E3 2003: WWE RAW 2 Hands-On

Cover your eyes kiddies cause this isn't going to be pretty. WWE RAW 2: Ruthless Aggression gets an E3 showing - and we are not happy.

Apparently this year's E3 was certainly not the best time to showcase THQ's WWE Wrestling games. When all was said and done, both titles came up quite short in a few areas with the biggest turd of them all being WWE RAW 2: Ruthless Aggression for the Xbox.

Developed by Anchor, the makers of the original RAW game, RAW 2 was without a doubt one of the worst wrestling games I've played in years and is truly a shining example of how NOT to do a wrestling game.

When the original RAW was being released for the Xbox, wrestling fans like myself had high hopes that the game would be a killer in the gameplay department while sporting Xbox quality visuals and sound. After it was released, I was pretty dumbstruck by how awful it was. So then with RAW 2 I had high hopes that the developers would learn from the original and improve on it dramatically.

RAW 2 comes to the Xbox featuring 1-4 player modes and over 60 WWE Superstars with enhanced graphics and a new story mode. There are up to eight arenas and backstage areas with 3D animated crowds that come to life. There's also a multi-player season mode that allows you and a bunch of friends to get together and engage in one heck of a slamboree. Along with the dynamic multiplayer season mode, other play modes include, Royal Rumble, King of the Ring, Title match and a Create-A-Superstar mode that let's you create your own custom wrestlers from plenty of parts. You'll also be able to take part in matches like Hell in a Cell and Tables, Ladders and Chairs, matches that have long been available in the Wrestlemania games.

According to THQ, one of the new additions in RAW 2 is the four-player story mode in which you and three friends can each wrestle in one match apiece. The cool sounding aspect of this mode is that you and your friends can interfere in each other's matches, either costing each other your respective matches or helping each other get the win by pummeling the opponents via double team action. This type of play mode is also accessible in single player mode, allowing you to align yourself with some of the wrestlers you've helped or create some heat between you and the wrestlers whose matches you've interfered in and caused them to lose. Along with that you'll also be able to sneak into the locker room while the other wrestlers are in the ring battling it out and steal their possessions including their championship belts as well as setting traps to take out some of the wrestlers or ambush them on their way to and from the arena.

"Enhanced Gameplay controls" and "a better grappling experience" were part of the game's advertisement but they must've been talking about another game as I noticed nothing enhanced about RAW 2's gameplay, controls or grappling experience. The problem with RAW 2 was the very slow pace of the game, which made it get boring pretty quickly. I honestly keep looking down at the Xbox controller to see if there was a Slow-Motion feature activated. Then there was the not-so great targeting, shoddy collision detection and the boring chore-like gameplay. I felt like I was playing the original RAW all over again with just new play modes added to it. Let's not forget to mention the non-intuitive controls and graphics that while might be considered solid on the Gamecube or PS2 were just decent on the Xbox. The characters were modeled moderately well, but on a powerhouse like the Xbox, moderately well just doesn't cut it.

Graphically the game's visuals go from good to above average to me. The wrestlers, as I said before are modeled well and all animate with facial expressions and mannerisms. One thing I've always wanted in wrestling games is for the crowd to be well animated and this is probably the only area RAW 2 didn't disappoint me in with its 3D rendered and animated crowds. The lighting effects do their jobs well especially with pyros and such.

One of the cool options of this game and is a standard Xbox feature is the ability to store custom soundtracks on the Xbox hard drive to be used in the game. Since I've never messed around with that feature before I think it would be pretty cool to be able to have wrestlers walking to the ring to the music of your choice.

Even though the release date is many months away, I honestly can't see the game receiving a massive enough overhaul in every department to change my mind about how awful it is. The fact that such a game like this managed to slip by THQ's quality assurance department is quite amazing. Didn't anyone there play Wrestlemania XIX and RAW 2 side-by-side and notice that there was a difference?

Since THQ has a couple of business dealings with Sega and seem to be on good terms with them, If I were THQ I'd scrap the current RAW 2 engine, ask Sega to slap the Giant Gram 2000 engine on this baby and then release it. That would definitely be the Best WWF/WWE console wrestling game of all time. But if that's not feasible then I'd have the developers just slap the Wrestlemania XIX engine onto this game, at least Wrestlemania XIX was remotely enjoyable.

Joseph Jackson
Staff Writer, Kikizo Games