WWE Survivor Series

"Why, THQ, Why?"

Two years ago, THQ released WWE Road to Wrestlemania X8 on the Gameboy Advance system. It was a fun game, as you had a Pay Per View mode where you had to make matches to impress your boss, Vince McMahon. This added fun to the game, and when you did well, you unlocked "merchandise" for the Shopzone. Although this was just a gallery of products, it was fun to unlock these and have a look at the different objects. Season mode was equally fun, making Road to Wrestlemania X8 possibly the best handheld wrestling title outside of the Fire Pro Wrestling series. Sadly, they seemed to have forgotten all about the fans on this game...

GAMEPLAY: Gameplay in this game is as simple as the last two WWE games on the GBA. You have a selection of modes, including the ever-present season mode, which is the main part of the game, as it is with most wrestling games. Unfortunately, the season mode in this game is lacking in any fun whatsoever. You start on one show of your choice, Smackdown or Raw, after picking a wrestler. you then go on through a bunch of challenges, pretty much identical to the other. What you have to do, though, is use all of your moves, etc, to excite the crowd. While this sounds good on paper, it gets very repetitive and boring fast. After winning the title on one show, you'd think it'd be over. But no, you have to go over to the OTHER show and win THAT belt before the torture will stop. on player modes are equally as boring, devoid of any entertainment value, since THQ thought it would be a brilliant idea to get rid of the Shopzone and PPV modes that made the last game so exciting! Also, the movesets are very limited, meaning you have to pull the same moves over and over again, since you only have around 8 moves in your entire moveset, which makes gameplay very boring. The fact that THQ have downgraded this game makes me think that if anyone's getting higher than Rob Van Dam, it's their creative department. 1/10.

GRAPHICS: The horrid blocky graphics are back in this game. The wrestlers look like bricks, and once again, the horrible lack of colours make it hard to pick out who's who among the wrestlers once you get to the ring. The wrestler portraits on the select screen look fine, if just a little distorted, as do the pictures of Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman in Season mode, so it makes you wonder why the in-game sprites couldn't have been improved a little. It's quite disappointing when you have seen the type of graphics the GBA is capable of. THQ are getting lazy in the graphics department of their games, in my opinion. 1/10.

SOUND: The music and sound effects in Survivor Series are the only halfway decent point in the game. The entrance music sounds better than it ever has, and the sound effects are spot on. When a wrestler hits the mat, you hear it. A wrestler gets hit by a chair, you hear it. The sounds are clear, but a little repetitive. There isn't much of an in-game track, and the sound effects for weapons are the same, except for the ring bell, which makes the "ding" sound. The sound for when a wrestler hits the mat is the same as when he gets hit by a steel chair, which, in real life, happen to make two completey DIFFERENT sounds to one another. (Don't try it at home though, kids!) Entrance music is good, since each track is distinct. The Undertaker's music is the same as it is in real life, as is HBK's, although it's only an instrumental. It would have been nice to have had some voices thrown in too, but then again, it wouldn't sound very good on the GBA. 4/10.

OVERALL: Overall, Survivor Series is a big step down for THQ. Bad graphics, boring gameplay and a limited selection of gameplay modes really let it down, and the exclusion of the two things that made the Road to Wrestlemania X8 game so fun have been taken out. Even if you're a fan I'd avoid Survivor Series. It's not worth the money. It'll be a while before I even consider buying a handheld game made by THQ. It gets a 2/10, but that may be pushing it a little.

ALTERNATIVES: Fire Pro Wrestling, Fire Pro Wrestling 2, Road to Wrestlemania X8.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/05