Well today wasn't one of those days but it reminded me of one for a while.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Actions have consequences
Keeping stuff in perspective is good
Be nice to people even if they're different to you (no connection to my day but cant be emphasised enough)
Anyway here's todays post, it's about those Smackdown versus Raw games, FUN FACT: Todays update is the longest so far!
Has anyone ever played any of these EA Sports official wrestling games? I first played them back in the day on the PS1, when they were relatively good games. Ok, so wrestling is of course completely retarted but that’s not a barrier to being a good game. Look at Gears of War, the advertising campaign for that tried to convince us that a game about giant alpha males who murder space monsters with chainsaw machineguns contained an emotionally deep and complex story, a claim so ludicrous that the first time I saw the trailer I managed to destroy my keyboard by spit-taking coffee for a complete minute, and I don’t even drink coffee. The game was still a thrilling rollercoaster ride for about 5 hours.
No, the original PS1 games were ok for their time, not as fun as the old arcade wrestling game that laughed at your drug habit, but ok. Then the PS2 ones came out, hey! look at this, it’s the exact same game engine except with a couple of new areas, weapons, moves etc thrown in. Great! I never actually owned one of these as I am far too mature to purchase a ‘wrestling’ game, (also I’m poor) but it was always fun to play with your mates, horribly violent and retarted fun sure but fun nevertheless. I mean the controls were pretty clunky, and it was occasionally hard to predict exactly what your wrestler would do, but any game where you can make a monstoress deformed freak with fat legs, one 6 foot long arm, a picassoesque face, curvature of the spine etc and then face him off against The Rock gets a lot of leaway in my book.
It was at this point, just before the release of the final PS2 game, when the designers reached a crossroads, they could make a final game with all the best of the previous games, a final send off before moving onto the new generation of consoles, or they could release a stinking sack of stupid then laugh while rubbing money against their faces and sniffing cocaine off of prostitutes breasts, secure in the knowledge that the gamer/wrestling fan demographic would buy anything approved by Vince McMahon.
Being EA they chose the second option.
You know, I don’t even want to continue this. These games are so depressingly stupid and full of laziness and bad decisions that it hurts my brain a little just thinking about them. I suppose it is important to come to terms with traumatic events in your life though. Maybe it’s time I… stopped running and admit that I was running… from myself. Ok so let’s go.
The fine athletes in Professional Wrestling Style Sports Entertainment of course use weapons, so logically they are in the games. What was funny about the PS 2 ones (and sorry if you want to know which particular ones, smackdown/raw something) was that somehow an obvious placeholder sound affect had slipped into the finished game. You’d hit someone with a chair and get a bizzare unnatural ‘boink’ sound. A big slip up but forgiveable. What was surprising however was that they didn’t even replace this sound for the Xbox360 version of the game. In fact, this sound has now featured in at least three of the games. Hey, but they did staple the ability to see a wrestler’s sweat onto their 10 year old engine, so it’s not all bad.
The control system is also fun. Say you want to pick someone up, it’s simple! Merely walk up to them, stand in the correct position relative to them, press the button to grab while avoiding the analog that will make you throw them, then press the button to lift them while pressing the analog in the correct position, then merely press the analog again to either; move from side to side, spin, or place your opponent gently back on the ground. Pro tip, your wrestlers stamina lets him exert himself for 10 seconds at a time before needing a break, placing your opponent gently on the ground is always the sensible option!
Yeah, the stamina of the wrestlers is just ridiculous, you can punch someone three, maybe four times before needing a rest. It works out to about 30 seconds of catching your breath for every 5 seconds of kicking ass. You’d think this gives your opponent an unfair advantage but no, he’ll be too busy desperately mashing buttons in a futile attempt to make his wrestler move. FUN!!!
You have to go through about 17 saving/loading screens everytime you want to fight.
You have to play the single player campaign for hours before you can choose what pictures are displayed while loading. Meaning you have no choice but to stare at hundreds of pictures of oiled up steroid abusing freaks before you can change it to pictures of women and Carlito (he wears a nice T-shirt). Look EA, I get enough people calling me gay in real life without my games doing it too. What’s next? If you beat the game Vince McMahon appears on the screen, points directly into the camera and tells me I’m wasting my life? Because now that I think about it that would actually motivate me pretty well… man.
Oh hey, why don’t we make the games soundtrack consist of about 3 seemingly identicle, blandly corporate, metal songs that would make even Fred Durst rethink his life through the power of their horribleness.
Good idea! Hey guys, the next round of chimp brains is on me, ha ha, muh hahaha!
I could go on but what’s the point? anyone who enjoys these games won’t change their opinion, and anyone else will just think less of me for getting so worked up over them. These games make the world a worse place to be in and that's not good.
Hey! If you want to see the gears of war trailer I was talking about it's here, I don't know how to put it directly in the article. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccWrbGEFgI8
Also they took out the really deformed John Merrick style wrestling possibilities, I forgot to mention.
SPARKTHENIGHT: Now with editing
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