| SvR 2009: Backstage Antics |
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WWE Diva Maria -- who will be making her
first playable appearance in SVR 09 -- agrees
with me.
"No offense, but it's our writers," Maria
told me when we were talking about the fan
reaction to RTW. "The players get to play
actual WWE Storylines."
On the heels of the RTW announcement, THQ
swung by the IGN office recently to give me a
look at Maria and -- more importantly -- Road
to WrestleMania. Both are looking pretty
sweet.
If your just joining us, Road to WrestleMania
lets you control Undertaker, CM Punk, Chris
Jericho, Triple H, John Cena, or Rey Mysterio
and Batista on each Superstar's path to the
biggest spectacle in Sports Entertainment.
This is a drastic change from the
be-anyone-you-want 24/7 Mode SVR featured
last year, which put everyones Superstar into
the same tale and left a lot of bigger names
feeling out of place and acting
uncharacteristically. Road to WrestleMania
replaces that garbage with character-specific
fables featuring full-fledged voice acting,
alternate endings, and scores of unlockables.
"It was a tough decision, but you get a lot
more bang for your buck," THQ Creative
Manager Bryan Williams said.
For my demo, THQ showed me the Undertaker
storyline. Beginning with 79 days until
WrestleMania, the story pit the big guy
against Santino for his first feud, but it
was the little stuff that caught my
attention. Each week, the show you're on will
start with its traditional fireworks and
crowd-scanning shots before cutting to the
announce table to hear what the week's
biggest story is. So, in Taker's case, we're
spun around the SmackDown arena before
settling in on the Coach and Michael Cole
dishing on the day. Now, no offense to JR,
King, THQ, or whoever else might get all
cranky with me, but commentary's never been a
strongpoint of the SVR franchise. The game
tries, but generally it's a few moves behind
and a bit too general. However, because
there's a focus to each RTW tale, commentary
is actually thought-out, story-specific, and
worth listening to. During the Undertaker
matches I saw, Cole and Coach talked about
the feud that was developing, why it was
happening, and any other story point that
made sense. It was actually like watching the
show -- a point driven home by the cutscenes
dropped in all over the place and the WWE
copyright logo popping up at the end of the
show as Cole and Coach freak out.
Before you head to the ring, you'll be booted
back to your locker room where you can save
and adjust options, but more importantly,
this is where you'll get optional objectives.
During the Undertaker storyline, a note in
the Deadman's locker informed me that if
Undertaker could put away Finlay -- a
cutscene showed a run-in between the man who
loves to fight, Santino, and Undertaker --
quicker than it took to beat Santino, Taker'd
be handsomely rewarded. I can't tell you what
became available when Undertaker won, but I
can tell you it was totally worth it. The
objectives will unlock environments,
characters, match types, and more.
I've seen a lot of people asking what RTW
keeps from 24/7 mode, and the answer is "Not
much." This isn't really the same thing as
24/7; here, you're participating in a
specific story that has different paths and
alternate endings. There are no injuries to
worry about, and no training activities to
participate in during your off days. You're
in your locker room the day of your match and
can look at messages or goals, then it's into
the ring or to view a cutscene, and then you
watch as the days on a calendar will scroll
by as the shows you're not on. Yes, you'll
appear on PPVs and win titles and so on, but
all of those choices are story elements and
not something you'd go out and seek on your
own.
So what does this mean for your created
Superstars or Superstars not in the RTW
six-pack? Well, there was an interview from a
few months ago where THQ Senior Creative
Manager Cory Ledesma said there would be
something for Superstars to do, and I made
sure to ask him all about it during the THQ
visit. However, to hear what Ledesma,
Williams, and Maria had to say about that
mode and everything else SVR related, you'll
need to tune in to my interview on Podcast
Beyond -- the IGN PlayStation Team show --
this Thursday. If listening isn't your thing,
Thursday will also bring your first look at
Maria's in-game character when the Diva picks
up the controller and faces off against
Gruesome Greggy in an IGN Championship/WWE
Woman's Championship unification match on
IGN.
Tags : wwe smackdown vs raw 2009 video game backstage impact gameplay entrance match ps3 xbox 360 psp ps2 and more.... |
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Affichage : 30670
Durée : 50 s |
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