By Ian Hunter, PWTorch Trivia Specialist

So, I went out to my local video store and rented myself a copy of "Raw vs. Smackdown 2008."  I open up the game and read the instruction book on how exactly I'm supposed to control these people. Then I load the game in and I have to sit and watch the tutorial videos on how to control these wrestlers. After that's done I decide to play a little exhibition match. I scroll through the roster and see all my fun choices, and I decide why not go with Triple H and see how I can fair against a CPU version of Randy Orton. Then I hit a load screen for one minute while it builds the match. Then Triple H came out to his spit take, then another load screen. Next Randy comes out to his golden glory, then another load screen. Finally the match begins, but not before some animated trash talk. I hit a few buttons and realize I have very little control over my character outside of hitting and kicking. Seven times in a row, Randy goes behind the referee and shoves him into me, as if that's his only move. Then I get locked into a Boston Crab twice, thrown to the outside a few times, and another referee shove. Finally Orton hits me with a suplex for the three-count. Another load screen goes by for two minutes, and we're right into an animation of Orton gloating in the ring while Hunter rolls around in pain on the canvas. Followed by the ever pondering question... Rematch or Quit?
 
I picked Quit.
 
I say this without any biased or pre-expectation. This is the worst wrestling game I've played in years and I feel like I'm owed the rental fee back. Granted, I took it back and got Mass Effect, but that game took away a couple hours of my life that I can't get back. The Create-A-Wrestler option in itself takes you twenty minutes just to figure out how to sculpt your head properly. The 24/7 mode was poorly put together and comes out predictable at times. Like these were the rejected ideas that got tossed off the rundown and into the garbage can at the Gorilla position before the show began, and some intern from THQ went dumpster diving for it. And I didn't feel like playing the rest of the game because as time has shown me before when it comes to wrestling games, it's all the same thing after the first match. I didn't even care about the legends because quite honestly I don't care if I'm fighting as Rick Rude in this game.  A badly made fighting system doesn't get better by switching people, it just gets more difficult.
 
My wish for the new year is for the WWE and THQ to get a clue and start from scratch when it comes to wrestling games in general. First and foremost, people are tired of playing with the current crop of wrestlers, and we need more than a year's worth of time to go by for us to gain interest in it again. Oh, you just added Ken Kennedy and his set of moves? That's nice... why do I care? Second, less on beauty, more on brutality. No, I don't care if you got Cena's entrance so perfect that it looks like he's really saluting me on the screen. It does give people goose bumps to hear the music and see them walk out to their pyro and lightshow, but that euphoria dies quickly once I hit the ring. Which brings me to number three... I want control. I don't want to feel like I'm playing a game featuring Rey Mysterio, I want to feel like I'm controlling Rey. Even more so, I want to feel like I am Rey! When I make a clothesline, I want to feel like I made that happen. In this game, all I feel like is I managed to hit the right button combination to make my opponent's arm hurt for a moment. I haven't had that feel of control or realism since "WWF No Mercy" for the N64, and that's just sad on many levels.
 
Number four, I want to create anyone. And no, I'm not just talking about wrestlers from the past, I want to be able to create anyone I want. If I want Bill Clinton to fight Kurt Cobain, I want that freedom. If I want to make myself as a wrestler with my clothing and moves I would want to do, I want that freedom. Every time I try to create a wrestler, I run into the same problems. That's not the right chest size, that's not the right weight, that's not how I'd walk them down the ramp, that's not a move they would do, that's not how I would use that weapon, and so on down the line. I want complete control. If I walk into the ring to fight someone, I want to fight with my kind of moves, I want to look how I want to look, I want to taunt the crowd my way, and I want to cheat or earn my victory my own way. There's a lost sense of freedom that again I feel like I only had on the early Playststion and N64 versions. I don't care if I can give myself a pink mohawk, I want to DDT someone off the edge of the ring! 
 
The fifth and final one is a little lengthy, so bare with me. Legends need to have their own game! The idea that I'm playing as Bret Hart or Dusty Rhodes is nice, but the novelty dies out after a while when I realize I can't fight everyone or fight as everyone from that time period. If you want the novelty of this concept to survive, then it needs to be opened up to EVERYONE! Acclaim tried with "Legends Of Wrestling," but all three had gameplay problems and not enough stars we wanted due to copyrights or issues with people. WWE owns the rights to almost every promotion to ever exist, so why not do a wrestling history game? Start off in the early days of the NWA controlled era and make your way around the world fighting in small venues for your quest to take the main belt. Move up to the territory days and make your way across North America fighting for the IWA, Pacific Northwest, Mid-Atlantic, AWA, WCCW, and so on. Move onto the heyday years of the WWF and WCW going between both companies from the late 80's. Move onto the the Monday Night Wars and the battle between WWF, WCW and ECW. And then finally end on the current standing of the industry with developmental territories and the WWE. (Yes, TNA won't be included, but they've got their own game coming.) All the while bringing in the hundreds of names from wrestling's past to be unlocked and do battle against other eras. And no, none of that being selective politics that seems to occur nowadays. Include Savage and Sammartino and Benoit. Add old personalities like Jim Crocket and Stu Hart and Paul Heyman. Old commentators like Gordon Solie and Gorilla Monsoon and Tony Schiavone. Add every manager in the book from The Grand Wizard to Slick to Melina. Women's wrestling too from every promotion. If you're going to milk nostalgia, milk it for all it's worth and give the fans one good game from the past!
 
Do I think anything I say will fix wrestling games? No. Not really. Wrestling today may be called "sports entertainment," but the games based off the product are still treated like other sports games are at any other game company. Same generic program with a bunch of bodies given different body types and a list of maneuvers for them to play off of set up like a playbook. Dull commentary laced with promos for everything under the sun that paid for the game's production. All tagged with an expressive price that makes people like me glad I don't buy wrestling games anymore. I'm sure many people will disagree with me and love the way the game plays out, but if I may I'd like to borrow a line Hulk Hogan once said about wrestling and apply it to wrestling games: For those who like it, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation will do.

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