WWE All Stars is WWE and THQ trying to venture away from the
hardcore wrestling fans that they dedicate their Smackdown vs. Raw franchise to
and trying to be a bit more kid focused. From the gargantuous models
of the wrestlers to the fun juggling of characters that you can sometimes do with your punches,
one thing is for sure, WWE All Stars is silly.
In the demo now available on Xbox Live and PSN, you’re given only two wrestlers to play with: Rey Mysterio and The Ultimate Warrior. Who are arguably the two characters you’d least want to play with. At least give me some Eddie Guerrero or The Rock. For the most part though, the moves of these two wrestlers feel very solid and most importantly, very fast. WWE All Stars’ matches never have one second of downtime unless you hit the start button. If you’re not wailing away on your opponent, he’s sure to be doing that exact thing to you. This could wind up being a big issue if the moveset wasn’t so fun to play with. There doesn’t seem to be an immense amount of moves or combinations you can do but since the game moves so fast, that doesn’t matter. You just do whatever move comes to mind and watch the crazy animation of Ultimate Warrior flying through the air play out.
The most noticeable difference from Smackdown vs. Raw to WWE All Stars is the look. WWE All Stars features a ton of bright colors that are really pleasing to the eye. The aforementioned bulky character animations are also done really well. It gives the entire game a great arcade feel. Some people may be a bit turned off upon first glance at WWE All Stars, but you shouldn’t be.
The controls are also vastly different from Smackdown vs. Raw. In SvR, they’re very complex for newcomers but in WWE All Stars, all you need to know is to how to do light punches, how to grab, and how to reverse. You do all of these three things with just three buttons mapped to the controller. No awkward stick rotating needed.
If there was one issue with the demo it’s that the reversal
system seemed a bit inconsistent. An RB prompt flashes on screen when you need
to do a reversal and I could swear that I hit that RB prompt multiple times
when it would appear but nothing would happen. When it did happen though, it
looked great. The animations do a great job of blending into one another. Take
for example using Rey Mysterio to run at Ultimate Warrior, jumping off his body
onto a turnbuckle, jumping off the turnbuckle and doing a hurracarrana that
flings Warrior into the tree of woe position on the turnbuckle. It’s a visual
beauty to see all of that unfold.
I came into WWE All Stars with the thought that it was going to be a kids focused game and that it just wouldn’t be for me, a hardcore wrestling fan, and I was dead wrong. WWE All Stars is not a kid’s game; it’s an arcade game for all ages. No matter if you’re a past wrestling fan or a current wrestling fan, you should at least check out the demo. I call Eddie Guerrero upon the full game's release, though.
WWE All Stars releases on March 29th.