The grand WWE '12 review

Hello fellas.




Last month the newest installment in WWE video game land was released. As always, I was suckered into getting it, plainfully aroused by several new inclusions that mostly consist of moves. This time, my dad forked out the money instead of myself, which made it less of a disappointment, considering the wasted money could've been spent on beer.


Yes, what many people hail as "the best game since No Mercy" was a grand disappointment. I knew, going into it, that several things were going to bother me. They simply always do. WWE 12 raised the standard.


Let me get some positives over with. For years, I've been hoping the gigantically awesome Regalplex would be included. This year, it finally happened and it's properly animated to boot. Naturally, I've been spamming the fuck out of it, as a compensation for all those years I wanted to have it, but couldn't. On top of that, some neat new superkicks were added, and a second version of Drew McIntyre's Future Shock, that now finally resembles the move he does  used to do on tv. 


For some reason that makes fuck all sense, the amount of FU's Attitude Adjustments and F5's have been increased to four each (+1 AA, +3 F5), making the total of completely useless variations 6 out of 8. Still no much craved additions of popular indy finishers (which did happen frequently in earlier installments, but not important overall).


Ultimate positive? Composing your own basic entrance video, which is a new feature that even I thoroughly enjoyed. With it, you can choose from twenty-something basic themes, on which two shards of text can be added, along with a possible logo. Each theme comes with their (albeit, generic) song. Some of those (Gold Medalist, Gothic, ...) are very appealing to my ears. Boneriffic.


The multitude of flaws commence. Aside from those useless move additions, which aren't really a big deal, there's a lot of frustration with the game. Let me begin.


Road to Wrestlemania. I've learned to live with the idea of playing a story mode with one character. The thing is, that now, you have stories that follow eachother up. First comes the Villain storyline, which sees you playing as Sheamus, who teams up with Regal, Barrett and McIntyre to form the stable "the United Kingdom" (Unoriginal as fuck, but it's forgiven). At the end, you'll find Sheamus with every possible title in his possession. 


That moment, the Outsider story begins, with Triple H winning the WWE title from Sheamus (you are already playing as Triple H then). The whole story revolves around Triple H losing the title through injury and his quest to regain it from The Miz, to reach his record-breaking 17th reign. Once that happens, the Hero story begins with a created character. This year, you're forced into a default name and moveset, which allows the announcers to use your name. This could be so awesome, because you'll be crusading against WCW who has taken over. Of course, considering the superstar who are involved over time, you can pretty much guess what will go down. If you have any knowledge of WCW anyway.


RTWM could've been so awesome, given the right treatment. Unlike other years, the game doesn't give you the option to quit the story mode for a while. Nope, instead, you're forced to sit through a tedious announcer dialogue, then you have to select "quit match" from the options menu and then you can go do Universe mode or something. Not really cool.


The realism of this game is uncanny. By that, I don't mean the graphics, as they are barely updated from SvR2011. The programmers wanted the game to be more like the shows (they got the shitty part right, I guess) so every other move is reversed by the AI making it a fucking pain in the ass to complete RTWM.


Those reversals can be toned down in the options menu, but of course, that doesn't affect the RTWM mode, which has a set of options of its own. this years RTWM is quite possibly the shittiest one ever, regardless of those reversals. I concluded several things that so harshly bothered me throughout:


Predetermined finishes. It generally involves you beating the shit out of an opponent, amidst countless reversals. As soon as the prompt appears above your opponent's head, you'll usually end up seeing a cutscene of you getting beaten (to "advance the story"). This happens almost every match. blergh.


backstage brawls. The amount of backstage brawls in the RTWM mode is ridiculous. I didn't actually count, but it were a lot of them.  


Repeated finishes. This really only happens in the Outsider story, mainly because it's the only tool that was available to stretch this half assed story into 12 gameweeks worth of playing. I was actually grateful to the game, when the story arc ended. Sheesh.


One particular instance bothered me very badly. As I mentioned before, you'll be assigned a default moveset within the Hero story. Since I don't fancy having an Arm Drag as signature move or a DDT as a finisher, I changed the entire thing, top to bottom. I then reached Elimination Chamber and was unable to continue. I tried, three times, to shut off my console and restarting from the last save. The game froze at the same exact moment every time.


Instead of breaking the disc in half (it was a gift after all) I sought on the internet if there were users with the same problem I had. Fortunately yes, and I had the solution immediately. I HAD to revert back to that shitty default move set. Unbelievable. I copied my created superstar as a placeholder for a decent moveset and then reverted back to default on the original and was able to continue. 


That's one glitch (if it even is a glitch) I particularly hated. Other glitches weren't as bad, but looked ridiculous.
During Universe mode (busy unlocking all kinds of shit) I was attempting to strike down with a turnbuckle clothesline when my opponent's arm turned to Jello and was sufficiently elongated, it looked like elastic. No biggie, just ridiculous errors.


Another occurred when I did a tornado tag elimination chamber match. Pitting myself and two other characters against the rather mexican team of Rey, ADR and Sin Cara (to have a little consistency). I lost, mostly because my teammates were already pinned before I even left the little pod. The cutscene showed Rey Mysterio, celebrating with Sin Cara and ... CM Punk. Considering CM Punk was on my team, I consider that pretty weird. 


The very last thing that bothers me are the controls. Seriously, they now change every year under the guise of improving playability, yet they make it fucking harder to use every fucking time. Last year's were horrible, this year's controls raised the bar further. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'll gladly have the SvR2010 controls back. 
Or the ones from 2002's SmackDown: Shut Your Mouth!


Honestly, if you're a die-hard masochist, buy this game. Otherwise, just spend it on something more useful. For instance, you can save up the cash and buy GTA V when it comes out. I for sure will, because this left a sour taste in mouth.


~D.