WWE Day of Reckoning 2

"It's not a No Mercy. But it will do for Fans."

This game seems to have alot of mixed reviews and outlooks. Coming from a company that provided great games like WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, and having a good amount of hype from it's former game WWE Day of Reckoning, for the Gamecube, it's no surprise that THQ would throw alot into the Sequel.

Dating back, Wrestling games have never been that artistic, prefering to stick to soild story, and colorful, yet beliveable characters that are unforgetable, and undominable. This is always been the main effort, even during the SNES/Genesis war of the 90's. WWF/WWE has always had a stern and strong effort into their games, which shows from many of it's excellent franchies of Console games. Although, DoR 2 seems to fall a bit short of the rest.

Graphics 7/10

The graphics are nice. Character modeling, shading and desgin all around, is well tuned, and realistic. Character entrances are vivid, colorful and lifelike. CAW on the other hand.. Is a small let down. The clothing and colors themselves apper to have 'painted on' losing the lifelike quaility we've come to expect. This aside, the CAW's themselves look good, and respond well to changes in light, and facial expression. Yes thats right, their faces move.

Sound 6/10

The sound dept is important. When you punch your foe into the corner, and start wailing on him, you want to hear the punches connecting. DoR2 does not fail there, the sounds are very lifelike, and the animations with them are detective, so even a counter has a corrosponding sound effect to add in. Some of the entrance movies/music are outdated, but thats okay considering the quaility of the compression. People seem to be mixed on the sound alot, but I find it serves alright, minus the annoying 'flip' sound when a menu is accsessed, and the ring can get loud enough to drown out the background music, which is again, annoying.

Story 3/10

I'm not feeling the story. It's just not what I expected after the awesome Title Defense system in No Mercy. It seems to only center on one thing, rather then using the Cubes full power and having voice overs, along with more indepth, and full-through story line development. The Story overall is weak, and one playthrough will be enough for anyone.

Controls 5.5/10

The Controls are three things: Arcadey, Lose, Fluid.
It's almost like playing a fighting game, in a ring with ropes. It's alot of fun to use the running moves, although their animations seem weaker then most others. And of course, taking the battle outside the ring. Chairs, Ladders, Ring Bells, Sledgehammers, they are all at your disposal plus alot more. The weapon system is intelliegent and fluid, allowing for easy use for quick and often devistating damage. The only real slowdown is the gap between starting to run, and stopping, while realistic, seems to drag from the games overall flow.

Gameplay 7/10

The Gameplay is fast, yet tempting for newbies to shallow in, while more advanced players will be grappling and bodyslamming their way to the top of the ranks. The game offers some replayability, and saving is not an issue, size usage is minimal, and overall the game plays fluidly. Times of polygon buffing may occur, but when their moving that quickly, it's almost like playing a Tony Hawk game, the game just adepts to the faster speed of your playing. But at the end of the day, the main matter is how fun is it? Well, if you like beating people up with objects, shattering bones with painful submission holds, and tend to like large steel objects, you'll fit right in.

Overall Score 5.5/10

Final Recomendations.

If your a big WWE fan, go ahead and buy it. If your a casual gamer, a rental at best. Unless your a big wrestling game fan, I wouldnt suggest paying 50 dollars, wait for a price drop and snag it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/05