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WrestleMania XIX

THQ’s latest improvement to the WWE franchise on the ‘Cube is at least a step in the right direction, but still makes a lot of people clamor for the past Aki N64 titles. WrestleMania XIX manages to borrow a lot from the PS2 version of THQ’s franchises (SmackDown) and improves not only the graphics, but the music and the “Create-a-Wrestler” mode so that the game is serviceable if only unspectacular.

The first thing you will notice on WrestleMania XIX is the greatly increased graphics over WrestleMania X8. Now the characters are all highly detailed and don’t look like generic blocks. Each wrestler is properly proportioned and has their trademark tattoos and markings. The crowds are much more detailed and the various environments also received an increase in detail.

The other major improvement in the game is the music, which unlike last year’s game (mediocre or almost non existent). In XIX each wrestler has their own entrance music and the rest of the game has very good selection. This greatly increased the overall game experience, since part of what makes wrestling fun is getting to hear the various entrances and themes such as Stone Cold’s glass breaking.

The other part new to the franchise (aside from the Create-a-Wrestler mode) is the Story Mode. The story, simply titled “Revenge”, puts you through a series of tasks handed out by Stephanie McMahon after your wrestler is fired and kicked out of the WWE by Vince McMahon. Basically, she hires you to go around and cause as much destruction as you can, almost all of it outside of the ring, in hopes of destroying her father’s business. Eventually you try and stop WrestleMania from going off.

Unfortunately, this part of the game is incredibly boring, predictable and frustrating. The missions are all the basically the same, all of which involve fighting masses of generic enemies, or some combination of generic enemies and various WWE superstars. The AI (which I will get to) makes this almost impossible in some spots and the overall receptiveness just makes this seem like such a waste in comparison to THQ’s storyline mode in SmackDown. The story is hands down the most disappointing part of the entire game and drags down what would have otherwise been a decent WWE game.

[Perhaps this is where the one redeeming factor of WWE Raw 2 would come in handy - the choose your own saga. - Ed.]

At least the Create-a-Wrester, which is almost identical to the same mode in SmackDown, is a good addition. The move allows you to either recreate a newer addition to the WWE or to make whatever wrestler you want. Various moves can be added, looks tested and everything from ring entrances, music and styles can be edited. Various costumes and entrances can be unlocked in the WWE shop were you can spend money that you earned in Revenge to buy anything from those items to even more weapons that can be used in hardcore matches and other goodies.

As far as the actual gameplay, the control system uses a light and hard grapple system to differentiate moves and overall makes the game move at a much different and slower pace than the other two THQ titles, SmackDown and Raw. Each special can be pulled off with a combination of a couple of buttons, and is location sensitive so that the moves make since and stay true to the wrestler. Overall the control system to me seemed less than intuitive and could have been reworked to make the game much better.

The match selections in the game offer all the standards, with Cage, Royal Rumble, King of the Ring, Hardcore, Hell in the Cell, Triple Threat, TLC and all the other favorites. Each is well done, and you can create your own King of the Ring for whatever belt you want so that you and your friends can have a wrestle-off or whatever type of challenge you want to throw out there.

One of the other main problems with the game is the computer AI. The opponents, especially when you are forced to face multiples of them (see REVENGE), are often annoyingly insurmountable. Every time it seems that you have knocked them down long enough, especially when you need to climb something such as a cage or a pole or whatever, they manage to get up at the very last minute and knock you off. When fighting in Triple Threat or Fatal Four Way matches, it seems that all of the opponents are ganging up on you with little concern for each other. Basically it seems that THQ developed the AI with an intense hatred for the player.

Overall WrestleMania XIX is a major improvement in the series on the GameCube over X8, but there remains a large drop off from the SmackDown series. With a lot of reworking on the control system and the story mode, as well as just completely dumping the AI and putting something new in, the game would be great, but since that makes up a majority of the experience, it is just barely adequate.

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Tags: WrestleMania XIX

Posted by Andrew on Oct 23rd, 2003 and is filed under Game Cube Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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