by THQ
You've waited for ages, and after various delays, but now it's finally here... WWE Raw for the XBox! Based around WWE's Monday Night Raw, which is broadcast on Sky One every Friday night, WWE Raw shows off the best of the World Wrestling Entertainment, although it lacks a few things I would expect for a brand new wrestling game...
The game lacks modes, with only Exhibition - in which you can have a normal or hardcore style match, in either a 3-way, tornado, tag team, tornado tag or a single match. This is all well and good but we are missing the legendary ladder match, where the wrestlers must climb a ladder whilst brawling with another superstar to gain the belt that is on offer and suspended from the arena ceiling.
The hardcore matches do contain ladders but the bad thing is you can't climb them, but you can still swing the ladder at another wrestler and hurt him/her pretty badly. WWE Raw is also missing the table match in which you must put a wrestler through a table to win the match. Again, WWE Raw does have tables in the hardcore matches but you can't win the match by putting a wrestler through the table, you can only hurt the wrestler.
Still, I am impressed by the hardcore matches, and with lots of weapons to choose from you will never get bored with hitting your opponent around the head with a hard object!
Also there is the Title Match mode which contains no storyline at all - you just play a certain amount of wrestlers on your way to one of the gold belts that you choose to play for. These belts comprise of the WWE Championship belt, Intercontinental belt, Hardcore belt, Womens belt and European belt. With no story mode, I don't like the Title match mode on WWE Raw and think that this area of the game needs a lot of improvements.
The graphics on Raw are amazing. The wrestlers are very well detailed - from the boots all the way up to the face! However, the best graphics in the game are the entrances... they are amazing!
The entrances look great and so real, for example Triple H's entrance. He enters through the Raw Titantron and stares out at the audience, he then shudders and makes his way down the ramp. At the bottom of the ramp he looks at the crowd either side of him and then walks towards the ring. He then climbs on to the ring apron and spits out the water from his mouth. All this looking exactly like it would on TV!
Even the crowd are taking pictures while the wrestlers make their entrances, with the flash lights going off all over the arena. It truly does look stunning! I really can't say anything bad about the graphics on this game as they are great.
The movement and animation of the wrestlers is pretty good except for one thing - the way they walk. The wrestlers walk with their legs sticking forward too much as if they were sitting down as they were walking. But as I said before, the wrestlers are very well detailed and I can tell THQ have taken alot of time creating the WWE wrestlers in this game.
Now moving on to the sound... Ever been to a sports event? Maybe a football match or a basketball game, where the music plays out loud in a big open space? Well, while playing a wrestling match on WWE Raw the crowd shout and scream just like on TV, as they do with the entrances. The sound on each wrestlers entrance is amazing with the wrestlers personal entrance music and sound effects including the huge bangs to go with the fireworks and explosions.
The main menu sound is good with a video repeating itself in the background, which looks pretty cool. As you change from menu to menu the music changes so it doesn't sound repetitive and boring.
The in-game music is very annoying, and I don't understand why THQ have added this music to a wrestling game of all games. If there was an option to lose the in game music then it would be a tad better.
However, if you like playing WWE games with the commentators Jim Ross and Jerry "The King" Lawler ranting in the background, then you won't be too happy with this game, as there is no commentary at all. The only time someone speaks is when a wrestler gets slammed hard to the mat, where the wrestlers shout out in pain.
Raw contains over 35 wrestlers, many of which are old and out of date. Within the months that WWE Raw was delayed, I would have expected some updates on the line-up instead of just changing the name "WWF" to "WWE".
There are a lot of new WWE wrestlers missing from WWE Raw including Brock Lesnar, the NWO, Chuck and of course the biggest wrestling legend, ever Hulk Hogan! My favourite WWE superstar is though - The Big Show - and in this he looks amazing in every way.
His entrance is just like on TV, where he ducks under the Titantron as he is too big at 7 foot 2"! He then walks down to the ring, climbs over the top rope and raises his hand and grunts.
One of the best features of Raw is the Create-A-Wrestler mode, which out of all the wrestling games I have ever played - which range from WWF No Mercy for the N64 to the Smackdown series for the Playstation and Playstation 2 - this is the best ever.
You can create the wrestler of your dreams from the appearance to the moves. The best part of Create-A-Wrestler on Raw is creating your entrance, as you can choose your music, video, fog effect, mist effect, lighting, pyro effects and much more! The Create-A-Wrestler includes hidden extras including Bret Hart's attire and various other legends of the WWE.
WWE Raw is an absolotuely magnifficient game in many ways, but it lacks from being too out-of-date. WWE Raw offers graphics that show off wrestling in the best possible way that the XBox can deliver.
If you like wrestling and have an XBox, then this is definitely the game for you, but as I said before this game is pretty much out-of-date and lacks many features and modes. This game will also appeal to beat-em-up fans as it is a magnifficient beat-em-up game.
I know I have said it before, but if this game was not out-of-date, it would be a great recreation of WWE, but seeing as it is out-of-date and it doesn't contain the latest WWE superstars and appearance of the wrestlers, it falls short of the mark.
Overall Rating: 70% Reviewer: Damian Cadman
