Back to the Mat
Good old THQ: every year they're looking out for wrestling fans, offering a brand new slice of WWE action in the form of a big budget grappling game. Last year's entry may have been ever so slightly rough around the edges, perhaps, but this year's is shaping up to be a real return to form. WWE 13 offers a massive amount of superstars to choose from, enhanced customisation options for people who want to really get into the details of ring creation and stage-setting, and a brand new single-player campaign that has us more excited than ever about the prospect of large men in tights beating each other to a pulp.
Or at least pretending to. Shh! Who said that?
Party like it's 1999
That single-player campaign's probably the stand-out feature of what promises to be a great package, in fact. CM Punk might be on the cover, and you'll find other contemporary stars like John Cena and Triple-H in the roster screens, but the main story mode winds back the clock to a special period in the late 1990s.
Grappling fans will know this period as the Attitude Era, and it's amongst the greatest moments in WWE's crazy history. The backstory is pretty simple: in the early 1990s, WWE got a new competitor in the form of rival wrestling outfit WCW. WCW bought up loads of WWE's biggest stars, slapped it's own weekly show - Monday Nitro - on against Monday Night Raw in the TV schedules, and then proceeded to out-spend WWE to take the wrestling crown.
They were successful, too, with ratings for WWE dipping to the point that the whole company was in danger. Rather than bow out, though, Vince McMahon and Co. took an enormous risk: they dropped the family-friendly superhero wrestling persona that had marked the company out in the late 1980s, and they started to go crazy.
Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels: the Attitude era was born, and it saw WWE upping the ante, throwing in bizarre new characters and storylines, introducing some incredibly dangerous events, and generally winning the hearts of teenagers everywhere. It was chaotic and dramatic and spellbinding, and everyone was watching.
And that's the story you'll be playing through in WWE 13, working your way into 6 chapters, each covering a specific WWE hero or stable, and taking on over 65 matches as the battle between WCW and WWE unfolds. Each fight starts with a little historical note explaining the setting and what was at stake, and unlockable documentary films will keep you up to speed on this fascinating chunk of history as you play.
Even better, the Attitude Era campaign offers historical optional objectives alongside its main objectives: while you can proceed from one fight to the next by just beating your opponent, then, you'll gain oodles of unlockables for tying your brawl in with what really happened - smacking somebody down in under a minute, say, or finishing them off outside of the ring.
Famous faces
None of this would matter if the fighting itself wasn't any good, but even here WWE 13 looks like a huge step forward. Wrestlers' animations and character models look better and more realistic than ever, while the grappling engine's been fine-tuned so that each move feels violent and exciting, with quick reversals, great specials, and the ability to pull off mid-air finishers if you get the timing right.
On top of that, the game will feature over 80 famous wrestlers right out of the box, allowing you access to classic characters like Stone Cold and Trish Stratus, and more cutting-edge heroes like Rey Mysterio and The Big Show. Speaking of The Big Show, a new skeletal system's been implemented to allow taller wrestlers to really tower over their smaller foes. Along with added moves like barricade slams, ring collapses, and the ability to slam someone through the announcer's table, this should be as close to the real thing as you've ever seen in a video game.
And the game's classic creation tools return, too, with players now able to kit out an entire arena as well as just building a ring - choosing the stage, tweaking the lighting, and even selecting between a contemporary crowd and an Attitude Era crowd. Create a wrestler returns, too, but by now the options are just getting silly.
This looks like a massive, generous game, in other words, and we'll see you in the ring.
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