All right, I have a
confession to make. I used to be a wrestling fanatic. There, I said it;
commence with the snickering and giggling. Now, I wasn’t one of the ones that
ran around emulating DX or Stone Cold, nor did I wear t-shirts proclaiming my
love for another spandex wearing man (although I did have an all black t-shirt
that read “Austin Rules” in big, white letters on the front and “Goldburg Sucks”
on the back. I think I wore it once and had a legion of little kids following
me around the mall in awe) I went to a couple of live shows including the
original “Buried Alive” in Indianapolis when Mankind buried the Undertaker in
the main event, but for the most part I was a closet fan. I’d grown up a fan of
the old timers and I continued watching through the hilarious Monday Night Wars,
but once the then WWF finally struck down the evil empire of the WCW with the
ultimate smackdown of a corporate buyout, well, it just kind of lost its
excitement for me. Sure, I continued watching for a while after they merged and
the whole WCW invasion angle played out, followed by the split of the WWE into
Smackdown and Raw rosters, but as we all soon learned, competition really was
good for the business and things became painfully stagnant. While I rarely ever
watch anymore unless I just happen to flip by on a Monday or Thursday evening, I
do still find a lot of enjoyment from the games. Like most other continuing
genres, things have generally changed for the better with the march of time;
unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case with Survivor Series.
I’ll give it credit, it
makes one hell of a first impression right out of the box with some seriously
stellar graphics for the GBA and a seemingly very cool setup, but it all goes
down hill from there. The heart of the game is in its “Story Mode”. You begin
with a pep talk from the man himself, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, letting you know
what’s going to be expected of you and informing you that you must choose sides,
either Raw or Smackdown. Cool so far. From there you’re given a breakdown of
the rosters from each show, featuring the biggest names from each. While I’m
sure there’s going to be wrestlers that each and every fan will gripe about not
having been included, the number of wrestlers available, when the format is
considered, is pretty impressive. Things are still looking pretty bright. Upon
choosing the wrestler of your choice, on the show of your choice, you’re then
given another pep talk by the corresponding GM of your chosen show, who ends by
giving you your first task, which is to win one of your next three matches. As
you proceed through the game climbing the ranks, you’ll be given new objectives
like receiving a certain popularity rating or winning a title or beating a
specific opponent. Wow, that’s pretty cool, a pocket wrestling games with
objectives and goals. At this point, I was pretty giddy with the product, as
any and all expectations had been blown out of the water.
But, wait it gets better,
much, much better before the bottom falls out. As the game transitioned to the
actual gameplay screen, my jaw hit the floor. I absolutely could not believe
the visuals I was seeing, the crowds, the arenas, the ring, holy freaking cow!
And on the GBA! The
crowds actually look better than most of the crowds in any of the biggest sports
titles available on the big consoles. I know, I know, big deal, the crowd looks
good. But this is on a GBA cartridge and they actually animate well! So
needless to say, my previously low expectations were now skyrocketing to the
point that I was almost ready to start setting reminders on the ol’ digital
cable box for this week’s Raw and Smackdown. But then the first wrestler
appeared and the rocket that had been moving onward and upward at the speed of
light was now beginning to wobble. It was supposed to be Randy Orton, but I
couldn’t tell for sure. It could have been Koko B. Ware for all I could tell.
And then my wrestler, Chris Benoit appeared, and once again, I wasn’t sure. My
eyes darted back and forth from the wrestlers to the crowd, to the arena, to the
ring, and back to the wrestlers again. What!? How could this be!? Everything
else looks so great, but only the most eagle-eyed fanatic could tell the
wrestlers apart with any sort of certainty. So, I pulled myself together
certain that the gameplay would right the ship and save the day.
Well, as much as I hoped,
tried, and prayed, it just wasn’t to be and that rocket had now flipped over and
was headed right back at me. Now before I get into the negatives, first let me
expound on the positives. The first of which, at least in theory, the wrestlers
do have an extremely impressive repertoire of moves at their disposal from the
few buttons the GBA offers, grapple attacks, striking attacks, weapons,
finishing moves, everything is covered here. Next, I should also mention that
the game also offers an impressive array of match types for a GBA cartridge.
Cage matches, tag matches, Royal Rumbles, handicap matches and so on. But where
the game ultimately falters and negates all of the considerable good it had
going for it, is the one area that is most vital to any game, gameplay. The
gameplay is so reminiscent of Acclaim’s earliest WWF games for the PS1 it’s
almost scary. The wrestling action is so stiff, stilted, and slow that it
becomes nigh impossible to pull off the impressive roster of moves, worsened
exponentially by the delay between button press and action. By the time your
wrestler begins the animation for whatever action you had inputted, your
opponent has already landed three haymakers and has picked you up off the canvas
for a nasty suplex. And as if these problems weren’t critical enough, the
trouble you’ll have differentiating yourself from your opponent, especially if
your wrestler has long hair and is wrestling another longhaired wrestler and
vice versa, causes the game to ultimately flat line. The
storylines/goals/objectives are great, as is the popularity ratings, but the
gameplay makes them a non-factor.
Graphically, we’ve
already touched upon this. The crowd, the arenas, and the ring are nothing
short of phenomenal for a GBA cartridge, but unfortunately the one area most
important to the game fails, and that is in the wrestler models and animation.
Part of the fun of wrestling is the over the top characters in their over the
top getups, but you lose that when you have trouble telling one from another.
Never mind the gameplay issues this creates; wrestling fans want to be able to
immediately recognize their favorites and their most hated foes. But all is not
lost for the future. The parts that are good are exceptionally so and can stand
to be toned down in order to pump up the wrestlers and their movements. While
the good visuals that are available here are appreciated, I’m sure I speak for
all gamers and wrestling fans when I say we’d gladly trade stellar environs for
stellar characters and action. The animations are slow and choppy, with most of
them, at least the ones from your characters, never getting to finish because
your opponent is all ready beating the snot out of you.
In the sound department,
it’s about what you’d expect from a GBA cartridge. Each wrestler enters the
ring to a toned down, tinny sounding version of their individual entrance
music. From there, there are the requisite thuds, chops, and booms of wrestling
games, all fitting and at home here. The background music serves its purpose
and doesn’t pull the gamer from the action onscreen.
Overall, the game, like
my beloved Oakland Raiders, has tons of potential, but something has gotten lost
in the execution. I like the idea of having a quasi storyline to go along with
the wrestling, I like that there is the opportunity for a huge array of attacks,
I like that the environments are so well done, but ultimately we play wrestling
games for the wrestling action, and it is just not here. A little tweak here
and there, a smattering of detail in the wrestlers, an infusion of speed, and
you’ve got a very stellar portable grappler. The game sits atop a solid base,
with solid, fresh ideals, but now they need to deliver on the gameplay. If you
need a wrestling fix on the GBA, you would be far better served in checking out
the incredibly fun, fast, and playable Fire Pro Wrestling series. It may not
offer the licensed characters, per se, although many of their characters bare an
uncanny resemblance to real wrestlers young and old, but you’ll have an
excellent, deep wrestling game to play.
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Gameplay: 4.0
Gameplay quickly
becomes an exercise in futility and patience. The control of the game is very
slow and unresponsive, further hurt from the inability to discern most wrestlers
from the next. It offers a huge catalogue of moves, but it is nearly impossible
to pull off even the simplest ones unless you’ve got a supernatural ability for
foresight allowing you to input the needed button presses seconds ahead of when
you actually need them.
Graphics: 4.5
This game
deserves two scores, one for everything but the wrestlers, which would garner a
10, and a score for the wrestlers, which would be a 4. Since the wrestlers are
the most important of the two and the basis of the game, that score pulls much
more weight.
Sound: 6.0
Average all the
way around. The inclusion of the entrance music even in diluted form is a
bonus, but everything else is merely average. Suitable, fitting, but ultimately
plain.
Difficulty: Hard
The issues
discussed earlier conspire to make the game much harder than it need be, or
probably was intended to be.
Concept: 6.5
It’s obvious that
the developers tried to do some things different here to make this version
resemble its big brothers, which deserves some props. The inclusion of
storylines in the form of tasks/goals handed down by each show’s GM is nice, as
is the sheer number of match types, but when the gameplay seemingly takes a
backseat to everything else you have to wonder if maybe the ideas were too big
to realize in this format.
Multiplayer: 4.0
The
cartridge does offer multiplayer support through link cables, but it ultimately
suffers from the same problems as the single player game.
Overall: 4.5
Unfortunately,
this is one game that is hard to recommend to even the diehard fan, especially
in light of there all ready being other games available for the system head and
shoulders above it. As I said earlier, there are some novel ideas here and
there’s a solid base in place from which to build, but it has a ways to go
before it is of the quality of those other games and its big brothers. Fans
should take a pass and get their wrestling fix elsewhere and hope that the next
iteration makes good on the considerable promise of this cartridge.
