Wrestlemania 21 (Xbox)

I'm going to start with the plus points. The game has sped up A LOT. Whilst it's not quite at the speed of the PS2 games, the sluggish pace of the Raw titles is now gone, replaced with much smoother action, and the reactions from basic attacks do look realistic now.

Unfortunately, this review only allows me 1000 words, and the good points are now pretty minor and are overshadowed by the bad.

The Season mode is poor, even worse than the SmackDown! VS Raw one. I absolutely love Season modes on wrestling, and was overwhelmed at Here Comes The Pain, but, if you thought SVR was simplified, wait until you see this. You can play as your created characters, and if you end up in a Tag match, with a real Superstar, you can't control them when they're tagged in, but that's not the worst bit. They only scripted the Season mode for one possibility, and that's you winning every match. If you lose a match, the game doesn't adapt to fit that. Instead, you have to play the match again, until you win.

At the end of every match, there is usually a replay. These, however, are poor. In one of the most exciting matches I played (within the 2 days before I sod the game), there were quite a few cool looking moments. Then the replay showed a pretty weak punch that wasn't really a highlight. It's dodgy to say the least.

The game is also quite glitchy. At one point, all the music on the title screens stopped playing, and on the CAW move selection screen, the demonstration screen kept on jerking.

Finally, stipulations such as Hell In A Cell and Cage cannot be played in Triple Threat and Fatal 4-Way matches, need I say more.

Wrestlemania 21 is one of the most disappointing wrestling games I have ever played, even more so than Raw 2. Studio Gigante have certainly improved the pace of the matches, but they should take note from a lot of the things that Jakks have done with the SmackDown! series. Also, why should XBox get less modes than the PS2 games. PS2 may sell more, but if XBox started to get the Elimination Chamber on their games as well, it wouldn't really be a bad thing. If you've got an XBOX, this may well be the best wrestling game you can get, but if you've got a PS2, forget the XBox games, and go staright for Here Comes The Pain or SVR.

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Compared with RAW2:

GAMEPLAY - Certainly a lot faster, which is good, but even glitchier than RAW2. The game freezes and the animations (wrestlers) jitter around and do other odd things which is tedious. RAW2 was smoother by contrast. RAW2 grappling was "rubbery" and "sluggish", WM21 is "jerky" and sometimes "robotic"....take your pick. When you're not being held in endless submissions by your CPU opponent, making it very tough to win, the gameplay at least has pace and most of the moves work ok and are fun to execute.

GRAPHICS - The models are still sweeter in RAW2 imo. I'm not as impressed with the graphics in WM21 as many other reviewers are. In WM21 they look too "scetched" (the detail is good, of course) and two-dimensional. They looked more "solid" in RAW2. The best graphical moments in WM21 come during the entrance sequences and during finisher moves when the camera moves in closer, but after that you don't see the wrestlers close enough to appreciate the graphical good points. The matches are best viewed with binoculars, which don't come supplied. Another option is to buy a TV as big as a house. At times wrestlers will be so "distant" (like up the ramp) as to be smaller than the figures in the crowd. Using Bino's the "blood" looks rather good, without a pair you will be squinting and won't even know that Chris Benoit's face is busted open. Changing the camera options between "Broadcast" and "Game" makes absolutely no difference. It just doesn't feel like you are playing an X-Box wrestling game, it's just not in your face enough. No VS screen in WM21 either, a great one in RAW2.

CAW Mode - RAW2 wins hands down. WM21 Caw mode is a big letdown. You only get one shot at getting the figure right, you can only edit the moves, clothing and entrance options after that. If your CAW is too short, tall, fat, thin, wrong hair, eyes, etc., when you enter him into a match, then you will have to create him again and "guess" his height as before (you get a sliding bar with no markers and the figure hardly moves). The "hair" selection is one of the better options, giving you many more than in RAW2. Clothing is limited. The face morphing is ok, but it's really just tweaking the same generic face. The colour pallette in RAW2 was fantastic, nothing like that here, it's almost as bad as the one in "Showdown, Legends" where you could have any hair colour you liked except black or brown...very useful. RAW2 CAWs were SO much better. RAW2 gave you 64 slots for your CAWs and 2 "versions" within each. I don't know how many slots there are in WM21, you can probably get a dozen or so in the box where they are listed, whether you get to "scroll" the list to add more after that...? I'm not excited enough about the whole CAW deal in WM21 to bother getting that far.

ENTRANCES - Most of the WWE superstar's entrances are rather good. Some are very nice. Still prefer those in RAW2. For the CAWs you are limited to 10 variations, no option to choose a WWE superstar's entrance, and you don't get the "middle" bit. You enter the arena, then you step into the ring and walk around it etc. Most of the "walking down the ramp" part is cut (why?) RAW2 was FAR more creative with many more options, especially with the "lighting" and "pyro" sections. Very little of that in WM21. RAW2 spoiled us i guess.

SEASON - Haven't played very much of it, got bored and frustrated with the glitches during matches. The backstage animations and voice overs do work well and are a major improvement over RAW2. The camerawork seems a little more interesting during season mode than in exhibition, but not by much. You might still want to have those Bino's handy.

COMMENTARY - Pretty good. A wrestling game without it just isn't the same. Beats RAW2 in this department, obviously.

SOUND EFFECTS - Yea, generally good.

Still waiting for a decent wrestling game to come to X-Box that has all the best elements in place. Might buy a PS2 instead, or just get out more...hmmm.

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