Def Jam Vendetta & Legends of Wrestling II

10.27.2003

I am almost caught up with playing my accumulated wrestling games! The last two have been better than I was expecting.

Def Jam Vendetta (PS2) is a better wrestling game than I was expecting. The moves are nice and slick, and there's a good variety of moves between characters. It has a good story in the background, my favorite part of which is where you get to "choose" a girlfriend and then have her fight (your old girlfriend) for you. There's also a nice mix of background venues for the ring (although they all end up acting the same way from my perspective). With that said, DJV is really just another fighting game, ala Mortal Kombat, just set in a wrestling ring with wrestling moves up until you get to use your Matrix style, gravity defying finishing move. You progress through the story until you lose to an opponent, at which point you have to try and try until you finally beat him. After X opponents, the cut-scene having to do with the story plays.

My favorite aspect of DJV was the counter-move system. Once you apply a submission type hold (like my favorite Sharpshooter), you can leave it on as long as you want, but eventually your opponent will gather enough energy to counter the move and send you flying. To avoid this, you have to release the hold voluntarily (and not get thrown across the ring), or maybe hold on long enough for your opponent to submit. To go along with this, there is a health meter per body part as you apply holds, so you know how close your opponent is to submitting (after 15 headlocks).

Legends of Wrestling II (Xbox) was another surprise for me. I thoroughly hated the first one. The move and grapple system was just too alien to me. The sequel is better. The graphics are pretty good, although all of the wrestlers pretty much look the same. There doesn?t seem to be as many clipping problems as I?ve seen in other games, and the animations for the moves go by fast and smooth. There?s a story that goes along with the career mode that is randomly selected when you enter a new territory,but it doesn?t seem to affect the game play any. You?re supposed to have 12 to 15 attacks available depending on range from your opponent and whether it?s a weak, medium, or strong attack, but I seem to be relegated to about 5 moves when using Road Warrior Hawk (r.i.p.). Set on "Jobber/Easy", it?s not such a big deal, but it does get a little repetitious at times.

My favorite parts of LoW2 were (1) Selecting the region to play in. I?ve always thought this would be cool. I would like to do more with it than just select a region, fight until you win the title, defend it once, and then move on to the next region (I?m fighting in the last region now, soI?ll have to wait to see what happens next). I also liked (2) the selection of legends to fight. I?m just a goofy old timer, but I got a kick out of saying "I?m kicking Bob Backlund?s ass!"

So, both games are pretty good. Def Jam Vendetta is more of you classic fighting game set in a wrestling world story line, while Legends of Wrestling 2 is more of a fighter for people who remember the old timers of wrestling.

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Dropping Like Flies

10.23.2003

It's not been a good week to have had some fame.

Road Warrior Hawk died Sunday from an apparent heart attack. He was the first of the "muscle head" wrestlers that I ever saw on tv. I remember being in awe whenever he and his partner showed up, because you knew the opponent didn't have a chance.

Stu Hart passed away last Thursday. Hewas the father of one of the largest wrestling families around. Stu was around 200 years old, and even then he could still kick most peoples ass.

Actor Jack Elam dies. Jack was in every other western that showed up on tv when I was growing up. He was almost as old as Stu.

Fred "Rerun" Berry was found dead in his LA appartment. He always referred to himself as Fred "Rerun" Berry. Showing that they're on the ball, Fred "Rerun" Berry is no longer available on the Hollywood Is Calling celebrity list

Singer-Songwriter Elliot Smith was found dead Wednesday of an apparent suicide attempt. Of the songs listed, I don't remember hearing any of them.

Evel Knievel turned 65 last week. He's still alive, which compared to everyone elses lifestyle listed here is a pretty amazing feat!

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DVD Time Again

10.22.2003

Tuesday was a good day for DVD releases, at least as far as I'm concerned.

• The Indiana Jones Trilogy, a great jaunt to some of the best/classic adventure movies made. Made nerds everywhere consider a career in archeology for at least a fleeting moment.
• Charlies Angels: Full Throttle - Pure escapism with some hotties to oogle.
• Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series - The original 24 episodes, remastered. I lived for this series when I was 10. I think it's time to revisit it.

And now for the movie that's pissed me off. The advertising folks for The Hulk DVD need to watch their starting times on the commercials. Sunday I saw a "Hulk: Buy it on DVD Tuesday" advertisement, but it doesn't come out until next Tuesday. Bastards!

And now to regress to video games. I had a chance to start out playing Def Jam Vendetta last night. So far it's loads better than Backyard Wrestling (this one actually has wrestling moves). I'm about to start the story mode, so there should be a more detailed update later.

I've also run out of comics to read,so I picked up a book I had seen on Tech TV the other day: Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic. It's about the early days of adventure gaming and the influence of D&D. I'm just in the first chapter, but it seems like it's going to be an interesting read.

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Backyard Wrestling - PS2

10.21.2003

In my continuation of finally playing the wrestling games that have been stacking up on my shelf, last night I took a turn at Backyard Wrestling for the Playstation 2. There's been a line of direct-to-video features for backyard wrestling, and it never really appealed to me. Kind of like porn with all the sex edited out. But, the game had "wrestling" in the title, so I gave it a shot.

And that's 2 hours of my life I can never get back.

Instead of picking on everything bad about the game, I should point out its positive side.

....

....

It didn't crash and turn my PS2 into a blazing inferno from the crapfest that I had loaded onto it!

That's about the best thing I can find. I'll have to go and look, but I think my old PSX "WCW Vs. The World" was better - graphics, sound, move sets.

Can you give a game a negative rating? Next off the shelf: Def Jam Vendetta. Gotta go put on my rap face. Word to you, Mom!

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Raw 2 on Xbox

10.20.2003

I've been stocking up on wrestling videogames without playing any of them for a while, so I've been thinking it's about time to play some of them while waiting for the latest Smackdown game for the PS2 to come out at the end of the month. I've been a little more critical of games lately now that I'm trying to make my own wrestling game (there'll be a more detailed explanation in the weeks to come for anyone interested), so I've been trying to pick out the things I like and dislike from what I play.

I hated the first Raw game for the Xbox. I think I may have played it for about 3 days before relegating it to the dusty shelf it's lived on ever since. The sequel is better, but not by much. This version does have a story mode, which I've come to enjoy the most of any wrestling game. The story mode is fairly limited. You try to pick who to befriend and who to hate, and along the course of a career it will affect team-ups and who you fight both during matches and between matches. That seems to be about all there is to the story mode. The Smackdown series has more of a scripted feel of things going on between pay-per-views, while Raw has you trying to make the world champ an enemy so you can try to get a title shot. Like I said, limited.

The graphics are better than the PS2 Smackdown graphics, but not up to the level of sophistication I've seen on other Xbox games. The sound is horrible (I think I could do better punching sounds armed with a Mr. Microphone). The move sets seem limiting, but I'm blaming part of that with my beginner level of play and not having the finger memory of how to do certain combinations yet. So far I've been winning matches with a repertoire of 4 suplexes, 3 DDTs, a Half Boston Crab and a Sharpshooter.

The best feature of Raw 2 is in designing your characters entrance. Everything is customizable. Music (which you can pick from music you've loaded onto the Xbox hard drive), lighting and pyro effects, customizable Titantron settings so you don't always have The Rock's entrance movie. I've had more fun playing with these settings than anything else.

So overall, the game is fair, but a little boring. I'll probably play the last Smackdown more than this version of Raw.

Next game to take of the shelf and try: Backyard Wrestling.

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