PixlBit

I've basically been a wrestling fan three times in my life. When I was ten, I first discovered the (then) WWF, and loved to watch Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka. I got pulled back in around 1998 with the release of WWF Warzone for the PSX, and came to enjoy The Rock, Triple H, and The Hurricane. Most recently I've gotten back into the wrestling scene, thanks to some entertaining people like John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, and CM Punk. So, while I haven't been a wrestling fan the entire time, I can appreciate what THQ has done with WWE All-Stars: a game that takes all of those eras and allows those wrestlers to go toe to toe.

WWE All-Stars makes a great first impression, thanks to the larger than life caricatures of the Legends and Superstars present on the roster. Featuring an art style that makes the Superstars look more like action figures or comic characters, All-Stars looks different right out of the gate. And that's something vital to the success of this game; it feels fresh. Smackdown has been carefully balancing an aging engine and animation suite that dates back to the PS2. Even with yearly improvements the game has felt stale for a long time now. Not so with All-Stars; these are brand new animations running on a new engine.

Well, new to the Smackdown series, as this marks the first time the Unreal Engine has been used with the WWE property. What we get is a game that looks great and has some carefully crafted and intricate animations, including the stunning reversals. Even though All-Stars has less in the way of actual moves and contextual actions, what is here looks great and will make even a wrestling hater stop and stare. It should be noted that not all of the wrestlers on the roster make the transistion to the All-Stars art style well, with Sheamus and Shawn Michaels looking particularly bad. And Hulk Hogan looks like he could topple over at any moment. 

Complementing the fresh new art style and animations is the stripped down and simplified gameplay. This should not suggest that All-Stars is lacking in depth, mind you. This is an arcade game through and through. If Smackdown is the Madden of pro wrestling then All-Stars is very much the Blitz. While grappling is still the focus of the game, there's a pretty robust fighting game element to it, complete with strike combos, juggles, and an impressive reversal system that rewards timing and knowing each move well. Throw in some beyond over the top special moves, ala the EA Big games (NBA Street, SSX), and you get a game that is as much fun to watch as it is to play. It feels like something that Midway would have come up with in the arcade days, and that should not come as a surprise since Sal Divita (NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat) came in to put some of that special Midway sauce onto the design.

However, the game features no practice mode, and the juggling system (my favorite part of the combat) is sadly hidden from players. You're just going to have to put a lot of time in with your favorite wrestler to learn how to pop a guy into the air, juggle him, and grab him into a slam. But once you master it the payoff is sweet. I do wish that the game went a little further with the bigger moves. There's a bit of a comical edge to All-Stars, but it is not consistent; adding some crazy special effects to the finishing moves would have been a welcome addition. Also, the rubber-banding A.I. can be surprisingly brutal, with the computer tending to reverse every move at times.

Any new wrestling franchise tends to be a little weak in the options department, and All-Stars is no exception. The match types are pretty basic, so you're not going to find any Elimination Chambers, Inferno Matches, or Hell in a Cell here. The Create a Wrestler mode is also woefully lacking in options, and the whole thing just loads way too slowly. And most of the best moves are locked until you beat the story mode with the wrestler that has the moves you want.

Thankfully, the game has a couple truly interesting single player modes in the Path of a Champion and Fantasy Warfare options. Path of a Champion is akin to the arcade mode of most fighting games, where you choose a character, fight 10 matches, and are awarded with an ending. In this case, the three unique stories feature some nicely rendered cutscenes with some genuinely entertaining voice acting. Playing the D-Generation X storyline made me smile quite a few times, and Paul Bearer hams it up as only he can during the Undertaker story.

The real meat of the game is Fantasy Warfare mode. The team at THQ looked at the roster they had and paired each Legend against a Superstar based on their careers and personalities. Some of these are obvious (Roddy Piper vs. Drew McEntyre in a battle of the Scots), and others are downright inventive (who has the better philosophy: the trash-talking, beer-swilling Stone Cold, or the "straight edged" CM Punk?).

These matchups are given the proper WWE shine thanks to the well-produced video intros to each fight. Each one puts the Legend and Superstar into context and does a wonderful job of bringing these fantasy matches to life. It is by far the best mode in the game, but like most of the things in WWE All-Stars, it stops just shy of being something truly special. While the video packages make the matches seem epic, the actual fights are the same as in any other mode. Having special rings for each battle, or commentary tracks for each match would have gone a long way to making each fight in Fantasy Warfare something fans could really geek out about. I found myself thinking how cool it would have been to see a 19-1 sign with fireworks upon defeating The Undertaker with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania, for example. Also, it seems that the DLC wrestlers being added will not be getting their own Fantasy Warfare matches, which is a real shame.

Online play is included, but I was unable to find anyone to match up with during my time with it. You’ll have access to all the match types as you would in single player or sitting on the couch with friends, but after some time you’ll probably be wishing for more variety in the options. Naturally, you can bring your created wrestlers online, and as wrestling gamers know, showing off your creations is half the fun. 

WWE All-Stars is a wonderful first step in a new wrestling franchise that does one thing really well: it puts the fun back into wrestling games. As Smackdown gets more and more complex, there are people who just want to pop a game in, press start, and whup some ass with John Cena. All-Stars lets people do just that, although the lack of a proper tutorial keeps a lot of the best bits of the fighting engine out of reach of the casual player.

There's a long way to go for it to become the new king of wrestling games, there is enough fun to be had here that I would recommend a purchase.