WWE Day of Reckoning 2

"It's like taking one step forward and one step back. Still great though!"

Let's face it. Before Day of Reckoning, wrestling games on the Gamecube weren't popular. Then when Day of Reckoning hit, and it was hyped being as good as No Mercy. Which it was. Now we have Day of Reckoning 2, which I was really looking forward to, because I knew wrestling sequels tend to be much better. Unfortunately, for every new step forward they make, they take one step back by missing an area. That doesn't mean that this game isn't great though!

GRAPHICS: 10/10
For this area, there is no step back. The graphics are incredible. All of the wrestlers look like their real life counterparts. The crowd looks realistic as well. There isn't even that much clipping in the models, only really if you have somebody huge and somebody tiny wrestling. A lot of the moves were also motion-captured, so the moves look almost exactly like the real thing. The entrances are all really close to the real entrances. They really did one heck of a job here, and I'm definitely impressed.

SOUND: 9/10
First things first, they didn't put in voice-overs. Dang. They also had some metal guitar riffs during the menu screens, but after you hear them once and they're cool, they're still annoying after a while. All of the sound effects are authentic to the real life wrestling show, and the entrance music is also the same, mostly. You know, if they would have had voice-overs, this might have been better.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10
The gameplay mechanics are really close to Day of Reckoning 1, not that I'm complaining. They added some new submission mini-games and added a stamina meter, which brings strategy into the game. If you do big moves, your stamina gets drained quickly and you won't be able to move fast enough or pull off any other big moves. The challenge is to balance stamina and still hurt your opponent. While this makes the game a lot more involved with actually thinking, this actually makes the game harder. The roster size is still considerably small, only about 50 wrestlers total. They did bring in a couple new wrestlers and legends, like Mankind, Carlito, Muhammad Hassan, and the biggest legend of them all, HULK HOGAN! There are a plethora of match types, from singles, to Royal Rumble, fatal 4 way, triple threat, Hell in a Cell, TLC, you name it. And yes, they still have the Bra and Panty match. This is the area the most shows what I said earlier. For every step forward, they take a step back.

STORY: 7/10
Ouch again. Just like last year, you can only use created wrestlers (D'oh!). And this year, you can't even import your old created wrestlers from DOR 1! However, the story mode is actually a lot more in-depth. It's kind of like Smackdown in a way, but I like this one a little better. If it weren't for the fact you could only use created wrestlers, I'd give this a better score.

OVERALL:
Again, for every new thing they bring in, they almost always screw up something else. The only thing that really survived that is the graphics. That doesn't stop it from being a great game. I rate this higher than any of the Smackdown games.
FINAL SCORE: 9/10
RECAP:
+Great graphics
+Cool guitar riffs
+New mechanics make game interesting
+In-depth story
+Tons of match types
+HULK HOGAN!
+This game is the most fun I've had with a wrestling game since No Mercy
-Little clipping
-No voice-overs
-Riffs get annoying after a while
-Small roster
-Gets a little hard
-Have to use created wrestlers for story
-Can't import your old wrestlers from DOR 1

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/05