CONight's WWE '13 Thoughts

[CONight]

After a couple weeks with the game, 100% completion of Attitude Era mode, making several CAWs, and dabbling in Universe. It's time for some thoughts.

 

Attitude Era mode

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I've heard people touting the "revolutionary" new campaign mode replacing road to wrestlemania. Attitude Era is enjoyable, but revolutionary it certainly is not. If you think Attitude Era mode is fesh and new, you should go out and pick up WWE Legends of WrestleMania, which came out along side WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2009. Attitude Era is basically the same as what you got in that game: Play classic matches with side objectives guiding you to recreate what happened in real life to unlock bonus content--complete with real footage from WWE's video library. The difference is, WWE '13's method is a little more forgiving. Some of LoWM's side objectives got a bit demanding, asking you at times to allow your superstar to get critical damage before going for the win.

One thing that has been touted about Attitude Era mode that is really untrue, is that you can complete all the matches just by winning. Wrong. There's even one match where you're asked to lose on purpose (via DQ.) Several others you have to end the match in specific ways, much different than how you would play the matches in regular gameplay. Also some side objectives, if you fail, you automatically lose. None of this is a bad thing though. I didn't think the objectives in WWE '12 Road to WM were really that bad, and WWE '13 is indeed more forgiving.

 

Universe 3.0

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I'll admit I've not played in Universe a great deal yet, so I'm sure I'll have alot more to say about this later. I mentioned in another thread that the touted ability to book & save a show's entire card is completely broken, but I feel it's important to address so I'm going to repeat myself:

How about the saving cards feature in Universe being completely broken? I tried it twice to be sure. I booked every match on a card' date=' saved, then started the first match. If you quit the match and go back to the card, all the matches you booked will be reset to what the game had originally booked. Big problem.[/quote']

 

You can only assign 2 brands/rosters to PPVs? Really? I seem to recall WWE having 3 brands going (RAW, SD, and ECW) and all 3 of them were featured on certain PPVs. Some were just 1 or 2, but some absolutely used all 3. What about that big PPV event AWA held to compete with the WWF back in the day that was a cross-promotion even with like 5 different wrestling promotions? You should also be able to have more than 2 brands represented on a minor show.

 

Some more positives: Editable rankings are nice, and custom titles are a welcome return.

 

One other thing about setting up titles, and this will probably have to wait until WWE '14, but why are we stuck with a women's title slot? I know you can just leave it empty, but we're missing a slot for another division: cruiserweights. I also like to have a hardcore title thing going, but roll that up with cruiserweight titles and that will work just fine. I'm sure most people only prefer one or the other. The fact is the major/minor formula is just a little flawed.

 

Odds & Ends

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Online: Let's get the important issue out of the way first. The online functionality, particularly the community creations servers. Did THQ finally stop dodging the obvious solution and get the servers running smoothly? They did say the servers were a high priority this year. Well, they actually did dodge the core problem again, but atleast they did find a better solution than last year's patch method of just making the game wait longer before giving up on making a connection.

You've probably noticed that the servers do work alot better this year, (so far), and in fact CAWs download much faster. I believe what THQ has done is streamline the CAW data so that you have less to download from the server at a time, and thus less time you need to be working with the server. This is not exactly an easy thing to do, so props to THQ for the accomplishment. We'll see how long this is effective, but I think in the end THQ will still have to break down and increase server capacity. Yes, I am aware of THQ's financial issues and the fact those issues will hamper their ability to add servers. We shall see.

 

OMG: For the most part this is a nice feature, and I don't think it's as big a bother to bank 3 finishers as some make it out to be. I have one gripe though. I tried to do the break-the-ring OMG with Brock Lesnar vs Mark Henry, and the superplex went out of the ring instead of breaking it in the centre. A guy that did the move in real life can't do it in the game?! I've heard of people saying he's not as heavy in WWE '13 as he was when it did it in real life. According to my Prima game guide, he weighs 266 lbs. Pretty sure that qualifies as super heavyweight. I don't know wether to call this a bug or just a serious design flaw.

 

Well that's good for now, but I'm sure I'll have more to talk about later.

 

I will close with one last thing. As much as I've picked the game apart in this post, overall it's been a good improvement over WWE '12. It was stated just pryor to the release of WWE '12 that THQ was embarking on a 3 or 4 year plan to overhaul the WWE game(s) post-SvR. So look at WWE '12 & '13 as WIPs of the product we have to look foward to in a year or two. I'd say so far so good, and let's all keep up the "beta testing" reports here on CAWs.ws.

[drek manson]

266 is NOT a Super Heavyweight

350 + is

[CONight]

266 is NOT a Super Heavyweight

350 + is

 

Wrong. I just went into CAW mode to check a CAW I made that is super heavyweight. My CAW is 349 lbs and, after testing, the game shifts from "heavyweight" to "super heavyweight" at 280 lbs.

 

Doesn't change the fact that Lesnar broke the ring in real life.