Game | | WWE Raw 2 | Format | | X Box | Publisher: | | THQ | Release date: | | Out now |
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Watching oily, beefed-up men pretend to hit each other has never been a favourite pastime of this reviewer. Like all bored seven-year-olds on Saturday afternoons it proved a nice respite from endless re-runs of Nightrider but its appeal only lasted until I discovered computer games. Now, using the same logic perhaps we can assume WWE Raw 2 would prove a welcome change from speeding round corners or asking local shopkeepers where I might find sailors - it doesn't. The generic metal kicks in accompanied by movies of the wrestlers showing off their muscles and pummelling each other. It's slick, if a little brash but from here on game deteriorates into mimicking the rather dull 'sport'. I chose Hulk Hogan to represent me in the Season mode, not because I share his blonde locks or complete lack of acting talent, but more because he was the only man I could remember from my wasted youth. (Remember the drama he caused by signing for WCW, what a guy!) Anyway, Mr Hogan enters the ring in over the top fashion like all the other stars the game has so faithfully recreated, except it seems he no longer tears his shirt in half before a 'fight', for shame!  The generic metal kicks in accompanied by movies of the wrestlers showing off their muscles and pummelling each other. It's slick, if a little brash but from here on game deteriorates into mimicking the rather dull 'sport'. | | Bushby |
That was always my favourite bit. (I tried it once and ended up ruining the neck of the T-shirt but not making any kind of successful rip. Who said kids don't copy from TV stars? Won't somebody please think of the children?) To the fight then, and a battle not against the AI, but the woeful control system. What design genius decided that the characters run and walk commands should be issued with the analogue stick and D-pad respectively? The moves are limited and hardy intuitive, which means fights end up in an endless run of grapples and releases with the odd punch or kick thrown in for good measure. Fighters run through each other on occasions too, it's lazy. Killing a fight off is no easy task either, with the meter that represents when the opponent is ripe for pinning indecipherable. For those willing to persevere there is Create A Fighter mode which offers an interesting twist. Unfortunately the tweaking options are nowhere as conclusive as Top Spin, and taking your character through the whole game will no doubt prove more boring than watching 30 minutes of the real thing these days. Using the earlier metaphor of my misspent childhood, WWE Raw 2 will do for anyone who's experienced nothing better, for the rest of us it serves as a reminder of the far better titles out there. I'd say this was die-hard WWE fans and those with boring Saturday afternoons to fill, but then those are one and the same aren't they? 3/10
Bushby | 
