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| Title |
WWE Crush Hour |
4 |
| Publisher |
THQ |
| Developer |
Pacific Coast Power & Light |
| Genre |
Action Racing |
| Players |
1-2 |
| Version |
UK PAL |
Could be worse
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Of all the possible concepts to use the WWE license in a game, I?m sure no one would have predicted a futuristic car battle game in the style of Twisted Metal or Vigilante 8. But THQ decided that the combination of WWE Superstars and beefed up automobiles with rocket launchers was a sure fire way to rake in some cash. The idea isn?t exactly original, but adding the WWE license does make it a tad unique, and for a reduced price tag of only ?19.99, could this actually be a worthwhile buy?
To begin with, I?m sure most people are wondering just what in God?s green Earth is going on here. Well the story is based around Vince McMahon taking over the all the major TV networks and placing all his WWE Superstars into all the TV shows and commercials. Apparently the critics are in uproar but the viewers love it. Vince?s latest plan is to pit his superstars against each other in car-based arena combat. A strange idea indeed? much like the XFL one might argue.
As the player, you take control of one of 30 ?Supercars? that are driven by your favourite WWE Superstar. These of course range from The Rock to Chris Benoit to Trish Stratus and new wonder boy Brock Lesnar. Each vehicle has been designed and customised around the wrestler?s personality traits, so for instance The Undertaker has a modified three wheel chopper with rocket launchers attached to the front, Rikishi drives a modified bull dozer (!) and Jeff Hardy drives a converted Station Wagon. The stats for each vehicle also reflect those of the wrestler?s real life abilities, in a sense. So Rob Van Dam has a very fast car but with low defense, yet Big Show is slow yet powerful. Of course the stats are a little biased towards the bigger named superstars (such as The Rock having more power and defense than Chris Benoit for example) but the differences don?t always give the player with the larger stats the clear advantage.
Battles are taken place in arenas, mostly tailored around WWE match types. While you have your basic Raw and Smackdown arenas in which you will battle it out against several other cars in a first to 10 kills match, other arenas such as a log cutting area is home to the lumberjack type match. This is a nice feature as it can get quite tiresome only battling free for alls all the time and having the large number of match types based (although rather loosely) around WWE match gimmicks adds a nice twist to the gameplay.
During the battles players can shoot at each other using the mounted machine gun or pick up special weapons and power-ups to attack each other. There isn?t a large number of pickups however and there also isn?t really a great diversity in the way in which they work. Obviously a mine would be different to a grenade launcher, but most of the time it just feels like you pick up a weapon and need to fire it off straight away. There?s not a great deal of depth to these weapons which is a crying shame as it was the inventive weapon usage of Vigilante 8 that made battles so fun. Each vehicle does have it?s own custom special attack though which is nice, but again, some lack quite a bit of imagination while others are rather nice. Unfortunately the driving also suffers from a fairly shallow control and handling scheme. The cars don?t exactly boast amazing physics as was seen in Vigilante 8, and there are very few spectacular jumps or anything to really test, or excite, your driving skills. Face offs between two cars trying to destroy each other often end up with the two simply bumper to bumper with machine guns blazing to try and destroy the other first. It?s this core problem that really makes this game lack any real depth.
In terms of options, the game features the usual exhibition mode, the multiplayer mode and the season mode. The season mode is where you will be unlocking the secret characters and arenas by completing level after level. This again doesn?t feel like enough work was put into it as you simply play through the levels one after the other and occasionally will unlock a new level. There is no structure to the gameplay, and I feel if some sort of league table or fixtures were added with perhaps indications of where new items were unlocked it would have added a large amount of value to this mode so the player could have something to aim for and track their progress rather than just competing in match after match after match which does tend to get rather boring.
However the matches here are occasionally broken up by a CG advert to make it feel like a TV show of sorts. These are actually very well done and inventive. For instance you could come across ?Cooking with Kane? or my personal favourite a Japanese shampoo commercial featuring Edge. As I?m sure any die hard WWE fan will know this was part of a WWE storyline a few years ago in which he won the commercial from Booker T. It?s great to see the creators mix in these elements for the fans as it shows a little more knowledge than simply being given the license and told to bolt it in.
In fact the presentation of the game is absolutely fantastic. The WWE style is used to great effect here and the graphics are surprisingly very good, considering this is basically a budget game. The particle effects deserve a mention also as the engine used for these effects is clearly extraordinary. Each car is also modelled very well and reflects the personality of it?s superstar tremendously. The arenas however lack a certain flair and the design for these is also rather bland. I would have liked to have seen some inventive use of levels, ramps and other elements here.
In terms of sound and music, each match is accompanied by your usual generic metal soundtrack that does the job but doesn?t really add anything to the game. In true WWE fashion though the action is called by Jim Ross and for once sounds fairly fluid and natural and each of the Superstars has added their own voices to the taunts said after each kill. Hopefully THQ will incorporate this style of broadcasting to their other WWE games with particular note the Smackdown! series which sorely lacks decent commentary and any hint of Superstar voices.
On the whole the game is fairly bland, but can offer some rewards if you?re both a fan of this type of gameplay and of the WWE. I?ll admit that I was curious about the game being a big wrestling fan myself and the WWE brand is really the best thing about the game since the designers clearly had a lot of fun implementing it into the game. But one can only feel like THQ had this driving game on their hands but felt it wouldn?t sell without some kind of edge (no pun intended), and that the WWE brand was pasted on over the top of the gameplay. Still, it has its moments and at the low price of ?20 you can?t really complain. It?s just a shame that not enough time was spent on the gameplay, as it was on the graphics. Still, if you?re curious and you have a friend who is also a fan of the WWE then you could have some fun with thi game. My only suggestion is rent before you buy.
Seth Powell |
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