as they look. They counter grapples easy as 1-2-3, when you on the other hand, have about a 30/70 success rate in counters - it's not about timing, it's about luck. Whenever you're grounded, the opponents have a tendency of kicking you for ages, they never even think about lifting you up for a finisher or anything. Whenever you're outside the ring, they do everything in their power to keep you there instead of expressing their desire to get the match over with.

Anyway, I wasn't supposed to talk about the A.I. and gameplay mechanics, I was supposed to talk about the goal of the game. So, again, your goal is to become King of the Ring and win each of the six championships in the game: the Hardcore title, the European title, the Intercontinental title, the WWF title, strangely the Light Heavyweight title even if you're playing as a super heavyweight, and even more strangely, the Women's title. You can imagine how hard it is for one to contain himself when the Big Show is congratulated for becoming the NEEEEEEW WWF Women's Champion. Yes, it's very much possible. You need to beat all Divas in the game to win the title, and it's perfectly irrelevant whether you're really using a female character or the biggest guy in the game. An embarrassing mistake or some sick inside joke? I don't even want to know.

Stone Cold Hammerblow!

There are absolutely no rules in the game by default. There are several match types, but they're all of the standard variety. There are no count-outs or disqualifications, so you can spend as much time outside the ring as you want, and beat the opponent with any weapon you can possibly grab. Different weapons are the unlockables of the game. There are no substantial rewards for finding all possible weapons, and using some of them just feels hella stupid - like beating someone down with a pair of sunglasses.

I hope you realize that WWF Raw isn't exactly an awful game, it's just damn incomplete. The developers didn't quite think all of it through, and it's more than a bit too simple. It's hard to comprehend a sixth-generation title missing out on features that had been present in wrestling games for years. I don't understand why the game was made, other than the sake of capitalism. But, like I said, it's semi-entertaining. At least it has decent controls - as long as you're using a pad instead of the keyboard - and some of its quirks are amusing rather than really distracting.

GRAPHICS : 8.7
SOUND : 6.3
PLAYABILITY : 7.0
LIFESPAN : 5.5
CONCLUSION : 6.3

TRIVIA

a.k.a. WWF Raw Is War, WWE Raw

GameRankings: 52.87% (PC), 64.92% (Xbox)

Actually, this PC version of the game is called WWE Raw, just as every copy of the original Xbox game printed since May, 2002. This is due to the World Wildlife Fund's famous lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation over the use of the WWF abbreviation. In May, 2002, the World Wrestling Federation officially changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment. However, the WWF logo is used in the actual content of every version of the game instead of the slightly different WWE logo.

The game was supposed to be an Xbox launch title, but its release was delayed by a total of four months, due to the developers being forced to "clean up" the game, for example by removing all blood effects from it.

REVIEW - WWF Road to WrestleMania (2001)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: November 2001
AVAILABLE ON: GBA
DEVELOPER(S): Natsume
PUBLISHER(S): THQ
PLAYERS: 1-2

After assuming control of the WWF video game branch in 1999, THQ soon became quite busy in making exclusive titles for several platforms. By late 2001, they had already made a Nintendo 64 exclusive, the SmackDown! series on the PlayStation was underway, and there was also a yet untitled Xbox and PC game they were working on. The Nintendo 64 was nearing the end of its lifespan, but Nintendo had just released two new consoles for THQ to note: the Nintendo GameCube, and the 32-bit handheld Game Boy Advance. It took several months from THQ to publish their first GameCube exclusive, WWF WrestleMania X8, but they were able to quickly make a handheld exclusive to close the gap, as if to tell Nintendo fans they weren't forgotten. Well, WWF Road to WrestleMania sure feels like THQ was laughing at 'em.

Road to hell

The graphics are quite good, pretty standard Advance fare, though. The way entrances were translated into this very small form is quite innovative, but admittedly the frame-by-frame Titantron collages, topped off with some really awkward and unrecognizable MIDI versions of the theme songs look and feel quite damn stupid. Just by looking at the game, even before trying it, one can't help but feel that releasing a wrestling game on the Game Boy Advance, which has four action buttons at the most, is pure capitalism and nothing else. It simply cannot be much of a game. Sometimes, I just hate to be right. Oh, and about the sound. The theme songs indeed sound like crap, but there's some moderately well-sampled digitized speech, and quite tolerable background music.

Taker's getting totally mauled by D-Von Dudley
and Hardcore Holly. Which galaxy are we in,
again?

There are no editors of any kind besides the pay-per-view creator, which is fine - I'm glad they didn't even try 'cause I'm willing to bet it wouldn't have played out too good. There are 25 superstars in the game. All of them are men, and they come from all over the WWF, it's a quite even deal between main eventers and mid-carders - as if the structure of the roster would even matter since Billy Gunn or Gangrel can kick Stone Cold or Triple H's ass in no time. There's absolutely no trace of the qualities that THQ became known from during the decade. The game instead feels like it was made in the era THQ amounted to nothing. And, it feels like they're reminding us of the wrestling games Acclaim made in the early 90's. Only, Road to WrestleMania ain't even that responsive.

The controls are horrible. I don't remember when I've last played a game released during this century that would be as incoherent and heavy on your hands as Road to WrestleMania. The basic controls are simple, of course they are since there are only four buttons and the digital pad for you to use, but even the slightly advanced moves besides punching, kicking and grabbing the opponent are encrypted within some awkward combos that will have you seriously crunching and twisting your Advance unit. The speed and flow of general movement reminds me of the 8- and 16-bit games which used the same angle.

Triple H gets ready to "suck it".

There are a few more match types in the game that I originally expected: the standard matches include single and tag team matches, handicap matches and triple threat bouts. Then there's the steel cage match, Gauntlet, and Iron Man. The King of the Ring tournament and the Royal Rumble that have been present in these games for ages are still in, of course, as the least responsive versions of themselves, ever. The "Season" mode's just a collective of different match types and some extremely generic cutscenes to keep the extremely slim and primitive storyline in motion. There's nothing you haven't seen before in any wrestling game, which shouldn't be much of a surprise. To put it simply and frankly, the game doesn't really offer up anything except an exclusive 21st century look at how bad wrestling games used to be.

Being a handheld game is no excuse. Generic controls are one thing - absolutely abysmal controls, robotic movement and luck-based bodyslams are some wholly different deals. I seriously thought Road to WrestleMania would be a decent game - I didn't believe THQ could make any wrestling game for any platform that was totally incoherent, unplayable crap, but I guess I should have known right from the start that it wouldn't work.

GRAPHICS : 8.0
SOUND : 7.5
PLAYABILITY : 4.4
LIFESPAN : 3.9
CONCLUSION : 4.2

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 62.08%

REVIEW - WWF No Mercy (2000)

GENRE(S): Sports / Fighting
RELEASED: November 2000
AVAILABLE ON: N64
DEVELOPER(S): Aki Corporation
PUBLISHER(S): THQ
PLAYERS: 1-2

After doing its own share in making the WWF video game franchise popular again with the release of WWF WrestleMania 2000, THQ cooked up one more Nintendo 64 game - WWF No Mercy - a follow-up named after a rather new annual pay-per-view event held in October from 1999 to 2008. For years, I've been told that WWF No Mercy is the best professional wrestling game ever made. That's more than a "kinda" bold statement, so I headed into it with a bit sharper criticism than usual. I found a good game, but not really a notable enhancement from the previous game in my opinion. One new, very essential feature that has become a mainstay in THQ's series of wrestling games, versus almost identical gameplay - not the match I was hoping to see.

Expect no mercy from me

WWF SmackDown! for the PlayStation had been out for several months, and in my opinion, it was proven by that game that this video game franchise needed to break away from the Nintendo 64. The controls worked better than in any N64 game, and while the game wasn't exactly beautiful, it definitely looked better than anything cartridge-based. I think THQ felt sorry for Nintendo fans after jumping ship to Sony and making SmackDown! a PlayStation exclusive, that's why they made No Mercy exclusively for Nintendo. Something about the game pleased the usual audience of the wrestling genre - I don't know what it is, 'cause I don't see what's so God damn exciting about the game in comparison to the SmackDown! series. Sure, the SmackDown! Mall is in as a new feature, but other than that... nope, don't see it.

The graphics are better than in WWF WrestleMania 2000, but I'd be damned if any Nintendo 64 game ever was an actual sight to behold. No Mercy offers up pretty much the best graphics the flat 64 has in store for a third-party game. The original music composed by Tommy Tallarico isn't exactly his best work, and for some odd reason, all wrestlers don't have their theme songs on the soundtrack. Or their real entrances intact, at that. For example, it seems like The Undertaker's some kind of a filler to the roster, since he's missing both his real theme song, and the motorcycle he used to ride to ringside during his period as the American Bad Ass.

Otherwise, it's kind of useless to get into the pros and cons of the roster when there are 45 guys on the main roster, ten Divas, and a total of 19 unlockable wrestlers ranging from Mae Young to Andre the Giant, from Ken Shamrock to Linda McMahon. This time, Dude Love has been cast out on the behalf of Mick Foley as himself, which is a good solution in my view - I never liked the hippie. Kurt Angle finally makes his debut on the standard roster, and the late duo of Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit are here to represent, never to leave until death did them part.

The American Bad Ass don't give two shits
about some gold medals.

To keep a long story short, let's get into the new features of the game in comparison to WrestleMania 2000, right away. There are two new, notable match types: the ladder match and a special referee match. The ladder match doesn't work properly even in all modern games, so I don't feel the need to go into how shitty it is, period. The special referee match doesn't really work on its own, as an exhibition match. In the more recent games, it has been cool during careers to occasionally take on the guise of a referee, but in this context, the mode's only unnecessary decoration. The Royal Rumble can now have up to 40 participants, and the survival mode is a deathly gauntlet of 100 superstars. I guess this is what the "no mercy" in the title of the game means.

The career mode has gone under some major changes, and after a disappointing, rough start, I'm starting to feel the electricity of the game once getting started on that. The storylines are different depending on which WWF title you're going for, and they develop and branch to all different directions according to your track record. Regardless of who you're playing as, the storylines are adaptations of actual, classic feuds from recent history; the possibility of reliving the best damn rivalry in WWF history, Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. The Rock, is one of the things that helps this game shine just that little bit more.

Creating a wrestler is once again possible, though once again and just this once more, you can't save him/her, or your general progress at that, without a Controller Pak. You can play as your alter ego for the duration of one single session, which to my knowledge really wasn't possible in WrestleMania 2000. There are a lot of different options in accessories and clothing, and you can even create a separate entrance attire to your abomination, but there's no way of really modifying your wrestler's body mass to your liking, for example.

The SmackDown! Mall is the game's most important new feature, and the one thing that makes WWF No Mercy some sort of milestone in my opinion. It's a store, from which you can buy movesets, unlockable characters, weapons, props, accessories, you name it, with the money you make playing the game. It takes some time to unlock everything in the game and it gives you one additional dose of desire to keep playing the Career Mode over and over again, and see all possible outcomes of important wins and losses.

Sure I think the game's good, but the classic it's made out to be by the majority? No, it's simply not enough of a step forward in my opinion, and when I imagine myself playing it when it came out, I find myself wanting to turn to the PlayStation and its WWF SmackDown! instead. Maybe it was a simple game without a hint of simulation in it - but in my opinion, there was no return to the Nintendo 64 after DualShock controls were applied to a professional wrestling game. Just a matter of opinion.

NOTE: Sorry for the insufficient amount of screenshots. Technical problems.

GRAPHICS : 8.4
SOUND : 7.0
PLAYABILITY : 7.5
LIFESPAN : 8.3
CONCLUSION : 7.6

TRIVIA

GameRankings: 85.10%