Import Review: All Star Pro Wrestling - IGN (original) (raw)

Despite Square's hit-or-miss reputation for non-RPGs, they've always managed to pull it together for beat-em-ups ¿ Ergheiz and the Tobal series will always have a place in my heart. The success of Square's fighters drew from the superior design skills of DreamFactory, a third-party developer that simply knew how to get things done. Due to this spotless fighting-game track record, you'd expect All-Star Pro Wrestling to, as the colloquial saying goes, layeth the smack down on the competition.

However, prized developer DreamFactory was hard at work making a game out of The Bouncer, so Square was forced to give All-Japan Pro Wrestling to an in-house group. Yes, this is truly a development team that knows how to harness the insane power of the PlayStation 2, model real-life wrestlers with incredible accuracy, and create a gameplay experience as invigorating as digging wax out of your ears. Don the gas masks, kids ¿ it's time to crack open the All-Japan Pro Wrestling box, and you'll want to protect yourself from the ungodly stink.

First things first: ASPW is based on one of the largest Japanese wrestling leagues, which is surprisingly entertaining. Japanese wrestling is a lot like American wrestling ¿ only there's a lot more blood, less T&A, and the audience is much too modest to hold up signs with such witticisms as "SUCK IT" and "CHYNA IS MY DAD." The majority of Japanese wrestlers are true badasses who possess remarkable real-life shootfighting and Vale Tudo abilities, and if a "Pro-resura" stops you on the street and asks you for your wallet, you hand that sucker over and give him a smile. Then again, being placed put in a double leg-lock by Shinya "I will crush you" Hashimoto would be infinitely more enjoyable than having to trudge through the torturous mess that is ASPW.

From the start of the game, you're given access to a handful of gameplay modes ¿ under the "Match Make" menu, you can fight for the title bout in different weight divisions, or go for the belt in a tournament. Though you're given the option of selecting your opponent and a custom ring, there's not much else in terms of customizing a match ¿ don't expect any weapons, cage matches, or tag-team rounds. There are 26 wrestlers available from the start, all of whom you have probably never heard of before. In addition, there are a half-dozen secret wrestlers (including girls in bikinis, for those who enjoy blatant cheesecake).

After you hit the start button, the match is underway, and the pain begins. Apparently, Square wanted to break away from the pack with a new control scheme that takes advantage of the Dual Shock 2. All you need to use are both analog pads ¿ the left pad controls movement, while the right executes attacks. Pressing both pads down at the same time results in a grapple, and tapping the right pad in different directions busts out the throws.

This may sound good on paper ¿ but in practice, it's an utter mess. The touchy, analog nature of the controls make pulling off moves sporadic, and trying to execute a pin is annoyingly difficult. The number of moves you can pull off pales in comparison to the lackluster WWF Attitude, and nailing a special finisher is mostly dumb luck. Even worse, the moves come out ve-r-r-y slowly ¿ almost a full second after you input the move. Tricky maneuvers have been dumbed down to a single keypress ¿ it's possible to bounce into the ropes, spin around, and deliver a flying elbow to your opponent by pressing ONE button. That sure takes the challenge out of it, eh?

Realizing that most players would take one look at the default controls and wisely proclaim "This is a load of ass," Square included a second control scheme that's a bit more palatable. "Type B" control maps the ridiculous pad movements to buttons, making moves easier to pull off. It also makes use of the analog buttons ¿ the harder you press, the more powerful the move. This wears out the thumb considerably, and proves that analog buttons in fighting games is a very, very bad idea.

Aside from nasty controls, ASPW happens to be one of the most lethargic wrestling games ever created. While the player animation ranges from amazingly fluid to laughably robotic, transitions between positions (down, crouching, and standing) can take up to three seconds. There's no collision detection on your wrestler as he sloooo-wly lumbers to his feet ¿ and any attacks that are thrown by your opponent will go right through your body in a supernatural fashion. And, for the love of god, make sure you don't get a case of the "dizzies" ¿ I've spent lengthy intervals watching the computer AI beat the goo out of me, with no chance of escaping. All in all, the entire gameplay experience is about as fluid as an underwater soccer match.

Well... at least it looks good. ASPW uses a ton of polygons on each wrestler in order to make up for texture memory limitation, and the Emotion Engine works overtime by putting shiny highlights on their sweaty bodies. There could be a bit more emotion devoted to the wrestlers' faces, though ¿ there are a whopping two facial expressions, which are "screaming in agony" and "slack-jawed mongoloid." Ringside entrances are suitably spectacular, with plenty of strobe lights, fire, and smoke filling the arenas. And you can't beat the copious amount of blood, which splatters across the mat with a good hit. Cool. Unfortunately, even in the day and age when a developer can dedicate several thousand polygons to the crack in a character's ass, they still can't manage to create a crowd that looks any better than the one in Pit Fighter. The ASPW audience apparently consists of identical twins, who keep looping a four-frame animation. Atrocious.

But aside from shiny graphics, ASPW is tossed-together slop. There are so many blatant omissions in game ¿ there's no create-a-wrestler mode, the commentary is sparse, a four-player simultaneous mode is nonexistent, and the outdoor arenas look like they were ripped out of a Saturn game. I don't know how EA is progressing with their WCW title, but to be honest, they'd have to try pretty damn hard to do worse than this. Leave $70 time bomb on your local importer's shelf, and pull out your old copy of WWF Attitude or Super Fire Pro 6-Man Scramble instead. Shame on you, Square.

-- Colin Williamson, IGN

When Square announced that it would be entering new game genres with PlayStation 2, people were understandably surprised. After all, this was a company known almost exclusively for its RPGs and perhaps a few fighting games. As we all know, Square hasn't fared that well so far, as its first non-RPG for PS2 was slammed on both sides of the Pacific for its uncontrollable steering, despite having a decent engine under the hood.

Just as Type-s was a visually impressive title, so is All Star Professional Wrestling. I've never seen such detailed wrestlers. The wrestler models are outstanding and look exactly like their real-life counterparts --you can even distinguish five fingers on their hands. Everything from the skin and to the muscles, even down to their pearly whites, videogame wrestling has never looked so real. When players bleed, the blood stays on the mat. It will stay for a while and then disappear, but it will keep slowly dripping out. It's nothing graphic, just a nice touch of realism. There is almost no clipping, even when slapping on a move like the head scissors. The top rope does go right through the guy's arm when he's in the corner, but compared to most wrestling games I've played, that is nothing. The different rings and arenas aren't going to knock you out, but they too are solidly modeled.

The entrances are pretty much the same (except one wrestler, Rikidouzan, who is from the 50's and was killed in a bar fight by some drunk who stabbed him, wanting to see how tough he was. Riki either descends from heaven or appears in a swirl of light.), with smoke and laser lights and authentic music for each wrestler, but this is Japanese wrestling, not the WWF, so there is nothing like a Titantron. Even the referee looks good, and unlike many wrestling games, he is constantly on the screen and will drop down for the pinfall.

The sound is adequate. Wrestler entrances feature their actual theme songs. Chops make a slapping sound and punches make a thud. The sound of hitting the mat also is very realistic. The crowd is limited to saying things like the wrestler's name, and "fight!" Overall, the sound isn't as impressive as the visuals of the game, but it works.

The game also manages to incorporate some nifty new features as well. It takes advantage of the PS2's clock to keep track of the actual time and date when you win a title or win in record time. The game also uses just under 2mb of your memory card to store all kinds of things like your progress and even a replay of the last part of your match. Unfortunately, you don't have control over the replay, but it shows the last 10 or so seconds of the match. You can also save up to three entire matches in a "Best Bouts" section.

The title does have its share of problems however. The wrestlers and at times, the ropes, have some slightly jaggy edges, but they're really small enough to overlook. However, when fighting outside the ring, one of the camera positions is behind the first few rows of the audience, who look like they were made out of Legos. It really is that bad. It reminds me of characters from early Intellivision games. Normally, the crowd looks okay, even though it's pretty much the same people over and over again. Fortunately, you can freely move the camera around to get a better view of the action.

Despite looking great, the game moves kind of slowly. It runs smoothly, but slowly. Perhaps you could call it a wrestling "sim" instead of an "arcade" title. Like the difference between NBA Live and NBA Jam. Sometimes when you pull off a move, you're so slow to get up, that the other guy is already getting up and you can't go for the pin. If you get a guy in the corner, you can punch him forever and he will never get out. And if you give a guy a piledriver, he often gets right back up, but a punch to the stomach will send everybody down to a knee.

The physics engine also has a few flaws. Collision detection is okay, and you can even knock a guy back down once he's gotten up to one knee, but this doesn't always work. Sometimes, when you hit a guy in the face, he'll grab his stomach. Also, while the motion capturing for most of the moves is terrific, other things really needed to be reshot. For instance, when many of the caped wrestlers make their entrance; half of the time, the cape flows very naturally behind them. The other half of the time, it looks like a stiff piece of plywood and doesn't move at all. Also, coming off the ropes from an Irish whip doesn't look very natural.

Granted, when a game looks as good as this, the above problems can easily be overlooked if it plays well and has some replay value. ASPW, unfortunately, has neither. Let's start with the controls. Wrestling games have traditionally fallen into a "grappling" or "move-based" system. ASPW uses neither. The game's developers have instead gone with a system that appears aimed at novice players. You have two control setups to choose from, but they're both basically the same. The first is truly mind-boggling. You only use the two analog sticks. The control pad can move the camera around, but that's it. The left stick moves you and the right stick is for punching/kicking. Pressing both sticks up is for pinning the opponent. Pressing both sticks (L3/R3 buttons) grabs the opponent, where you then push the right stick up once, twice or twirl it in a circle to execute a move. What move you do depends on two things, the position of your opponent (laying face down, in the corner, standing near you, etc.) and the value of your tension meter (similar to the "Spirit meter" of other games). A couple of problems should immediately become apparent. First is that you can't pull off moves that you want to do when you want. You have to wait until the situation is exactly right. Also, trying to pin an opponent often results in you walking up, since you are pushing up on the left control stick. The second control scheme is only slightly better since it assigns pinning to the triangle button, grabbing to the square button and punches and moves to the X button. Pushing the X button once, twice or firmly correspond to the three movements of the right stick. Square seems to prefer the first setup, as all of the move lists are given in that format, although it is a simple task to switch.

To its credit, the game does have some hidden features/wrestlers, not the least of which is the two female models in bikinis and an autograph feature where if you win in the challenge mode and beat all 25 initial wrestlers, you unlock a feature that shows a picture of them and has their autograph. It really isn't all that challenging, because you return to full strength after defeating each wrestler. What this game doesn't feature is a wide variety of modes. While US games have everything from steel cages to Stephanie's dirty panties on a pole match, this game has your basic singles exhibition match, a tournament for the heavyweights, a tournament for the lightweights, a short league and a simple championship mode. Not to mention anything like a career mode, cage match or battle royal, there is no tag team match. I figured it was hidden and decided to play more of the game before I held judgement, but after numerous hours and autographs later, there is still no tag mode. Something like that is kind of complex and would almost have to be explained in the instruction book or in a video game magazine, but I have seen nothing. I've emailed Square to make sure, and if one comes up, I'll be sure to tell you so, but the apparent lack of such a basic feature really knocks down the value of the game. While the single player modes of wrestling games are getting better and better, undeniably one of the best features is getting three of your friends and laying the smack down on them. Unfortunately, no matter what there is to unlock, the game only supports two players, so it's just not going to happen.

Wrestling in the US has enjoyed a tremendous growth in popularity during the last few years. As a result, wrestling videogames have evolved as well, incorporating special matches, weapons and storylines. While wrestling has always been popular here (I just saw some footage today of a Japanese wrestler beating Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant about 15 years ago), it isn't nearly the same product that the WWF/WCW are. Some would say it focuses more on the wrestling, rather than the entertainment. When playing the game with a Japanese friend of mine, I commented on the lack of run-ins and weapons and he joked that Japanese wrestlers have better morals. All Star Pro Wrestling may be faithful to Japanese wrestling and features some really nice graphics, but when it comes down to it, I prefer the controls, features and extras of US "sports entertainment." Like Type-S, All Star Pro Wrestling has a number of good features, but is held back by others, especially the controls. I'd recommend holding off on importing ASPW unless you're a fan of Japanese wrestling. If this is what wrestling games are going to look like on the PS2, THQ and EA should have some awesome titles on their hands.

--Timothy Horst, IGN