Realmscapes

Day of Reckoning 2 (with CAW link)

I've finally obtained the sequel to last year's WWE Day of Reckoning (hereby referred to as "DOR2"). And so far, it is looking very VERY good. Right off the bat I will say this: there is barely a difference between a wrestler and his pixelated counterpart. The graphics--ALL the graphics are that good and accurate! The 3D crowd almost makes playing the game dizzying at times.

Venues: The first thing I checked out was the variety of arenas that you can wrestle at. Weighing in at eighteen different venues-including Heat and Velocity!-even the N64's No Mercy comes in second place here (which had "only" a dozen). Heat hasn't been on a Nintendo wrestling game since WWF Attitude, the N64's first WWF game (back in '99), and no Nintendo platform game has ever had the Saturday morning show's venue.

I am stoked at the amount of shows and arenas in the game! The best way to set the atmosphere for a WWF wrestling experience is to be able to wrestle at all the available venues. And of all of them, The Great American Bash venue is my favorite (not surprising). It's stunning with all the American flags and patriotic dressing.

And speaking of '99's Attitude, it's still the only game that had a create-a-PPV feature that let you even design the color of the ring ropes, ring banners, and other stage items. Being able to put wrestlers in a ring that resembled a SummerSlam ring (complete with red white and blue ring ropes) from the mid-90's is ultimate coolness that I still want to have back--enough to take the "+" off of the grade.
Grade: A

Create-a-wrestler: The next immediate stop was right to the create-a-wrestler to make the wrestling incarnation of my "secret life": Josh England. Josh is the sleighted protege of the great Bret "Hitman" Hart. He wrestles to avenge his mentor and to bring honour, passion, and viciousness to an otherwise lacking World Wrestling Federation.

DOR2's CAW feature is happily not nearly as daunting as the feature was in DOR1 and WrestleMania XIX. CAW is a great feature, but the previous two feature were so focused on the miniscule that it was definately too much. The coolest thing about the CAW in the DOR series is that you can customize your entrance right from the point of camera angles to the timing of pyro and lighting. This is one of my favorite parts of CAW since a wrestler's entrance is half the fun of watching wrestling. Freak, without great entrances, Hulk Hogan is just another Bob Backlund.

Anyway, they still haven't carried over my character's long-tights from No Mercy, so the grade gets dicked for that.
Grade: A

Available Roster: Wow! For the first time in awhile there is not one single person that shouldn't have been on this game's roster. It's even got rookies Chris Masters and Muhammed Hassan (who I am very happy they kept in the game). That's a first since No Mercy too! There's always people that are absent that you think should be there, but no obvious ones (like JBL!, Rene Dupree, and Heidenreich that weren't on DOR).

When I first saw the roster a few months back, not seeing the Dudleys and Charlie Haas made me scratch my head--but it makes sense now. S'okay, the Dudleys weren't doing much leading up to their release so.. The only "hm" ommissions that I can see is La Resistance (even tho they're split up now) and Rosie.
Grade: A+

Unlockable Characters: Absolutely nothing to complain about here. They've got Austin, Rock, Mankind, Hogan and...The Hitman.. and complete with his music this time! (A huge disappointment from DOR1). There can't possibly be a better line-up of unlockacble characters, and these gave me reason to (finally) trade in WMXIX. BTW, this game uses the original version of the Hulkster, not current the "Hollywood" incarnation.

Something else I liked was that Austin, Mankind, and Bret were all unlockable simply by wrestling X amount of Exhibition matches. So over the half of the legends are pretty much playable right out of the gate. Personally, I think that Rock should have been unlockable in Exhibition and Bret in story mode.. but whatever.
Grade: A+

My only gripe (still.. and thus pretty much killing the game's chance of getting anything higher than an "A") is that a wrestler's attire or entrance music is not alterable. This was possible in both WrestleMania 2000 and No Mercy, and I can't figure out why they don't allow this. Perhaps with the fact there are no factions, and a weak tag team division, the lack of this won't seem as bad. But I hate seeing a wrestler in the same ring attire time after time. Granted, you can make a new version of the wrestler in CAW, but I'd much rather save those slots for Diesel, Razor, Andre, Macho Man, Jake the Snake, Cactus Jack etc.

I have just started Story Mode, so nothing to report there yet. It does sound pretty cool.. or at least better than DOR1 (which I didn't think was that bad). It also looks like there is no brand-splits in the game and I love that.

LOVE the new Submission mechanic btw. It adds a whole new dimension and accurately reflects what technical wrestling is all about.

NOTE: If you are looking for CAW templates, try this site out. They have a good collection of external links.

The Coming Revolution

I paid very close attention to E3 this year. As a Nintendo loyalist at heart, I have been very disappointed with what isn't available on the Cube. It's a great system that seems to get passed up solely based on graphics. But you know: I'm a gamer, not a visual collector. I don't care how great a game looks graphically. If it plays like garbage, then it's garbage. I have never needed good graphics to capture my interest. Some games need "bad" graphics in order to capture their ruggedness. Legends of Wrestling is one good example of what many consider to be "bad grapics".

But alas. It seems that if I am to ever play any of the recent Star Wars games, I am going to have to invest in an Xbox. I just don't have the capital right now to tech out a computer or get Alien Ware. There are some other Xbox exclusives that look to have some nice gameplay such as Jade Empire. And I've always wanted to check out the Wolfenstein game. There are others too, but the jist of this post is based on E3. I was watching E3 because I wanted to know if I should invest in an Xbox now, or wait for the new 360. And the verdict is...

Buy one Now.

Everything I've heard about the new Xbox is that it is being rushed to the public in an effort to be first. The result is going to be games that are only 80-85% complete. Also--and this was a big factor for me--it doesn't seem as though the new console is going to be able to play the original version's games. As stated above, the whole reason I want an Xbox is so that I can have the Star Wars games. Even if it turns out that the games will be compatible, I doubt I will have the $250+ to spend on a system whose graphics output isn't going to be that much better, and whose initial listing of games don't interest me at all. I tend to play licenced games anyway, and there are plenty on the original Xbox to keep me busy for awhile. And while I'm sure the newest Star Wars games will probably be for the 360, hopefully by then I'll have enough money to do the computer tech-ing I mentioned earlier.

The news that really excited me coming out of E3 was about Nintendo's Revolution. It will be the cheapest of the three new consoles ($350-$400 for a PS3!!!), but the coolest thing of all is that at least the majority of the Nintendo library from the original NES right through the Gamecube will be available to play on the system!! Apparently how it is going to work is that you will be able to go online and download the older games to a computer chip in the console. Games I never got to play (e.g. Castlevania, Super Star Wars, MegaMan, Super Mario 2 &3, and Zelda--long story) as well as some of my favorites I no longer can play (e.g. Rad Racer, Excitebike, RC Pro AM, Top Gun II, Midway, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon, Contra, Bionic Commando) because my Mom got rid of my system will all be available once more!

See what I mean? I don't need kick-butt graphics. Just a fun and challenging gaming experience. And Revolution goes one further, allowing us to go back into our childhod and relive great gaming memories! My money is definately waiting for a Revolution.