I'm going to start doing reviews on this site, I've been doing reviews for several sites, and since my readers think I'm good at reviewing, I though make some here, particularly this series I like to call "The PS2's final moments.", where I review the PS2's last games.
When did they come out? The more appropriate question is, when WILL they come out?
That's right! Believe it our not, they're still games being made for the PS2, usually a port of a game, although there's no mention on the advertisements for the games, or reviews of them, that's when I come along, I'm going to buy every individual game that comes out on the PS2 from 2011 onwards.
I also want to know, if there's any game I've missed that's coming to PS2, tell me about it, like I said I want to experience the PS2's last moments, I want to be with it, on it's deathbed, sitting beside it, holding it's controller, until it finally rests it's laser and is discontinued.
The first game in this series is WWE All Stars, yes, believe it or not, there's a PS2 version, don't believe me? Check on Amazon, it does exist, however, THQ themselves have never mentioned a PS2 port, why not?
As a PC gamer, at least when it comes to modern games, and a fan or Wrestling games, I am annoyed that THQ never release the WWE games on the PC, and have to resort to getting them on PS2, and recently, we were given a very good port of Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, the graphics were actually comparable to the other versions,and the game ran fast and the controls were very functional, in fact the only complaint I have with it is that the commentating wasn’t very good, sometimes they repeat lines a couple of times or just say something totally out of context to what’s going on, and the load times were awful, it can take up to 5 minutes to load up a match, apart from those, it was a great port and probably the best PS2 game in years, and being it was released when it was, I thought it would be the last, ending the PS2’s life with a bang.
The best thing was, unlike every other game from 2008 to present, they didn't just grab the Wii version and port it without a care in the world. The graphics were better on the PS2 overall, for instance, the ropes were 3D and the names on the wrestlers, telling you who you're facing, didn't have a black box behind them unlike the Wii version, the framerate was much more reliable too, in fact if I can recall right, it never slowed down on me, not even with 6 wrestlers in a TLC match, it's just things like that that proved that THQ put real effort into the PS2 version!
On the back of the instruction manual it has an ad for the then upcoming WWE All Stars, and having done a little research, I found that it was coming to the PS2. The game was going to be an unofficial sequel of sorts to WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade game, it’ll be cartoony and not the slightest bit realistic, I loved that game, so I was looking forward to this, and after playing the PS3 version at HMV, and enjoyed it, I didn't expect a perfect port, but I still expected a great port nonetheless, like what we got for Smackdown vs. Raw 2011.
Before I started playing, I heard they grabbed the Wii version, and put it on the PS2, I thought that was kind of lazy, but I'll give it a chance.
The game as you imagine, doesn’t have much of a story, just win matches and become the champion, you can choose from 3 champions, I’ll get more into that later.
I started the game up, and played a quick match, and wow, was I disappointed, the arena looked pretty nice, the textures were actually really good, the best I’ve seen from the PS2 in fact, but the characters look awful, the texture quality is awful, the colours look all washed out, sometimes the clothes look as though they were just part of the wrestlers skin. The worst part is, the game doesn’t even run a good framerate despite this, The gameplay suffers big time from this, I’ll get to that later.
The music is... well, there’s no music, instead we have JR and Jerry “King” Lawler commentating the match, if you wanted a fast paced, fun game, put in some upbeat music, or at least something that give you the impression that it’s fast. I’m sick and tired of hearing JR and King’s annoying American accents, to give them credit, at least this time around they got it right, they don’t repeat the same lines constantly and everything they say relates to what’s going on in the match.
The sound effects are awful, they honestly sound like they recorded the sound effects using a microphone to a speaker and then compressed it. It just sounds awful.
The gameplay is terrible. the controls lag, what I mean by this is that the buttons only work half the time and sometimes you have to press a button multiple times for it to do something, the AI are annoying as well, sometimes, they just won’t give you any chance to attack, they’ll punch you when you’re down getting back up, this can get very frustrating.
There are a few game modes to keep you occupied, you have the fantasy warfare game types, where they have matches where they get a WWE legend and their modern equivalent, for example, Andre the Giant vs Big show, both of them are big and heavy, or Sgt. Slaughter vs. Jack Swagger, both of them being obsessed with their country, the USA.
You also have a Path of Champions mode, which a mentioned earlier, you can choose from 3 champions to chase, the classic WWE championship (Undertaker and Paul Bearer), the modern WWE championship (Randy Orton) and the WWE tag team championship (D-Generation X), they’re all the same thing, you play 10 matches, the championship one included, so there really isn’t much to say about that.
The presentation is average, well, it would be had it not of been for the awful muffled sound effects, and the terrible load times, they aren't as bad as Smackdown vs. Raw 2011, but they’re still awful.
To end on a high note, if you’re playing with a friend for the sake of laughing at the game for it’s many flaws, there’s actually some fun to be had with the game, because of the low gravity moves and, lack of music and bad sound effects give off the impression that they’re on the moon, you have a great laugh out of that.
Overall, it’s is an awful port, they put no effort into it whatsoever, they just grabbed the Wii version and dumped it on a PS2 disc. On multiplayer, however, it’s so bad, it’s good. Unless you can find it very cheap, like say 50p, and want to buy it for the multiplayer, don’t bother.
Graphics: 3/10 – They would be considered bad even if it was a launch title, and it can’t even run a good framerate, not even the great textures can save it.
Gameplay: 5/10 – Again, unless your playing it on multi-player to laugh at it, it’s just boring, the controls are delayed and sometimes don’t work.
Music: 1/10 – There’s no music in the game, and again, the commentators will really get on your nerves, The sound effects are Awful, absolutely awful, I give it 1 point for at least getting the commentary right.
Overall: 3/10 – Overall, A terrible port of a great game, I do not recommend you get this version. It wasn’t like you were going to get the PS2 version anyway, I’m just saying, don’t!
Was this any good? Give me your honest opinion, I want to know.
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