It's often been said that wrestling, like everything else in life, works in cycles - if only due to the demanding nature of the business. Like any show, wrestling revolves around personalities - and when a new, big name comes along that can connect with the fans like no other, it can often change the entire business, for better or worse. In 1995, the wrestling industry went through one of the biggest changes since the downfall of the British based federations - and it's this era, this radical change in direction, that WWE 13 takes its cues from.
For years, at least in America, the WWF had been the top dog, presenting a brand of family friendly entertainment. There were clean cut good guys and bad guys, who told kids to eat their vitamins and say their prayers, bright colours, big characters, and a good guy you could always trust would win. But with increasing competition from rivals WCW, who, with the backing of billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, were beginning to sign away the WWF's biggest stars - including Hulk Hogan - the WWF began to stumble. Aligning himself with two former WWF stars - Kevin Nash, and Razor "Scott Hall" Ramon, WCW turned Hulk Hogan into a "heel", or a baddie, and formed a group known as the nWo. It proved to be a masterstroke. Anti-establishment, rebels with a cause, the nWo set the wrestling world alight - and by 1996, WCW were drawing in higher numbers of viewers, and commanding the lion's share of advertising dollars. Forced to respond, the WWF had to adapt to survive, and completely change their product. They needed new storylines. A new direction. New stars. That new direction became known as the Attitude Era - and was home to some of the most jaw dropping moments ever witnessed in a wrestling ring.
With a slightly nostalgic look in its eye, it's this Attitude Era that WWE 13 bases most of its action around. Featuring a crop of storylines and characters from the Attitude Era, the game still contains all the familiar characters from today, from your John Cenas to your Wade Barretts and your, er, Primos, but they're now joined by thirty plus of biggest stars of yesteryear, including Bret Hart, Mankind and the British Bulldog.
Some of the likenesses really don't look right. Look at Vince's hair!
Arguably the biggest change in this year's game comes from the story mode, or rather, the lack thereof, with the Road to Wrestlemania now replaced with a mode called - you guessed it - Attitude Era. Instead of providing you with a fictional storyline to play through (as has been the case in every Smackdown/WWE game ever released), the "Attitude Era" mode instead takes a more retrospective look at one of the most infamous periods in wrestling history, by asking you to take part in a series of historical matches. From Mankind being thrown off the top of the Hell in a Cell by the Undertaker, to the infamous Montreal incident, there's certainly plenty here to get wrestling fans of a certain age hot under the collar - but fans who've come to the WWE more recently may end up feeling a little bit left out.
While fancy videos punctuate the 65 strong set of matches in an attempt to explain some of the backstory involved in the run up to the bigger events, one of the bigger problems here is that the fancy videos never really go far enough. Despite being well put together (complete with the WWE voice-over guy), the videos never really cover things in enough depth, meaning someone who isn't all that familiar with the characters, or didn't really get into wrestling until after the period being covered, may not follow what's going on. And with wrestling now attracting a family audience again, that's something that's especially relevant, as some of the events we're talking about took place more than fifteen years ago - meaning your world's biggest John Cena fan will likely be left out in the dark...
From a personal perspective, I certainly know how that feels. Growing up, I was into WCW, and never really paid all that much attention to what was going on in the WWE. So while I'm certainly aware of the characters (I can tell my Billy Gun from my Road Dogg), and know what happened in the larger storylines, there's still plenty here I didn't quite follow, because I wasn't a WWE fan back in the day. Even the biggest events, like the "Montreal screw-job", aren't really covered all that well - perhaps because they're assuming that everyone will already know what happened. To sum up, one wrestler (Bret Hart, who was the champ) had a legitimate beef with another (Shawn Michaels), and was considering leaving the company. The two also had a match scheduled at an upcoming show. Vince McMahon, the boss of the WWF didn't want to risk his champion jumping ship to WCW with the belt in hand, but the Hart wasn't happy to lose his belt to Michaels - so a "screw-job" was arranged without Hart's knowledge, whereby Michaels put Hart in a submission move, and Vince called for the bell, despite Hart having not tapped out, effectively "robbing" him of his title. A weird mix of art-meets-life, it may have a complex situation - but that's all the more reason to give it a better explanation in the game, especially considering how big an event this was.
The great one vs. the scary one.
Luckily though, things are a lot more positive once you actually get into the ring. With commentary that (in places) has been lifted from real life, there's a much more "big time" feel to the proceedings, with commentators who actually sound like they give a damn about what's happening in the ring - and lots of unlockables to earn too. In the top right hand corner of each match are a set of objectives - one tells you what you have to do in order to win the match, while the others are "historical" bonus objectives, which ask you to recreate events that actually happened. From putting Bret in the aforementioned sharpshooter, to eliminating at least three people from a Royal Rumble, stunnering The Rock, and going on to win the match, the historical objectives add an extra bit of fan service for long-time fans - and provide a great way of earning dozens of unlockables. From old arenas, to stars of days gone by, there are plenty of things to unlock - and brilliantly, the game tells you exactly what you need to do in order to unlock them all.
But despite the new (and old) stars, much of the in ring action retains a similar feel to previous years. The controls, for the most part, are the same as in last year's, with a few tweaks here and there. Punches, grapples, and finishers are all performed by pressing the face buttons (a much easier setup than the analogue stick grappling found in previous games), while reversals are handled by the right trigger. New for this year is a text pop-up that tells you if you pressed the trigger too soon, or too late to successfully perform a reversal, letting you perfect your technique as you wrestle. There's also been a notable increase in the difficulty of the single player game this year, too, with opponents who are much better at performing reversals, and do their best to shut you down and stop you getting a move in (at least, until you reverse something). It's still a bit daft that, even in a minor match, your finishing move often isn't enough to finish the match off, though.
Looks like this match is over...
Outside of the Attitude Era mode, there's a variety of ways to spend your time, with plenty of modes vying for your attention. Exhibition lets you set up a match of your choosing in a wide range of types, from the steel-enclosed madness of Hell in a Cell, to the multi-ladder mayhem of Money in the Bank. New for this year is the King of the Ring tournament, which lets you take on a series of wrestlers in an elimination style tournament - although in reality, it's little more than a fancy menu screen, and an excuse to unlock Booker T.
Also updated for this year is WWE Universe mode (officially christened "3.0"), although you'll be hard pressed to notice what the differences are on the surface. Letting you play through year after year of action throughout the WWE, WWE Universe mode creates feuds and partnerships, initiates storylines, and puts together matches for shows each and every week on the fly, tracking champions, wrestler momentum, win-loss records, and more. Letting you jump into any match and take over, or simply stick to a wrestler of your choosing, WWE Universe mode lets you experience the ups and downs of the WWE - and it's fully customisable, too. Letting you move wrestlers from show to show, choose champions, and even create your own shows from scratch, including arenas, wrestlers, champions and match-up screens, there's certainly plenty to do - but there's still one major issue that hasn't been addressed. While you can choose to play through WWE Universe with a few of your friends and family in tow, the mode obviously hasn't been designed for multiplayer, as there's no way to stick together as a group. If there's a tag team match, then sure, two of you can jump into the roles - but if three of you want to stick together, either as a tag team with a manager, or working as a faction, there's no way to do it. There's no way to run in on your friend's match (or for more than one player to run in on a match), you can't accompany your faction partner to ringside, and there'll never be more than two of you involved in a storyline - no matter how large you make your team using the built in editor. And it's a real missed opportunity. No-one wants to sit around and watch their friend wrestle a match, patiently waiting for their turn. You want to be able to be involved. Even having the option to run in if your friend gets into trouble would make things that much more interesting - not to mention having faction-based storylines.
Luckily, the creative vibe here spans a lot further than just the WWE Universe mode, with a wide range of create-a-wrestler tools on offer. Letting you tailor everything to your needs, you can create a custom wrestler, choosing from thousands of parts, make a logo, create his entrance, make his own entrance video, create an entire arena for them to wrestle in, and then top it all off by giving him (or her) their own custom title belt. Sadly, though, while the custom title belt is a returning feature for WWE 13, it's actually a lot less varied than it was before. The last time we had the ability to design a custom belt, you really could do just that, editing everything, sticking lettering on, logos, patterns, colours - the lot. Now, all you can do is change the colour of the strap, and the colour of the metal, before giving it a custom name. Still, it's a step in the right direction.
What isn't a step in the right direction, though, is how these create-a-wrestlers are then handled. While in every other instalment (and we've played every other instalment), we've never had a problem with the created wrestlers, in this year's game, we've had no end of problems. Choosing our wrestler for a match, we've been met with repeated access errors, which then resulted in the game freezing, or us wrestling the match as a textureless, jet black character model. We had similar problems with the create-an-arena mode, which, after letting us spend the best part of half an hour crafting the greatest arena the world has ever seen (mostly by plastering upside down pictures of the Rock everywhere), decided to tell us we'd removed our hard drive, and our work couldn't be saved. We ended up losing the whole thing. Sigh.
Also worth a mention is the Highlight Reel, which lets you save clips of your favourite moments from matches, and then edit them together, complete with all sorts of fancy effects. It's a great feature - although we wish you could upload clips to YouTube, or another sharing site.
It's also worth mentioning that the game includes an online pass, with THQ planning a long list of downloadable add-ons in the run up the Christmas. And while there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, the downloadable line-up does leave you asking a few questions. When your paid-for add-ons include Yoshi Tatsu (who was in WWE 12), Drew McIntyre (also on WWE 12), and Layla (also... you get the point), and the few available for purchase at the moment appear to simply be codes that unlock wrestlers already on your disc, it leaves a somewhat bad taste in the mouth - even more-so when two of the downloadable wrestlers (Diamond Dallas Page and Goldust) can only be accessed if you buy all the DLC in one through the Fan Axxess Pack.
But despite its shortcomings, there's still a lot to like about WWE 13. Lifting the commentary from real life was a nice touch, the Attitude Era focus helps the game stand out from previous years, and the roster, at over 100 wrestlers strong, is the largest we've had in years. It's nice to see the series taking something of a gamble by focusing on a different era, rather than sticking to the same old, same old - and in the ring, things are still a lot of fun. But with the problems we've had actually using our creations, the dodgy DLC schedule, and a WWE Universe mode that still has yet to realise its potential (proper multiplayer support next year please, THQ), WWE 13 is a game that, while still a lot of fun, does feel a little bit rough around the edges.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
