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It's so pretty and plays so well... we just wish there were more of it.
September 6, 2005 | 2:43 PM PSTby: Shawn Sinclaire
The arena is in a roar. People from all around have gathered in anticipation of seeing the GCN Wonder, Day of Reckoning 2. The son of the legendary and highly popular Day of Reckoning, this future champion has had a lot riding on its shoulders. Day of Reckoning was one of the greatest wrestling titles of its time, easily capturing the GameCube Gold considering it was practically uncontested. Its nearest competitors were the Legends of Wrestling tag team and Wrestlemania X8, neither of which were worthy of a title shot. Contested or not, it was still good regardless. Does its successor live up to its legacy?
Features
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
Of all the guilty pleasures I have in my video gaming life, playing wrestling games is up near the top of that list. It’s a fair amount of mindless fun that is more about button mashing and quick reflexes than pure thinking and puzzle solving, but that’s okay sometimes. THQ’s Day of Reckoning 2 is a great game of mindlessness (in a good way) with a solid presentation and a cheesy storyline that wrestling fans are sure to dig. However, there are some technical flaws and some lacking elements that mar what would be an otherwise perfect wrestling experience. Regardless, fans of the first title will find Day of Reckoning 2 to be an excellent expansion.
The presentation of DoR2 is very good. The menus are solid and easy to navigate and the whole package is crisp and alive. Each character model is surprisingly detailed with tons of polygons that make them look surprisingly close to their real life counterparts. The intro videos and music are all true to their respective wrestlers and the crowd’s signs will change depending on who you are in the match. In the ring, the camera is excellent at not only giving you the ability to see what’s going on, but also pan around cinematically during exciting moves.
The detail is excellent and complimented by a solid soundtrack and excellent sound effects, initial impressions from any third party would be mostly positive. But as soon as they tried to begin playing themselves, they’d notice one of the most annoying quirks about the game is the load times. GameCube owners aren’t particularly used to load times, so many will be caught off guard by the long and frequent number of them inDay of Reckoning 2. Choose story mode, choose continue or new – load-- navigate locker room, exit to match – load --watch cut-scene – load some more -- play match and win – load once more time -- navigate locker room, rinse, and repeat. That’s the bulk of Day of Reckoning 2. And that’s not even to mention the character creation system, which is a true experience in patience-building.
Content A Plenty
Day of Reckoning 2 is chocked to the brim with content. Just about every possible match type you could ever want is included. There are normal matches, TLC matches, Hell in a Cell, and of course Bra and Panties matches. You’ll be taken through many of these in the story mode, which is quite long and full of cheesy WWE plot that wrestling fans would love.
In the story mode, you play as a fallen WWE superstar looking to reclaim his stardom with the WWE title. Fans of the first game should recognize the story since it takes off about where the first game left. Just before getting your title shot, however, the title is stolen and everyone wants to blame you. This sends you off on your long and arduous road of beating the crap out of each wrestler who doubts you, while occasionally making out with a WWE Diva behind the scene.
The story mode isn’t bad, but it could have done with some voice acting to really shine the presentation values. As it is, you simply see the wrestlers’ mouths moving randomly as you read the text below. It would have been nice for some kind of sound to emanate from those gaping mouths. Even if they had just included “Wah-wah, wah wah waaaaah;” Charlie Brown style.
WWE: Day of Reckoning 2
More disturbing than the lack of voices is the lack of true choices in the story mode. Throughout the story mode, you’ll be on a very linear course with the only choices often being between this character and another character and it really doesn’t affect the story very much. Once you beat the story mode once, there isn’t much point in going back through it because it’ll be more or less the exact same experience. -- not to mention the fact that you can’t even play as one of the WWE Superstars; you must create a character again.
While the reasons behind this choice are obvious, it would have been nice to rock through the storyline with the Undertaker (UT = r00lz). Outside of the story mode you can unlock plenty of content from moves sets to arenas to new characters to even new weapons for hardcore matches. The overall amount of unlockable content in the game is excellent and ensures that players will play story mode at least long enough to unlock everything (which should only take you once through, maybe twice at most).
Features
- In depth character creation with hundreds of elements to customize your wrestler
- Over 40 WWE Superstars playable and a few more unlockable
- All major WWE arenas are featured and playable
- Large selection of match types, from Hell in the Cell to TLC to Bra and Panties matches
- Experience and monetary systems to allow you to beef up your wrestler and unlock new elements of the game
- Supports up to four players
Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
Of all the guilty pleasures I have in my video gaming life, playing wrestling games is up near the top of that list. It’s a fair amount of mindless fun that is more about button mashing and quick reflexes than pure thinking and puzzle solving, but that’s okay sometimes. THQ’s Day of Reckoning 2 is a great game of mindlessness (in a good way) with a solid presentation and a cheesy storyline that wrestling fans are sure to dig. However, there are some technical flaws and some lacking elements that mar what would be an otherwise perfect wrestling experience. Regardless, fans of the first title will find Day of Reckoning 2 to be an excellent expansion.
The presentation of DoR2 is very good. The menus are solid and easy to navigate and the whole package is crisp and alive. Each character model is surprisingly detailed with tons of polygons that make them look surprisingly close to their real life counterparts. The intro videos and music are all true to their respective wrestlers and the crowd’s signs will change depending on who you are in the match. In the ring, the camera is excellent at not only giving you the ability to see what’s going on, but also pan around cinematically during exciting moves.
The detail is excellent and complimented by a solid soundtrack and excellent sound effects, initial impressions from any third party would be mostly positive. But as soon as they tried to begin playing themselves, they’d notice one of the most annoying quirks about the game is the load times. GameCube owners aren’t particularly used to load times, so many will be caught off guard by the long and frequent number of them inDay of Reckoning 2. Choose story mode, choose continue or new – load-- navigate locker room, exit to match – load --watch cut-scene – load some more -- play match and win – load once more time -- navigate locker room, rinse, and repeat. That’s the bulk of Day of Reckoning 2. And that’s not even to mention the character creation system, which is a true experience in patience-building.
Content A Plenty
Day of Reckoning 2 is chocked to the brim with content. Just about every possible match type you could ever want is included. There are normal matches, TLC matches, Hell in a Cell, and of course Bra and Panties matches. You’ll be taken through many of these in the story mode, which is quite long and full of cheesy WWE plot that wrestling fans would love.
In the story mode, you play as a fallen WWE superstar looking to reclaim his stardom with the WWE title. Fans of the first game should recognize the story since it takes off about where the first game left. Just before getting your title shot, however, the title is stolen and everyone wants to blame you. This sends you off on your long and arduous road of beating the crap out of each wrestler who doubts you, while occasionally making out with a WWE Diva behind the scene.
The story mode isn’t bad, but it could have done with some voice acting to really shine the presentation values. As it is, you simply see the wrestlers’ mouths moving randomly as you read the text below. It would have been nice for some kind of sound to emanate from those gaping mouths. Even if they had just included “Wah-wah, wah wah waaaaah;” Charlie Brown style.
WWE: Day of Reckoning 2
More disturbing than the lack of voices is the lack of true choices in the story mode. Throughout the story mode, you’ll be on a very linear course with the only choices often being between this character and another character and it really doesn’t affect the story very much. Once you beat the story mode once, there isn’t much point in going back through it because it’ll be more or less the exact same experience. -- not to mention the fact that you can’t even play as one of the WWE Superstars; you must create a character again.
While the reasons behind this choice are obvious, it would have been nice to rock through the storyline with the Undertaker (UT = r00lz). Outside of the story mode you can unlock plenty of content from moves sets to arenas to new characters to even new weapons for hardcore matches. The overall amount of unlockable content in the game is excellent and ensures that players will play story mode at least long enough to unlock everything (which should only take you once through, maybe twice at most).
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November 20, 2009
