Formats: Xbox 360 (Tested) | PS3 | Wii
Developer: Yukes
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: 25th November 2011 (Out Now)
Following 12 games in around 11 and a half years, the Smackdown name has been retired from the yearly flagship WWE game. But with the same developer and publisher handling the virtual grappling antics of the wrestling (yep, I’m gonna use the dirty word) superstars, you’d be forgiven for thinking that all you’re just being sold is the same old John Cena t-shirt just in a new fruity pebble colour.
It doesn’t take long to realise that WWE 12 is just a continuation of the Smackdown vs Raw series, with modes and features returning from last year in tweaked and improved forms. Perhaps the most drastic of the changes comes in the control system.
After switching to dual stick grappling for the move to the current gen systems back in late 2006, WWE 12 goes back to utilising face buttons for launching your most common attacks. Many of the new mechanics seem to draw from Yukes’ much-lauded Day of Reckoning titles on the Gamecube, with the combination of a button and direction determining the style of grapple, followed by another button and direction to perform the follow-up move. A tap of the right stick allows you to transition to a different grapple position while holding the grapple button launches a submission move.
Submission returns to a tug of war system, with a “Breaking Point” bar appearing on screen and a wealth of button mashing required to either fill or empty it depending on whether you’re going for the tap-out or trying to escape. Crawling to the ropes also allows you to escape defeat. Getting out of pinfalls, on the other hand, sticks with the hold and release system of recent years – which can prove to be fairly tricky if timing isn’t your strong suit.
Other new in-ring features include wake-up taunts, for use when your wrestler is ready to execute their finishing move. With more and more wrestlers these days performing show-boating routines prior to putting the final blows to their opponent, Yukes have reflected this in the game. With your finisher ready and the opponent on the canvas, a press of the taunt button will see them perform their signature piece of sledging (be it Randy Orton’s viper slither or The Rock’s trademark stalking) while the groggy opponent staggers to their feet.
With the taunt over, you’ll be in the perfect position to simply tap the finisher button and take your foe down. Likewise, if you’re on the receiving end of the taunt, you’ll have a greater idea of when to tap the reversal button. A successful block not only cancels out your opponent’s finisher, but also instantly gives you the ability to perform one of your own.
Unlike the fixed animations of previous years, several of 12′s moves can now be interrupted mid-flow. This adds an extra element of danger to tag and multi-person matches, whereby simply pressing the right button to launch a move doesn’t guarantee that it’ll come to full fruition. In a triple threat match, for instance, a well-timed kick to the gut can stop one opponent from pile-driving another. Of course, CPU opposition will gladly try to stop you in your tracks too.
Sticking with the desire to replicate the television product, several superstars in the game possess the new Comeback ability. Inspired by John Cena’s “Five Moves of Doom”, the ability can be triggered when you’ve taken a certain amount of damage in a match. Once launched, a brief quick-time sequence plays out. If successfully completed, your character’s momentum will build up leading to a potential finisher and victory, snatched from the jaws of defeat. If you’re on the receiving end of a comeback, beating the opponent to the punch on the quick-time sequence will stop the comeback in its tracks. Again, this harks back to Day of Reckoning with its Momentum Shift feature.
Despite issues with collision detection and annoying air grapple / strike moments, the new control system and features do help create some pretty balanced matches, especially against the AI. That said, once you start getting to grips with the timing of reversals then one-on-one victories tend to be more of an inevitability than an achievement. Multi-person matches and higher difficulties still possess some threat of defeat, but for the most part your win/loss ratio will likely end up fairly high.
Returning for a fourth consecutive year is the Road to Wrestlemania story mode of the game, although this year’s iteration is quite different to its predecessors. In previous titles, players were given a choice of around five different, short storylines to play through. These would sometimes contain branching moments and culminate in a big showdown on the grandest stage of them all.
For WWE 12, Road to Wrestlemania eliminates your element of choice, and instead provides you with three stories that play out in sequence – starting with a Villain storyline that puts you in control of Sheamus, before seamlessly seguing into the Outsider storyline as Triple H. When this has reached its conclusion, you’ll face the Hero storyline featuring Jacob Cass. Don’t worry, you’re right not to have heard of him, because Cass doesn’t actually exist. Instead, it’s the name given to the created wrestler that you’re required to make for the final story.
The whole RtWM story plays out over a period of around two and a half years, with each segment lasting around six months (the missing year will be explained as you play). Perhaps the biggest problem is that each segment winds up boiling down to the same thing over and over again. Do a spot of talking one week, get involved in a backstage brawl against multiple opponents the next, then fight a match or two.
With victories required to progress in the storylines, the fights in RtWM often work on a slightly altered version of the match engine. More often than not, rather than having to pin an opponent or make them submit, you simply have to weaken them sufficiently until a button prompt appears that will launch a cut-scene. The system allows the mode to play out real world match styles such as 5-on-5 elimination matches that are otherwise impossible due to the game’s 6-on-screen character limit. It also means that certain staples of matches (like tagging and partner interference in tag matches) are often unavailable.
At the times, the boundaries of credibility (as flimsy as they are when it comes to pro-wrestling) are stretched in the creation of alliances, and certainly those who constantly moan about the influence of Triple H in the WWE will be less than impressed with the level of his involvement across the mode. Some of the voice work leaves a lot to be desired too, with some speeches barely audible above the crowd noise (I’m looking at you, Kevin Nash).
The linear nature of RtWM gives it zero replay value, unlike the branching storylines and bonus unlocks of previous years. Again, it conjures up similarities of the lengthy, sequential stories from the Day of Reckoning games, which sadly were amongst the weaker points of those titles.
Ultimately though, it’s not Road to Wrestlemania that’s the focal point of the titles any more. Nowadays it’s all about the WWE Universe mode, which returns for another year. Universe 2.0 allows for a spot more flexibility over previous years, addressing concerns and complaints from those generated by SvR 2011.
The never-ending season mode, Universe plays out weekly episodes of WWE television, with pre-booked Raw, Smackdown and Superstars cards each week, followed by regular pay per view events. You can play, interfere in or simulate matches, with victors gaining momentum that helps them rise in the WWE rankings, and perhaps even contend for Championships.
This year, you can go beyond just editing in the matches of your choice. Now you can edit the shows entirely. Want to move Smackdown to Mondays and Raw to Friday nights? Now you can. Want to cancel one of them entirely and replace it with NXT, ECW or maybe even WCW Monday Nitro? That’s entirely possible. With the added bonus of being able to create your own arenas in the game, you could even make a completely original show for the WWE Universe, even changing up the major and minor title belts on offer. These can now be defended at any time, without need for an exploit like last year, and Exhibition mode has its own separate titles that can also be freely defended.
Cut-scenes play out throughout Universe, creating rivalries and alliances, and even showcasing some of the unlockable characters that you can access by fulfilling certain secret objectives. For example, winning a match with Cody Rhodes has the potential to cause his bizarre brother Goldust to make a WWE return, while even Brock Lesnar makes a pro-wrestling comeback presumably as part of cross promotion with THQ’s UFC series. What’s next, John Cena in Undisputed 3?
At time of writing, one area where WWE 12 is having a particular struggle is with is online. There are plenty of modes available, with the online Royal Rumble now expanded to 40 men (although still with a maximum load of 12 players) and a wealth of community sharing options for created content. The trouble is, the servers are in a constant yo-yo state, regularly coming up as unavailable when you try to do something as simple as search through the community creations.
In addition to this, get a bad connection and you could be faced with such horrors as button lag. My first experience of an online Rumble saw a two or three second gap between button presses, and their intended function playing out on screen. In a mode ruled by quick-time sequences, it made things damn near unplayable.
Other sufferings include random graphical glitches, like characters going through the ring or giant chunks of the mat turning black. However, from personal experience of several hours playing the game over the past week have, this reviewer has yet to be afflicted by such issues but a quick search on Youtube will show you that they’re certainly there. Just how random they are, and whether they’re a bi-product of custom arenas remains to be seen. As does what Yukes and THQ have in store for fixing them.
As an overall package, WWE 12 is certainly a better game than Smackdown vs Raw 2011. Improvements to Universe that needed to be made have been made, the controls are easy to learn (despite the lack of a tutorial), and the presentation is suitably television-like. However, there are also step backs in areas that prevent the game from gaining an improved score over its predecessor. Road to Wrestlemania is excessively repetitive and somewhat dull, online is in dire need of patch-work and the glitches, however random they may be, are not really becoming of a company that has been making wrestling games for over a decade.
It’s almost becoming an annual thing for the WWE games to solve problems in one area, only to create them in another, and WWE 12 is no exception. It will provide entertainment to the WWE fan masses over the short term, but for many the enjoyment will only be short term. With the new engine in place and ready for tweaking, (loud) feedback from fans and honest appraisal from both critics and creators alike, next year’s game could well be the one that launches WWE games back into the 9s and 90s. But then, we thought the same thing last year.
