"History repeats itself"

Good wrestling games for the PC, like good PC games in other genres, are few and far between. One would think that given the large number of computer savvy wrestling fans on the internet, that there would be some good wrestling titles released for the PC, but there aren't.

While there have been several acclaimed simulation or role playing style titles (such as the Extreme Warfare series), there haven't been many good PC action-oriented titles along the lines of THQ's WCW and WWE titles for consoles. The closest PC gamers have gotten to a good wrestling game are emulated versions of THQ's games or emulated versions of the Fire Pro Wrestling series.

WWE RAW is one such rare release for the PC. Originally a disappointing game for the Xbox console, it somehow proves to be an even bigger downer on the PC.

Graphics/Sound
The original Xbox game was originally the most impressive looking WWE game up until that time. However, its highly detailed character models were contrasted by the choppy animation.

The graphics fare even worse on the PC. The game is stuck in the console's 640x480 resolution and the low quality textures are even more evident on the PC. In addition, on a 128 MB Nvidia GeForce FX, the game doesn't even manage to run smoothly with everything turned up on high quality. The game's sound isn't terribly notable - wrestler themes that were accurate at one time and the old RAW theme "Thorn in your eye". The rest of the soundtrack during gameplay is pretty generic. There's no commentary and wrestler grunts are pretty generic as well.

Gameplay
Of course, the graphics and sound wouldn't matter as much if the gameplay was sound. The graphically and sonically challenged Fire Pro series has a devoted following due to its accurate gameplay and high customizability. Unfortunately, WWE RAW has neither. The gameplay system tries to emulate Aki Corporation's WWE titles with a button for strikes and one for grapples. Grapples are simple enough to perform, but there's no variety in moves or much strategy involved. There's also a crowd meter to measure the wrestler's popularity with the crowd - the wrestler's finisher can be performed when the wrestler has built up sufficient momentum and the opponent dazed in the proper position. Gameplay is incredibly slow even with some of the faster wrestlers like Funaki.

The single player game mainly consists of challenging for titles by winning a series of matches - no storylines like in SmackDown! or anything like that. Multiplayer consists of playing on the same computer - no network play, something featured in WCW's infamous Nitro PC game. There's only one arena as well - the old WWE RAW set. Even Nitro featured several. There aren't as many match types as wrestling game fans have come to expect. Even old WWE titles like WWE Attitude surpass RAW in gameplay variety.

The game's relatively small roster of wrestlers was dated when it was released for Xbox and even more dated when it was released for PC. Wrestlers like K-Kwik and Perry Saturn were long gone from WWE when the PC version was released and others like Billy Gunn were stuck with old gimmicks. Unfortunately, there's no way to easily change current wrestlers or add new ones like in the Fire Pro series. Most of the data is dumped in several large files, a holdover from the game's console roots. Replacing wrestlers requires extensive use of hex editing. Adding wrestlers is only possibly through the admittedly decent Create-A-Wrestler mode, but the resulting wrestlers are contrasted by the detail of the in-game models. One nice feature of the mode is the extensive wrestler entrance editing part.

Conclusion
History and mediocrity repeats itself with WWE RAW - THQ released a port of the lackluster PlayStation title WCW Nitro several years before, instead of releasing the superio N64 title WCW/nWo World Tour. With RAW, THQ released this port instead of releasing a version of the superior PlayStation SmackDown! games. While it's good to see that there is a major wrestling game release like this for PC, it would be better if someone released a game that took advantage of this untapped platform.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/24/06