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> Results: WWE Day of Reckoning 2
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
Wrestling games are big business. World Wrestling Entertainment, the former WWF, are the kings of this genre of games due to their huge viewership of their weekly soap opera that passes for sport. If you're a fan, you know it's all created for entertainment, scripted to the extreme and that it can be a good time if you wallow in its absurdity. The thing about the videogames is they bring true competition to something that's not at all competitive in real life. The virtual version of "Pro" wrestling is more exciting than what's on TV because you there's no script to decide who wins! THQ has consistently ridden this popularity to big sales and big fun for gamers. WWE Day of Reckoning 2 is clearly one of the better games of its type and one that any fan shouldn't be without.
There are a number of ways to play the game. Included modes allow you to play one on one matches, tag team of varying size, steel cage matches, bra and panties battles and lots more. The biggest names in the current WWE are available to choose from or you can go the best route and create your own wrestler and persona to take to the top of the ranks, provided Mr. McMahon wants you there of course. Created wrestlers are taken into an extensive story mode, where you're treated to all the pomp and circumstance of a WWE broadcast. Lots of bluster and teen angst is played out by grown men and women on the stage of the squared circle. Wrestlers are introduced while huge video screens show their past escapades in just the same way they are on TV. It definitely gets you pumped up to bust some skulls once all the jawing ends and the knuckles are bared. Before you tackle the story, you can spend a long time perfecting all the available moves in a great tutorial mode. Each move is explained and you then have to complete each one to move onto the next. It starts simple and ramps up into the amazing complexity that has come to define these games. The fighting system can humble even the most ardent fighting fan and relies on a lot of perfectly timed counters. You also have to pay close attention to your stamina to avoid tiring yourself out by throwing too many punches, kicks and grapples. This is a nice way to make the onscreen matches look more like the real thing as you often have to just circle your downed opponent, taunting him, while you wait a few seconds to catch your breath. That really makes the big moves even more exciting when you pull them off. The most important part of any wrestling game, the controls, moves, counters and complexity of the whole system are fantastic. That translates to great matches in both single and multiplayer.  There are unlockable WWE legends and the game tells you right out in the manual how to get to them. These are the guys you know you want. The Rock, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan are unlockable, among others. While you won't use them in story mode, you're bound to use them regularly in multiplayer and exhibition matches. The most disappointing thing about the various wrestlers is that you never get to hear them talk. Because of the Gamecube's smaller discs, all the dialogue is done in text rather than spoken words. Some might find that agreeable if they just want to wrestle and not listen to all the shouting that typifies the sport. It's more noticeable and detracts quite a bit when you just don't hear any sound from the wrestlers while matches go on. No grunts or groans accompany any of the moves and that's a bummer. Overall though, the game hits all the right notes for fans and even casual gamers who might be curious. Money you earn through matches can be used on various outfits and gear for your create-a-wrestler dude (or dudette). That incentive isn't quite as tangible as the wrestler superstars you can unlock, but it's a nice extra. Given that the game is mostly about pushing buttons really fast or at exactly the right time, there's a lot of entertainment value in WWE Day of Reckoning 2 because the fighting system works. It looks like the WWE you know while at the same time it's an actual competitive entity, something the real thing is not. That's really cool. With a lot of good and not a whole lot of bad, if you've got the urge to come off the top rope, this is a good place to start.  
This is a touchy Kid Factor. There is a lot of stuff in WWE Day of Reckoning that should merit an M-rating but hasn't merited it. When you first run into things like bra and panties matches, the blood flowing freely from someone's face and see some of the dialogue, it's baffling how this game didn't get an M. Girls try to tear off the clothes of other girls in those bra and panties matches. When the other well-endowed "lady" is in her undergarments, the match is over. There's a lot of prancing and parading of the goods beforehand of course. Everything about the male-female relations in the game is suggestive.
All that said, it really is stuff most teens can handle and are probably watching on the WWE TV broadcasts. If you don't want your kids watching this, you've already made your decision on the game, don't buy it. It's exactly what you get from the WWE on television, even if you don't have them shouting at you the entire time you're playing. The wrestling itself is something any kid wants to enjoy but depending on the age most definitely shouldn't. So this one's really a tough call. Keep it for the teens or skew it a little older if you just aren't comfortable with all the sex and violence that helps sell the WWE to a wide array of people. If you still think this stuff is for real, I can't help you there. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "WWE" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: WWE Day of Reckoning 2 |
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