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View Full Version : IGN INSIDER REVIEW! READ! Part 2



zeus2772
02-10-2002, 05:42 PM
TV-style presentation with in-game cutaways and "Double Feature" replays,
dynamic lighting effects and fully scaled arenas.
Hundreds of WWF signature moves and animations
Assault wrestlers on their way to the ring. A first in wrestling games.
Create-a-Wrestler
Multiple modes including six man Royal Rumble and King of the Ring tourney.
Authentic entrances with Titantron videos
Four player tag team, handicap and triple threat matches.
Gameplay
Raw features a very refined grappling system that's much more fluid and
responsive than any wrestling game to date. Furthermore all moves are
limited by the amount of available "energy" your wrestler has at any given
moment. So rather than a strong or weak grapple and a full complement of
moves for each, your wrestler has one grapple and it's up to you to know if
he or she has enough energy to pull off the move you want. Logically, simple
moves out of a grapple like a slap or a chop to the chest don't require much
energy. Bigger moves like a sidewalk slam or a stalling brainbuster take
more juice and if your wrestler doesn't have it, the grapple will be broken
by your opponent or even countered. This is a great innovation that forces
players to strategize rather than just drop a dozen piledrivers on an enemy.

Everything you do uses energy in Raw and you'll see the bar moving back and
forth near his or her feet. The variety of striking moves you have at your
disposal use up a little energy. Running by double tapping on the D-pad or
leaning the left analog stick uses energy. Picking up a table and swinging
it takes way more energy than picking up a sledgehammer and swinging it at
somebody. You can swing a chair until your wrestler runs out of energy,
usually 5 or 6 blows, and then he'll drop it. Energy replenishes in less
than one second as soon as you stop moving and give your guy a chance to
recover.

The box at the end of your energy meter functions as a health indicator too,
but you'll only notice it when you're taking a beating. The faster it blinks
the more vulnerable you are to a pin or submission attempt. You want that
box to stay solid and not blinking at all.

Raw does a brilliant job of incorporating the crowd into the play mechanic.
No you can't fight in the crowd but the crowd approval meter at the bottom
of the screen is just as significant. Through out the ups and downs of the
match the colored bars matching the colors of the different wrestlers will
grow or shrink in relation to how the crowd feels about you. You cannot pin
somebody that the crowd likes. Charismatic wrestlers like The Rock and Stone
Cold Steve Austin pretty much have the crowd behind them no matter what, so
it takes one hell of a beat down to pin those two. Snore kings like Steve
Blackman rarely get much crowd support. The key is getting the crowd behind
you by executing a variety of moves and attacks and building their
excitement level until your crowd meter starts to flash. This is when you
can pull of your signature move and really send them through the roof. If
the crowd is behind you and the other guy's health box is blinking you're
ready to get the pin. But for you sadistic sickos out there, the crowd will
turn on you and start rooting for the other guy if you over do it and keep
beating the crap out of a guy when he's already "pinnable."

The item system in Raw might be the best innovation in the genre. During any
match there are chairs behind the announcers table (even though there are no
announcers) and other items like tables and ladders strewn about the ramp
area or around the ring. All of these can be picked up and used offensively
or used conventionally. That is, you can pick up a chair and smash a skull
with it or simply unfold it and put it down for somebody to sit on. You can
use a table or ladder in the same way. But there are also as many as six
black trunks around the ring and ramp area that will have items in them.
Everything from microphones to foam fingers to spiked dog collars to
sunglasses to bazookas can be found in these trunks and used as weapons.
Hats and pineapples don't do as much damage as steel pipes and scales but
they're all usable. Also the obvious items can be used conventionally and
worn by the wrestler. So if you bust open a trunk with Trish Stratus and
pick up the chef's hat in there using the B-action button you can have her
put the hat on her head and wear it during the rest of the match by hitting
B again.

But that's just the beginning of the fun with items in Raw.

"The team members are all gamers and we'd sit around and say to each other
'I don't like how all of these wrestling games use items' so we came up with
our own item system that's more like what we think wrestling is like," says
Onoguchi. " So you can pick up items, use them in a match or wear them and
even break them in some cases. But you can also use these in
Create-A-Supersar mode."

And this is really what the Create-A-Wrestler mode in Raw is all about. Well
that and the amount of control you have over your wrestler's entrance. You
can of course pick from over a dozen faces, multiple genders, how you want
to cover each individual body part and so on. But those items you find
during matches can be assigned to your CAW. If you find Stone Cold's camo
fishing hat and the Undertaker's shades, you can assign those items for you
character to wear. And by wear we mean he or she will come to the ring with
that hat and those shades on and should they get knocked off by a vicious
punch from your opponent, they become items like any other items on the
screen. You can assign stuff to a CAWs head, face, neck, shoulder, waist and
hands. There are roughly 120 different items and most of them can be carried
to the ring during your entrance. Some items like the broken steel chair
pieces (the pad where you sit and the steel frame will separate from each
other) can't but you'll hardly miss 'em with all of the umbrellas, water
bottles and whatnot you can carry.

"Some items are more difficult to get than others. I want to see how many
people are able to get Kurt Angle's medals. One is just a medal, the other
is his genuine authentic gold medal and it's very carefully hidden. That and
the deck of cards, that's a fun one," adds Onoguchi.

When you win a belt in Title Mode, that belt becomes and option in CAW. And
there's nothing more beautiful than coming to the ring with multiple
championships around your waist and over your shoulders. Furthermore those
belts make super effective weapons should they become knocked off during a
match. That's even more incentive to win one.

You control basically every element of your CAW's entrance in Raw. The
lighting controls are exhaustive as you can select the color the pace and
the pattern of over half a dozen different lighting elements. Music is
limited tot he established WWF themes however. Anchor wanted to include the
Xbox's custom soundtrack feature but that will have to wait until the next
version of the game, they say. But you won't mind much when you see the
level of detail in the intro animations. You can take the Undertaker's
motorcycle entrance or Eddie Guerrero's heel act and assign it to your CAW
in its entirety. All of a sudden your guy will be rollin' around on 'Taker's
chopper or spitting at the fans like Latino Heat. Very impressive.