Boros tries to get back into the WWE video games that he used to love, but picked the wrong game to start with.
The first thing I tried was the creation mode, which makes sence. It's why I love these games in the first place. The creation modes in this game is f@%king amazing! They do almost all of the things that I questioned why they couldn't be done in the first place. It's really in depth! Creating the character's look in three different areas of play; Ring, Entrance, and Cinematics. One of those is pretty much useless, but we'll get to that later. Also, creating the entrance for your character is awesome as well, because of all of the different things that can be done here. You can trigger fireworks whenever you want as well. Timing it perfectly with raising the arms in the entrance is an awesome spectacle. You can also use whatever music that you want to by using the music on the XBox Dashboard. I always wondered why that couldn't be done in 2007. The only problem I have with this is that it's very difficult to design delay, because you have to pick an intro that isn't very specific on the timing. It's like trying to dodge traffic in New York City blindfolded. There's also making your own videos, finishers, and move sets. It really is a complete package of customization.
The real problems start with the gameplay. Now, I loved the system where they showed which body parts were damaged and how much they were damaged, so I begrudged S v. R 2008 for using this stupid bar system to show damage. However, in WWE 12, there pretty much... nothing. There's nothing at all to show where the damage is, so submissions can seem impossible until you realize that that's not the right body part. It DOES work on the system that I liked but it doesn't show you any of that, so it's just a s#!tty guess.
Also, there seems to be one hell of a problem with Steel Cage matches. The object of them is to escape a steel cage surronding the ring, and the only way to escape is over the top of the cage. There's a weird system of climbing the cage where a bar moves back and forth and to move, you hit the button to stop the bar and that's how fast you move. You have to hit the bar 5 times to escape. However, your opponents can completely mess up your climb and you'll have to start all over. In the old games, the way to prevent this is to beat your opponent so s#!tless that they'll stay down for about 30 minutes so you can escape. However, in this system, that's impossible because your opponents will only stay down for an amounted time, because they can only take so much damage. I was playing as the Undertaker who is a power type, going agianst Shaemus, and Christian who are a power type and a balance type respectively. I played no joke for 3 and a half hours, and delivered at least 15 finishers to both of them, and still couldn't get out of the damned cage because they'd always get up as soon as I got on the cage. I eventually gave up on that s#!t and just changed the damned match. How do you break a match type THAT bad? Sadly, in terms of gameplay, it's not the most annoying problem of the game.
The dogde system is the most annoying thing gameplay wise in the game. It's feels so damned presise to use, and the computer can do it like it's a 20 year veteran at the game, and that's on the NORMAL difficulty. Battles with the CPU feel like nothing but a dodge fest, and who can land the first hit wins most of the time. I spent 10 minutes in one of these dodge fests, with no successful hits at all. It's broken and feels like trying to swim up a river of bricks. It makes the game almost unplayable, but I was thinking "Fine, whatever. The customizing is so good, that I can just watch the matches like I used to." However, to unlock most of the things, I had to play through the Road to Wrestlemania story mode. I had bad expieriences with this in the past, but I had no idea what kind of s#!t awaited me.
It starts out as playing the villian's story, and you play as Shaemus. One thing that I had to realize very quickly is that there's no pin button, but instead you simply have to beat your opponent s#!tless until a prompt pops up, and when your in just the right comditions, push the Y button. Most of the story mode matches are like this, and it amounts to heavily scripted bulls#!t. Hey, just like the real WWE. Well, can't really fault them for being realistic... Wait a minute. YES, I F@%KING CAN! Nobody should ever sacrifice gameplay experience for an extra dash of realism. The kinds of people that say realism is a make or break in a game is the kind of gamer I disassociate myself from when given ANY opportunity to do so. Why shouldn't gameplay be sacrificed for realism? Because it doesn't aid the story usually, it just messes up the gameplay, and especially in this case when there's very little story to begin with. It acts like an actual episode of WWE, and those stories tend to be more like those morning dramas moms like to watch. Any way you slice it, the stories are boring, so sacrificing gameplay for realism just adds to the frustration that this game causes, rather than help any semblance of story. The second story is called the outsider story, and you play as Triple H. This story isn't nearly as bad with the scripting, and actually can come across as fun to play for a while. It has some scripted matches, which includes the final fight in the story, which is bulls#!t, but actually has the best story, and is semi-fun to play. However, little did I know that the nail that would seal the f@%king coffin was just around the corner.
The final story that I know of is the hero story, and at the beginning of it, you have to select a created character. My thought was "OK! Awesome! Maybe I misjudged this game." So I then proceed to select my created character. The one that took me about 4 hours to finish building. Then I notice that they started refurring to him as Jacob Cass. That's a little weird, but ok. Then I got into a backstage brawl, and his moves were signifigantly different. I had given him the spear as his running grapple, and it changed into some running insigiri style thing. That sucked, well I stupidly kept going and realized that the entrance that I'd worked so hard on had also changed. That's when I looked up what was going on, and it turns out that it completely erases everything about the character, except the look, and replaces it with stuff that is utterly generic. It had also been saved like that, and overwrites the character. Wasn't given any warning that the game would do so, just it straight did it. So my created character was now officially Jacob Cass, and easily about 2 and a half hours of work *thphpht* down the damned toilet. That was the last straw! The game still had the return policy in tact, so I hauled it off to the store and got my f@%king money back!
In conclusion, the customizing is really amazing. Even having the ability to make your own story lets you pretty much bypass the Road to Wrestlemania, and make your own damned game. However, having a game where I mode is completely awful, along with the gameplay issues leads me to believe that the game wasn't worth the $30 I payed for it. Maybe I'll buy it when it's $10, and I might have been kinder to it had it not p!ssed me off so much. Right now though, it's just not worth it.