Okay, some of you know me, some of you don't. For those of you who don't, I will give a little bit of breif background info. I have been watching wrestling for 15+ years, minus the past 2 years because it has became nothing but filth and trash. There is more "stories" if you can call them that, than there is actual wrestling nowadays, so needless to say, I long for the days of old.
I have played almost every wrestling game that has came out for the past 10 years or so, with the exception of the Fire Pro series, and the imports because I can never get my hands on them for a reasonable price. I am the type of guy who likes for a game to represent the actual sport moreso than just going for eye candy, which is why my favorite baseball game is ASB and ID for basketball. Just because I feel that it captures the whole authenticity aspect.
Every since the first LOW games first started showing up, I loved the concept. Just being able to wrestle with the old school grapplers, and childhood heroes, on a next generation console is just my ideal game. With that being said, the first two renditions of this title, failed miserably to the public, but I feel that they still had a lot going for them. The gameplay, although a little bit slower, and more boring to some, really captured the overall feel of oldschool wrestling. Back in the days, wrestling was more about "Big" guys doing "Big" moves. Guys who couldn't run the 1/4 mile in 3 minutes. So having the LOW series play like Smackdown, and constant action just wouldn't really suit the game. I think Acclaim, although needed to work out a lot of kinks, and work on the fluidness of the animations, had a potentially great game.
Now that the third version of the game has released, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling, people have been making comparisons that really should never be made. So far, I am almost 35 matches into the game, and I have been having a ball with the game. The game is not bug free, and is nowhere near flawless, but it still plays a very good game of "Old School Wrestling". Granted, there are some problems with the movesets of the wrestlers. But think about this, there are basically 8 moves for the front grapple, and 8 for the back grapple. If you didn't fill the movesets with moves that Hulk Hogan could have done, you would basically be left seeing Hogan do hip toss and power slam, after hip toss and powerslam. They should have chosen a couple different fillers for the movesets, but to me, it doesn't take away from the gameplay.
The AI in this game is not as bad as everyone is making the game out to be. If you put the game on Legend, and turn off the Health meters, then chances are, you will probably get an old school [censored] whippin from Abdullah the Butcher and the likes. This also speeds up the gameplay a little, which will please some of the gamers out there. The health meters have really hurt games like Smackdown, and Raw. If you turn them off, you actually have to wrestle your way to victory, rather then punch and stomp until you see the power bar is depleted, and then do your finisher. If you turn them off, then it will change your gameplay experience.
The graphics of this game are as good if not better then those of Smackdown's. I don't think they are up to Raw's graphics, but take a look around the arena's you are in, those are amazing in detail. Acclaim has done an excellent job of getting the liscenses to use these classic arena's so we can relive some classic matches.
However, this game is not without fault. Some of the promises made by Justin Withers were not delivered in the final version of the game. Things such as Custom Soundtracks which should be in every XBOX wrestling game were left out. Although he never said Custom Entrance music was in, he said, music ripping is still in, which in a sense, it is. There are a couple of things that I can't really deal with though. The edit a Legend is non existant which is horrible. If you have a dedicated staff to working on the game, there should be no reason not to include this for the XBOX version.
Another thing is the CAL or Create a Legend. Last years mode wasn't horrible as you could take a pair of pants or shirt, and modify the color and make a pretty good version of any current star or legend who was left out for whatever reason. If the Create a Legend was implemented right, this would take care of it. But I can't take Hulk Hogan and change his skin color, because it will just add a layer of skin over his existing clothes, and change his face as well. That is unexcusable. You can't even make hair black. The closest thing you can do is Dennis Rodman style and make is Blue. Sure, Acclaim has signed most of the wrestlers I could hope for in this game, but in this day and age, a game shouldn't be released without a decent create a wrestler. I am not giving up on the CAL, but it definately isn't even up to par with that of WWE Raw 2.
So basically, this is my informal review of the game. Take this for what you want. This game is not perfect, but for old school wrestling, this isn't that bad of a game. Acclaim, I commend you on your efforts, but I also wish you would be straight forward in conducting your Q&A sessions, and try and work on the things that really need it. Hopefully LOW:4 will be a old school fan's dream.
I have played almost every wrestling game that has came out for the past 10 years or so, with the exception of the Fire Pro series, and the imports because I can never get my hands on them for a reasonable price. I am the type of guy who likes for a game to represent the actual sport moreso than just going for eye candy, which is why my favorite baseball game is ASB and ID for basketball. Just because I feel that it captures the whole authenticity aspect.
Every since the first LOW games first started showing up, I loved the concept. Just being able to wrestle with the old school grapplers, and childhood heroes, on a next generation console is just my ideal game. With that being said, the first two renditions of this title, failed miserably to the public, but I feel that they still had a lot going for them. The gameplay, although a little bit slower, and more boring to some, really captured the overall feel of oldschool wrestling. Back in the days, wrestling was more about "Big" guys doing "Big" moves. Guys who couldn't run the 1/4 mile in 3 minutes. So having the LOW series play like Smackdown, and constant action just wouldn't really suit the game. I think Acclaim, although needed to work out a lot of kinks, and work on the fluidness of the animations, had a potentially great game.
Now that the third version of the game has released, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling, people have been making comparisons that really should never be made. So far, I am almost 35 matches into the game, and I have been having a ball with the game. The game is not bug free, and is nowhere near flawless, but it still plays a very good game of "Old School Wrestling". Granted, there are some problems with the movesets of the wrestlers. But think about this, there are basically 8 moves for the front grapple, and 8 for the back grapple. If you didn't fill the movesets with moves that Hulk Hogan could have done, you would basically be left seeing Hogan do hip toss and power slam, after hip toss and powerslam. They should have chosen a couple different fillers for the movesets, but to me, it doesn't take away from the gameplay.
The AI in this game is not as bad as everyone is making the game out to be. If you put the game on Legend, and turn off the Health meters, then chances are, you will probably get an old school [censored] whippin from Abdullah the Butcher and the likes. This also speeds up the gameplay a little, which will please some of the gamers out there. The health meters have really hurt games like Smackdown, and Raw. If you turn them off, you actually have to wrestle your way to victory, rather then punch and stomp until you see the power bar is depleted, and then do your finisher. If you turn them off, then it will change your gameplay experience.
The graphics of this game are as good if not better then those of Smackdown's. I don't think they are up to Raw's graphics, but take a look around the arena's you are in, those are amazing in detail. Acclaim has done an excellent job of getting the liscenses to use these classic arena's so we can relive some classic matches.
However, this game is not without fault. Some of the promises made by Justin Withers were not delivered in the final version of the game. Things such as Custom Soundtracks which should be in every XBOX wrestling game were left out. Although he never said Custom Entrance music was in, he said, music ripping is still in, which in a sense, it is. There are a couple of things that I can't really deal with though. The edit a Legend is non existant which is horrible. If you have a dedicated staff to working on the game, there should be no reason not to include this for the XBOX version.
Another thing is the CAL or Create a Legend. Last years mode wasn't horrible as you could take a pair of pants or shirt, and modify the color and make a pretty good version of any current star or legend who was left out for whatever reason. If the Create a Legend was implemented right, this would take care of it. But I can't take Hulk Hogan and change his skin color, because it will just add a layer of skin over his existing clothes, and change his face as well. That is unexcusable. You can't even make hair black. The closest thing you can do is Dennis Rodman style and make is Blue. Sure, Acclaim has signed most of the wrestlers I could hope for in this game, but in this day and age, a game shouldn't be released without a decent create a wrestler. I am not giving up on the CAL, but it definately isn't even up to par with that of WWE Raw 2.
So basically, this is my informal review of the game. Take this for what you want. This game is not perfect, but for old school wrestling, this isn't that bad of a game. Acclaim, I commend you on your efforts, but I also wish you would be straight forward in conducting your Q&A sessions, and try and work on the things that really need it. Hopefully LOW:4 will be a old school fan's dream.
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