I’ve been planning this review for a while now, but I have held off in order genuinely think everything through before I say it.
First of all, I want to mention that I have bought and played every WWE title since Here Comes the Pain on the PS2. I am a big fan of the series. But with just about everything we love, we find things to hate. WWE12 has a lot of things to hate. However, I will also be talking about this games production, what has gone wrong, and what they can do to fix it.
Fans of the WWE games will enjoy this game. I want to throw that out there before anything. This year, like every year, there is a slight learning curve. THQ has changed the buttons around (again) and the matches have become more difficult because of it. It’s not THAT much harder than it used to be, but it is a step up.
The AI is still very cheap though. Two new things they added this year is the “comeback moment” and an updated “finisher reversal”. Basically, when you beat your opponent down enough, they have the option of a “comeback” which will start a chain of moves that result from button presses. If you complete them all, you get a finisher. This sucks when you are facing a really strong opponent and you get them weak enough to pin, hit your finisher, and they comeback only to hit a finisher on you and win. You do have the opportunity to break their comeback combos at least, but you have to be quick about it. Quicker than your opponent at least. You can also reverse a finisher and then automatically receive a finisher of your own. This can also get annoying when you work for a while to finally build one up and your opponent reverses it and uses it on you. Finishers can be VERY difficult to reverse, but the computer seems to be able to do it quite flawlessly. Whenever I play, the AI player will always reverse the first finisher I throw at it, but succumb to the second, so I literally have to build up 2 finishers, have them reverse the first, and hit them with my second one before they can use the one they stole. It’s just kind of dumb that it’s THAT predictable.
A feature they added they I actually love is the wake-up taunts. When a player has a finisher built up and the opponent is on the ground, you can hit a taunt and the player will groggily rise into position for your finisher. As nice as it is though, it’s only cool when it works. It can often times be annoying when an opponent uses it on you and you fail to reverse their finisher. It’s also a pain when you get them to stand up and they reverse your finisher, hit you with it, and win.
All of the AI problems can be solved however if you play against human players, which leads me to my next point: online servers. I’ve played the WWE games mostly on Xbox over the years, but this is the first one I bought for the PS3 with the sole purpose to take advantage of Playstation’s free online. I was sick of having to pay for Xbox’s live service but I really wanted to play online matches. PS3 is great for that!! And all the better, THQ announced that WWE12 would be running on their own personal, brand new servers which would theoretically get rid of all the lagging server problems of the past. The problem is, THQ was completely unprepared for this kind of deal. It has been months since the games release and their servers are still constantly down. The matches I did get to play online actually played fairly lag-less for the most part, but only if I played a 1 on 1 match up. 4 or 6 player brawls lagged so bad I could barely move. The shittiness of the online experience after all of the hype from THQ is something I will get into more later.
Other things I like about the game is as follows: The gameplay is still fun, basically because it’s the same gameplay as it’s always been. The roster is decently large and has just about everyone on their roster. The amount of DLC this year was also pretty sizable. Create an Arena is a nice touch. Being able to string together names for your custom characters to be called as they come to the ring is awesome (my college professor Ricardo Washington actually has his name in the game! :D) The overall graphic design and look of the menus is also very nice as compared to previous years. And of course there is Universe Mode which has improved from its amazing debut last year. This time around feuds actually build and carry over from week to week and can actually be pretty exciting.
Now lets get to the bad stuff! This game can be glitchy as hell. I’ve always seen horrifying glitches from WWE games in the past, but I’ve never really experienced anything that bad when I’ve played. I honestly think they are worse on the PS3 for some reason. Probably because the games are made for the 360 and are ported over to the Playstation. However this can be chalked up to the amount of time THQ has to make these games, which is less than a year. That’s fucking ridiculous for a videogame and is mainly the reason why these games come out so unpolished every year. I don’t usually play sports titles, but I can only assume all sports games end up like this, which is dumb.
Good, polished games can take years to produce. THQ and Yukes get not even a single year to produce these WWE titles EVERY SINGLE YEAR! I want to tell WWE to just stop and release a game once every other year, that way they can actually go through and fix the bugs and release a title that actually works. The problem with that plan though is that the fans are so blinded by whatever it is they are blinded by, that they go gaga over these games and simply overlook these glaring problems. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to pay 60 bucks for a game, I want it to work! If I bought a piece of electronics for 60 bucks and it didn’t work, I could return it and get one that would. Why should I put up with this kind of shit in a video game?
The time constraints and budget also result in models and animations getting over used year after year after year. Some characters get revamped while other brand new characters get made very quickly. Sin Cara was added to this year’s game at the last second. His model looks like trash but his finisher looks good and his entrance is spot on amazing! But if they can make Sin Cara so quickly, why can’t they do that with everything else? How come Santino has the same entrance and model from 5 years ago? How come goddamn Chris Jericho isn’t in the game at all even though he was in last years game!?
A lot of these problems is a result of time and budget and frankly a bunch of miscommunication between THQ and WWE. There are a couple things that I think are just pure laziness on the part of the production team. Two of by biggest gripes this year are art related. First of all, JR is a downloadable character. Great! Awesome! But there’s one thing: his sleeves. I know this is a small problem, but it’s proof of the laziness I am suspecting here. In JR’s profile image, he is wearing a long sleeved, white shirt with a red football jersey over top of it. His in game model however has the sleeves modeled, but they are the same red as the jersey! Does anyone else not think that just looks weird? It looks bad! It looks like someone didn’t finish the fucking texture job! I could go in and drop in some white on those sleeves in literally 10 seconds, but NOOOOO! That’s just too much work for THQ. “Just ship it as is! Fuck it! No one will even care.” I paid money for this game’s DLC and I get unfinished character models. Great!
The second art related mishap is Booker fucking T! They ROYALLY fucked up this time. JR got off easy with his untextured sleeves. At least he LOOKED like fucking JR! Booker T looks NOTHING like himself!!! WHAT!? You are going to seriously add a character into this game, a character that hasn’t been in a WWE title in a number of years; you’re going to make a big deal about him and have a big reveal only to have his model look like utter shit!?
………………………………............................................
Here’s the thing: THQ is going out of business. Their stock is plummeting. It’s bad news. But frankly, I hope they lose WWE. I think they currently have a contract with them through 2014, so they’ll probably have to go out of business in order for this to happen, but so be it. As much as I hate to say so, EA might be able to do a better job with this franchise than THQ. EA at least has teams of fucking amazing artists who would actually be able to bust out exact depictions of all the wrestlers, as well as not be ok with releasing half-assed animations and gameplay glitches. Of course, WWE would probably have to pay a little more money to make this happen, but I think if anyone could talk them into it, it would be EA. WWE hasn’t a clue what it takes to make these games! EA makes nothing BUT these kinds of games.
The only thing THQ still has going for it is their marketing team, which I will admit, is golden. These guys can feed you shit and make you like it like nobody else. They tagged WWE12 with the tag line: “BIGGER! BADDER! BETTER!!!” Whoo! That’s great! They built up the hype so strong! They admitted that past years have been iffy but this year, OH! This year would be different. This year is the betterment of “core gameplay”. Revamping the whole structure to make the best experience ever.
Then the game is released.
THQ goes silent.
THQ quietly apologizes for the bad servers.
THQ somberly releases its DLC.
And then……. WRESTLEFEST on the iphone!! Hey everyone! Look over here! New WWE game for IOS!! Look at this! It’s a throw back to wrestling games of old! Best experience ever!!
Hey! What about WWE12!? You guys aren’t going to do anything about this?
No THQ. No. Fuck you. Fuck all of your and your shit. Fuck. Your. Shit.
THQ: You may have thousands of other people fooled, but you haven’t fooled me. You can expect to keep taking money from those thousands of other people, but you aren’t getting anymore money from me. I’m publicly announcing in this blog that I am not buying another WWE game from THQ. As much as I loved AllStars and as much as I will probably continue to play WWE12, enough is enough. It’s seriously bullshit.
Pros:
The game is still enjoyable, especially if you are a fan of the franchise
AI is more competitive than previous years
Couple added perks as well as updated Universe mode
Cons:
Stupid, lazy mistakes
Still glitchy
Booker T is ruined (I can’t even play as him because I’m so disgusted, so it’s as if he isn’t even in the game)
The relationship between THQ and WWE is a complete failure
Screw WWE. DrawSomething is awesome and here's why. It's a fun IOS game you can play with your friends. It's basically like pictionary. You are given a word and you draw that word and your opponent has to guess the word. Coins are then awarded accordingly. It's great! The game is also free (currently) and AD FREE (for the moment) AND THE BEST PART..... IT WASN'T MADE BY ZYNGA!!!! HOORAAYYYY!!
