WWE Day of Reckoning 2

"Go back and play Day of Reckoning. This one blows."

The day of reckoning has returned...and boy was it a lame one. I really want to know what the developers were thinking when they were designing this. I honestly don't how this game could be worse than the original. But it is, so let's get into it.

STORY
The story revolves around your created wrestler and it follows up to his last adventure...if you'd call it that. He lost the title, but now he's dating Stacy Kiebler. And the journey continues. That's as much story as you'll get out of a wrestling game so I can't complain.

GRAPHICS
Though this game is worse than the original, I will go so far as saying that the graphics of this game, are the best graphics ever in a wrestling game. The Gamecube has actually done it. The faces look so freaking real, I thought it was Resident Evil 4...seriously! Everything in this game looks great, from the awesome intros, to the arenas, to the bra and panties that the divas wear. Perfect looking. Impressive.

SOUND
Now the audio is actually a different story. One...NO VOICEOVERS! Ever! The PS2 game did that! The first game had a variety of cool licensed songs...does this one? No. Why? Rushing to get this out were we? At least the wrestlers all have their themes. Well, not Stacy Kiebler. She'll never get her actual theme song, Don't ask me why. So aside from the wrestler themes, the audio isn't all that impressive. Well...all the punches sound good. There's a positive for ya.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay remains virtually if not exactly the same as the first game. The only difference is that the story mode is a little better, and the gameplay is worse. Sad. You see it's still a fighting game...same engine as before...same lame counter system. But now they added a stamina bar. Great...so basically whenever you've been kicking a guy's ass, not letting him up, not letting him do anything because he's so horribly beaten, your character loses all of his stamina and energy...and stops to take a breather!!! WHAT THE HELL?! Games are supposed to be fun, not realistic!!!

And like I said before the counter system is broken and doesn't work well. I've played Wrestlemania X8 for the Gamecube and that game had a much better counter system, even though it's essentially the same thing. It's just something about the sensitivity (which you can choose to adjust but never works) that ruins it. Creating a wrestler is pretty good...not as good as Smackdown's, but good nonetheless. But I only speak of the features...creating a character is really annoying in this game unfortunately. Why? Because unlike the first game, the load times are everywhere...not only are they everywhere, they're long! I want an afro. Load. I want it brown. Load. I want it longer. Load. That's like a minute! A minute worth of my life just getting the right hair!

And you'll have to do it too, since story mode cannot be played with a real life wrestler. You HAVE to be a created guy. Oy. The story mode is still not as deep as the PS2 games, but this time you actually get the odd choice to go a certain way. Like instead of going for King of the Ring, you can go after one of your enemies. Yay. So that improved...a little bit. Is it fun to play in multiplayer? No. Not with this new stamina system which you can't turn off ever. I'm sorry but this game hasn't improved past the first game. There's nothing new at all. The graphics got better and the roster's updated. But that's not good enough.

IN THE END...
The gameplay got worse, and that's the ultimate deciding feature for me. There's too much loading, that stupid stamina bar...and it's just not that fun. Do yourself a favor and stick with the first Day of Reckoning...or if you have a PS2, get one of the Smackdown games. This is a failed experiment in my book.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/20/06