Features

Chojin · #1

Picked this up at launch last week.

I had heard terrible things, but was thinking "honestly, they don't change shit from year to year, how badly could they fuck it up?"

Well, for the most part I was correct, but since this was one of the major reasons I wanted a 360, I have a list of complaints:

Season mode stuff!
- Every angle in the season mode is stupid and ends after 1 month (except for the months before Wrestlemania, but that's the same angle every year)
- There are literally only like 6 cutscenes that play during season mode, and the game will USUALLY play the wrong ones (winning, but being the one getting laughed at, etc)
- TONS and TONS of ridiculous bugs, mostly in scripting in season mode. (There's actually a part where you get a call from Cena at the beginning of March, and he repeats his lines twice and then asks the engineer "You want me to get it perfect?")
- Playing through season mode like you're supposed to - day by day, training, and doing extra-curricular activities - will always net you a popularity of 0 and extremely low skills, and when you just skip from event to event you become a legend in no time.
- "R&R" costs you 15 popularity - even though you don't do it during a show - and is the main reason that manually going through season mode doesn't net you shit
- You get 0 money in season mode with a new caw, but can pick up $1.5 Million in under 5 minutes by starting a season with someone like Orton and telling the game to sim from day 1 all the way through to Wrestlemania
- You can't go to ECW during season mode
- You can't be a girl in season mode (still)
- No 2-player season mode (still)

Online stuff!
- Every single match, without fail, has the lowest bandwidth rating possible and is often too laggy to play
- Movable designs can't be taken online (presumably so you can't write DICK FUCKSTAR on your dude's tights, yet, voice chat is still there)
- There are tons of moves you can do online that force the camera to focus on you while you do something stupid like screw with a member of the audience, which can be spammed to prevent anyone from playing
- You can't take more than one person online per xbox. Seriously, why can't a local friend pick up a controller to be my tag partner?
- No CPUs allowed online, and if anyone leaves the match, it's all over
- No real retribution for disconnecting
- Everyone online has a rating of 99 and is tempered from solid adamantium

Other stuff!
- The ground choke is unblockable and one of the common back drops does literally 0 damage
- Tons of CAW bugs - letters on hats are ridiculously tiny STILL, AFTER FOUR OR MORE GAMES
- All of Benoit's moves have been erased from history, even though Michaels just put Orton in the crossface last Sunday
- Adding in custom music is cool, but in order to do it, you have to go back to the xbox dashboard, go to media, create a playlist, put ONE song in it, then name that playlist. Then, in the game you can pull up that playlist as someone's song. But uh, why not just let us pick from the hard disk?
- The game still spends most of its time at various loading screens. Why not load while we watch the ridiculous cutscenes and entrances?
- I have yet to receive any of the achievements I've earned, and I did receive one that I definitely did NOT earn ("Escape Artist" - escape from every ultimate control move - achieved by kicking Jeff Hardy in the face)
- The undertaker (and possibly others) can be frozen in place indefinitely in the elimination chamber match
- Doing a high-flier's ACTION DODGE uses 0 stamina

What the fuck, THQ? You fuckers have been using the same engine for the past 20 years; Why don't you just use all of your dev time on '09 fixing the retarded amount of errors?

That said, the gameplay itself is marginally improved from last year, great work guys!

Sam · #2

I got the Escape Artist Achievement by using Jeff Hardy and hitting The Masterpiece with a springboard moonsault.

Also a couple bugs i've seen are: being called "The Champion" while you are not any kind of champion and sometimes they say you are from the wrong show.

darkvare · #3

people still buy wrestling games? the only wrestling esque games i like are the def jam series
an only 1 and 2 icon sucked

Chojin · #4

http://vgchartz.com/aweekly.php

Yes, "people still buy wrestling games."

darkvare · #5

wow thats really low anyways the only sports games i get are fifas

EisigerBiskuit · #6

If I had to choose between Madden Games and Wrestling games each year, I'd choose railroad spike

Chojin · #7

I agree, making up all your development costs in 1 week is really lowaosidiugnrignrgij oisjfsiofj asriogsrg

Jeff The Ninja · #8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chojin

- I have yet to receive any of the achievements I've earned, and I did receive one that I definitely did NOT earn ("Escape Artist" - escape from every ultimate control move - achieved by kicking Jeff Hardy in the face)

But, it is guaranteed to sell more copies than Fire Pro Returns. And that sucks.

Chojin · #9

Fire Pro Wrestling was fucking terrible, dude.

Jeff The Ninja · #10

Fire Pro Wrestling is awesome, Compared to smackdown, Its a different kind of wrestling game. While Smackdown is more of an Arcade style game, Fire Pro takes a more realistic approach with match pacing and damage. I like how in Fire Pro you cant go for the triple powerbomb pin into a German Suplex at the start of a match, you have to work your way up with strikes and basic bodyslams before you can do any of the big stuff.

Chojin · #11

You can't do strong grapples in smackdown vs raw right at the beginning, either. Some movesets simply don't allow it without body damage, and for the others it's really simple to counter out of it. In the beginning, you have to use strikes and quick grapples to wear someone down before you can do the moss-covered 3-handled credenza.

Also, fire pro wrestling is 2D and looks like a game I used to play in the arcade when I was five.

Jeff The Ninja · #12

True enough about the gameplay. But you must realize that the last smackdown game i played was SvR 06. And unless there was a major change to the gameplay withing two years, i dont see how its any different from the previous eleventyseven smackdown games that have been released this past decade (besides stamina that was put in 06 and the new submission system that actually seems gimmicky when they show it on the commercials). Even all the shitty animations are still there. I appreciate the effort that yukes has been putting into the games to make them more realistic, but it kind of kills the feeling of realism to watch Shawn Micheals flop on the ground like he simuntaniously got blasted in the ass with a bolt of lightning and having a epiletic seizure after getting hit with a stunner.

That being said, me and my friends will probably play the hell out of this one like we did with 06 and with Fire Pro D for the Dreamcast.

AlliSabbah · #13

I have found a disturbing problem with the gameplay in SD vs Raw 2008. When it comes time to make a choice. Not very often this time around unfortunately.

It has a tendancy to have you do the exact opposite instead. That and the fact that even though I won a qualifier match when it was over it ran the scenario as if I lost saying that I had to say goodbye to my title shot.

I wonder if I had lost if it would have congratulated me? I hate to admit it but they did not quite work out the bugs in this one and knowing what I do now I probably wouldnt have gotten it.

Guitar Woman · #14

You know, Def Jam is better than any game in this thread.

AlliSabbah · #15

I Played the first Def Jam briefly. It just didn't do anything for me.

Almost forgot to ask are the later Def Jam games any better than the first one? If so I may give them a try.

Guitar Woman · #16

I love Fight for New York :<

Sam · #17

Def Jam: Fight For New York is the best Def Jam game, and one of the better fighting games that have been made in the last 10 years. I wish they'd remake it. ;_;

Fighting all the rappers with Henry Rollins always made me smile.

AlliSabbah · #18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam

Def Jam: Fight For New York is the best Def Jam game, and one of the better fighting games that have been made in the last 10 years. I wish they'd remake it. ;_;

Fighting all the rappers with Henry Rollins always made me smile.

Now that sounds promising.

darkvare · #19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam

Def Jam: Fight For New York is the best Def Jam game, and one of the better fighting games that have been made in the last 10 years. I wish they'd remake it. ;_;

Fighting all the rappers with Henry Rollins always made me smile.

he was cool but his blazing sucked