WWE All Stars

When I was younger I loved wrestling. They all just seemed larger than life, and I was invested in all the storylines and characters in the WWF. Of course, when the WCW came along I jumped ship, mostly because it was what my best friend watched; he knew Billy Kidman. There, I learned to love lucha libre style wrestling, though Sting was by far my favorite wrestler. Of course, I still watched WWF from time to time - mostly for Mick Foley and Undertaker. I was never a huge fan of Stone Cold or The Rock. And then, around the time that WCW was bought by WWF, I lost interest. Then along came WWE All Stars; a game that combines an excellent roster with an exaggerated art style. What isn’t to like about that?


WWE All Stars came out earlier this year on every console that has even a little life in it (PS2? Seriously?) As far as I can tell, wrestling fans loved it, while everyone else completely ignored it. This is kind of sad, because it’s not a wrestling game: it’s a 3D fighting game. The gameplay and visuals are intended to replicate what you thought wrestling looked like as a kid, and at that they succeed quite well.

The controls are easy to pick up and will be familiar to anyone who has played a wrestling game in the past. There are buttons for light and strong strikes and grapples, while the right bumper acts as both a block and counter button; the left bumper is supposedly for countering grapples, but I never used it. Left trigger is for getting in and out of the ring, climbing the turnbuckle and pinning your opponenets, while the right trigger is for running. Pretty simple stuff, really. It’s when you start combining all the buttons that it gets fun, as there is a simple combo system in place, including limited air juggling, while the fact that almost every move can be countered makes everything feel very dynamic.

There are three meters to keep track of - health, special and finisher. As your health goes down, you’re more likely to be stunned by powerful moves, it is easier to pin you and the opponent has an easier time escaping the cage in cage matches. The special meter fills as you successfully attack the opponent and is split into three sections; one full section is used to fuel one of your special moves, which are triggered by pressing either B+Y or A+Y. Every wrestler has two or more special moves, depending on where you are in relation to your opponent. These are all the actual signature moves of the wrestles cranked up to eleven; The Undertaker jumps five feet up holding his opponent for the choke slam, Ultimate Warrior throws the opponent roughly ten feet, and so on. The special meter also drains as you run, so you can’t just run everywhere. The finisher meter, also filled when you hit your opponent, allows you to perform (surprise!) your wrestler’s finisher when it is full. All of these do a ton of damage and, if you hit an opponent with no health, instantly win you the game. They are, once again, simply the wrestler’s finishing moves cranked up to eleven, with some good slow motion effects thrown in. For the record, my favorite finisher is Macho Man’s flying elbow drop or Rey Mysterio’s 619, neither of which needed to be exaggerated all that much.

Game modes are pretty standard - there are the 1v1, Triple Threat, Fatal Four Way, Handicap and Tag Team matches all of which can be done under Extreme Rules, and all but 1v1 can have elimination rules. 1v1 also has the option of cage matches, and all Tag Team matches are using Tornado Tag rules; no tagging necessary, all wrestlers are always in the ring. These are all fun, though the weapons hardly come into play during the Extreme Rules, and I wish there was some more variation. It would be nice to have a ladder or table match, and I would love for there to be options for a Royal Rumble. Still, it is adequate.

The primary single player mode is the Path of Champions. There are three of these; Superstar, Tag and Legend, and each have entertaining cut scenes where the final boss taunts you - Randy Orton, Degeneration X or The Undertaker. The cut scenes, which are modeled after the promos wrestlers do, have good voice work and fit the characters involved very well. The Undertaker’s in particular has the always amusing Paul Bearer, while Degeneration X display some awareness of the fact that they are in a videogame. Randy Orton is a bit boring, but I think that’s just how he is.

However, the best single player mode is definitely Fantasy Warfare, which pairs up the superstars and legends and has you play out the match. In addition to being how you unlock wrestlers (Kane is locked at the beginning? Blasphemy) they edited together live footage as an intro to each match. Most of the pairings are fairly easy to grasp - Andre the Giant vs. Big Show, Mr. Perfect vs. The Miz and Sgt. Slaughter vs. Jack Swagger are pretty obvious if you know the characters - while some of the pairings are surprisingly well done. In particular, Stone Cold vs. CM Punk as a battle of lifestyles is inspired, and the video is fantastically edited to make it seem like they were actually having a feud. There are a few disappointing ones - Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio makes sense, but they’ve wrestled so often it’s pointless, and Jake “the Snake” Roberts would be better matched against someone who is just as untrustworthy instead of Randy Orton, who would be the perfect match for Goldberg if he was in the game. I liked the Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker match the least, because all they did was recycle the feud that led to Shawn’s last match at Wrestlemania, and it just felt lazy all around. Overall, this is definitely a good mode, and the matches are surprisingly fun.

I can’t really say much about online - I played one match, and the person I was facing disconnected when I was about to win. It seemed a bit laggy, though it’s hard to tell if that’s because my internet is terrible. My biggest problem with it is that they don’t use the common sense fix of the person who disconnects getting a loss, which leads to leaderboards that don’t mean anything.

I saved my favorite part of wrestling game for last: character creation! Sadly, this is one of the areas where this game lags behind. The clothing options are alright, and you can manipulate the body shape in plenty of ways, but you can’t customize your moveset. Instead, you simply choose a pre-existing wrestler’s moves, and then add a finisher (most of which have to be unlocked by playing a lot of matches with that wrestler). You can also choose an Entrance, but the generic themes are mostly disappointing and you have to unlock every single other theme by playing as the wrestler in question. It just gets tedious after a while. This seems to be a huge step back, as the wrestling games I was playing on the N64 had a more comprehensive character creation system.

Overall, this is a very good game. The announcer’s suck, as they always do, and the character creation is extremely limited (which didn’t stop me from making six wrestlers…) but the gameplay and overall presentation is top notch. If you’re a wrestling fan, this is a must-buy. Anyone else should at least rent it, as it might surprise you.

8/10: Small flaws, but well worth your time and money.