Game #859: WWE All-Stars

  Time to get all handsy again.

 WWE All-Stars is a pretty neat experiment. It's not your average wrestling game, instead opting for something that feels more like a fighting game with wrestling elements than a pure wrestling game. It's simplicity betrays just how much fun it can be.

 The game uses a very amusing caricaturesque art-style, Wrestlers have giant upper bodies, giant bicepts and short arms. As for how well each caricature captures a Wrestler likenes... it depends. Some characters, like Cena, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Rey Mysterio are spot-on, while others, like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant feel a bit off. There are more hits than misses, but the ones that miss really stuck out. Still, I like how everyone looks like a He-Man action figure.

 I think the roster is pretty decent, I managed to recognize most of the Wrestlers, but there are no females and you can't even create one.

 The game has a pretty neat Legends VS Superstars theme, half of the characters being old and retired wrestlers, with the other half being then-current superstars. It extends to the "Fantasy Warfare" mode, which is were you unlock characters, which is made up of various Superstar VS Legend fights. Each fight tries to find opposites or mirrors between both groups, and every fight is prefaced with a brilliant voiced intro that presents both fighters, while real-life clips of both wrestlers play in the background. Sometimes they went the extra mile and managed to mix line from both wrestlers to simulate trash talking between both of them! Pretty cool.

 Create a wrestler is pathetic. There aren't many pieces to pick from, and some clip through each other. For example, if your character has hair and you put a hoodie on him, the hair will clip through the hoodie.

 Characters are divided into four types(Acrobatic, Brawler, Big Man and Grappler) and each type has some unique properties. You have Quick and Strong Strikes, as well as Quick and Strong Grabs, R1 counter strikes and L1 counters grab. It's fairly intuitive. Each wrestler has three super moves.

 As much as I liked the artstyle and the gameplay, I feel like strikes lack oomph. There's not enough audiovisual feedback to sell me on each hit, which, for a fighting game, kinda sucks. I think the game needed better and louder sound effects for these strikes.

 The game is installed on the Cache, which is incredibly dumb. This means that if you play something else the game will be deleted and you'll have to sit through the long installation again. Why not have a normal installation? And the worst part about it? Even when cached, the loading times are still on the lengthy side, no wonder you can turn off ring entrances. The game has a bunch of easy trophies, and the game IS fun, but no chance I'm sitting through so many loading screens just for bragging rights.

 Overall, WWE All-Stars is quite fun, and its graphics set it apart from most other games. It's not the deepest fighter around, nor is it the one that simulates the scripted sport the best, but the game is quite entertaining thanks to simple and intuitive gameplay. My biggest point of contention with the game would be the loading times, which turn a honestly entertaining game into a bit of a drag.

 7.5