Usually I would hardly bother chucking a WWE game up on for Community Review, I mean Let’s face it – wrestling games have become formulaic and dull over the past decade. But All Stars really is a moth to butterfly transformation, and I’m enjoying it so far. How are you guys finding it?
Whereas the Smackdown series saw fit to incrementally improve the core mechanics, whilst piling needless feature upon needless feature, All Stars takes things back to scratch, creating a foundation built on solid mechanics, top collision detection and a fighting system that completely makes sense. In a sense, it’s barely a wrestling game – more like a great fighter sporting a wrestling skin.
In that regard you’d think there’d be little reason for a wrestling fan to pick up WWE All Stars, but you’d be wrong. This is a game drowning in fan service – a game that somehow manages to cater to lapsed wrestling fans in addition to the core audience. It’s been a while since I cared about the WWE product, but I’ll never stop caring about awesome characters like Ricky Steamboat and Shawn Michaels, and the roster itself, which pits legends against current WWE superstars, is a compelling enough reason to check the game out to begin with.
My only real complaint is the lack of match options. WWE All Stars is the start of a new franchise, and it feels like it. It’s fresh, vibrant, but still feels like it has room to grow into itself. I’m personally hoping it’ll be successful enough to yield a sequel.
That’s my rough take on the game – how do you guys feel about it?
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