AgtFox

A 6.5.

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories...847045,00.html

It is a very comprehensive review spanning 4 pages. This just confirms my suspicion that IGN has gone insane (or at least the X-Box section has). First Wreckless, now this.

I'm really relying on Gamespot's reviews lately along with others outside of IGN.

kar10

I still believe that IGN.COM had lots of experience in games and I still read their reviews because they are good.

Flay

IGN has high-balled XBox scores lately.
Gamespot low-balls XBox scores all the time.

You can either average them (7.8) or wait and get a more conclusive estimate at www.gamerankings.com

As for the review:

If you watched the video review, "Gobi" nitpicked at the little things. For instance, "Why does the weapons animation use 2 hands for a 1 handed weapon?".

Also, the way the review reads, it's mostly about the good aspects of Raw. But one strange difference concerns the AI. IGN says it's excellent, while Gamespot says its terrible. My only conclusion is that Gobi didn't turn up the difficulty.

All in all, I don't think Gobi spent a whole lot of time with the game.

AgtFox

Just reporting the news...no need to go for the jugular . I'm not buying the game anyway until I rent it at least. No career mode really hurts it in my mind. Obviously others have different opinions .

Gallant Pig

I always get the feeling these reviewers never spend a lot of time with the games they review. I always trust the people here a lot more (for example, Wreckless). Lowballing the hard-to-master Amped sticks out in my mind.

Flay

I'm not going for your jugular. I went for Gobi's.

Gobi grades WWF:Raw on what it never had to offer. Aaron (at IGN) grades it at face value.

In my opinion, I think the more accurate review is at IGN, but the score at both sites should be around the 8.0 range.

Gallant Pig

Fox, you got an Xbox? I'm in Moundsview.

Centurion

Thanks.
I don't care much for wrestling, but this game looks like it's fun.
I'm debating if I should even bother to pick it up and give it a run.

There's no opinion like your own.

Centurion

Uh-oh.....
Sounds like an Xbox party to me.

darkside

Sounds pretty good. As far as being rushed, I've never played a sports title that was really finished. There is never enough time to get it perfect and all games have their quirks. Overall this sounds like a good title, but I agree a career mode should be in every wrestling game.

SnoopDogg

I bought preordered at Bestbuy.com, hopefully it is fun.

Gallant Pig

I was thinking more along the lines of naked jello wrestling, actually.

SnoopDogg

Big Ups to MN people!

Dean D.

I was a bit torn between which wrestling game I was going to buy, Raw for the X-Box or X8 for the Gamecube. After reading the new preview for X8, I am going to wait for that one. It is going to play just like the previous N64 wrestling games form THQ and that is what I want. Plus I want the gimmick matches and the wrestlers from the Invasion angle. I will just have to play No Mercy until June.

-Dean-

Flay

If you liked WWF SmackDown Just Bring It on the PS2, you might be better off waiting for Wrestlemania X8.

It's made by the same developer, Yuke's.

Dean D.

Flay,

If you read the preview over at IGN you will see that Yukes is actually going to use the gameplay mechanics from the N64 games. X8 will not be anything like the **** that is Smackdown. Some of the developers are actually from Aki/Asmik, and they are the ones who made the great N64 wrestling games.

I might still pick up Raw tomorrow just for the hell of it.


-Dean-

Daryl

Got my copy via FedEx from ebgames this morning. I would tend to lean more toward Gamespot's score than IGN so far. What's frustrating is that I've had to exit out of three matches already because the CPU got stuck, or something else happened that I couldn't get out of. For example - I'm in tag team mode - Triple H is beating the crap outta me, he goes and makes the tag with the Undertaker. But as Taker is coming into the ring, Triple H turns around and pins me. But he's not the legal man, so there is no pin count, everybody just stands there. i try to break the pin (push buttons rapidly according to the in-game training) but nothing happens. Triple H won't get up off me, Taker is just standing there, and my partner (Rock) won't come in to break the pin, either. 5 minutes of this and I'm forced to restart.

The graphics are nice, but so far the gameplay is not up to par with No Mercy or even the Smackdown series (which i don't really like).

Daryl

Josh H

I haven't played this because I hate wrestling games, and don't have an x-box, but the guy I worked out with last night was bitching about wasting $50 on Raw for like half an hour. He basically said he thought the gameplay sucked compared to something like Smackdown! bitching that the guys moved slow and the matches lasted too long.

Cornfed

Well, after reading IGN's review, I was all set to buy this game. Now, I'm glad I haven't. I guess I'll wait for Wrestlemania X8.

s}{ammer

would they release the game in that condition? It only makes them and MS Xbox look bad. I am not against the xbox, hell I want one real bad but I will wait a year or so till I can get one with a few games, but MS should be able to tell them that they can't release the game till it is ready. This would suck to drop $50 and get something that doesn't work.

darkside

That tag team bug is a major one. They only hope left is they don't screw up the Wrestlemania on the Game Cube.

BravesMG

Ok I've been playing for most of the day now and I've got some first overall impressions.

Honestly, I didn't like it all that much when I just started to play. It seemed like the only way to win was to pull off running attacks and hit your opponent with weapons. I thought the controls were really clumsy and I could never pull off a grapple move. But the graphics are truly amazing so I stuck with it until I kinda got around the learning curve from playing too much of the Smackdown and Wrestlemania series.

After a while, RAW really started growing on me. The key to grapples that I've found is that there is a timing issue where if you just hold a direction down and keep hitting either X or A it never works. You have to wait until the grapple settles in and theres a window of maybe a second where if you time it right and hit the combination it almost always works. After a while, you really come to appreciate that stuff like when you're Stone Cold facing Funaki almost all of your grapples work but when you're Jericho fighting Edge or something it takes a lot more strategy and timing to pull moves off. Also one of the sites had a problem with the stamina issue of light heavyweights retaining more of their stamina and are able to pull moves off faster and recover quicker. Well this is true except when I was Jeff Hardy facing the Undertaker and I literally pounded him with quick shots and running attacks for 8 min then hit him with 3 Swanton Bombs and his little life meter wasn't even flashing. He caught me and pinned me a minute later after quite a beating. So it's obvious that while the bigger guys have less stamina, if they catch you its pretty much over.

My biggest problems are obviously the lack of options, which is a real bummer considering how amazing RAW would be with the normal assortment, the inability to play your own ripped music, and the fact that you can't save during your title runs. The ripped music thing has been mentioned before, but it's really inexcusable. The in-game music kinda sucks and really makes the long matches much less exciting than they should be. And the title run saving is a big problem when you dont have the hours (how long it would take me) to win 12 matches (at least) in a row and don't want to tempt fate by leaving the XBox on.

Overall, I'm really glad I bought RAW even though I haven't played it. Granted, I'll like pretty much any wrestling title but I really think the next few generations of RAW could really set the standard for all wrestling titles. I know how curious I was about RAW before I played it so if anybody has any questions or anything about the gameplay or whatever just post them and I'll see what I can do.

s}{ammer

you mentioned Smackdown, have you played Just Bring It? If so how would you rank Raw against it? I just ordered Smackdown and can't wait to try it out.

BravesMG

I know that popular opinion has been that Smackdown 3 was awful, but I actually really enjoyed it. Even though the story mode was a little weak, I liked interacting backstage and having the different options. I thought the gameplay was too arcade-like, but not bad. RAW is much more realistic in its speed and grappling. In Smackdown everybody was pretty much the same speed and grappling was just a matter of achieving the grapple. Then again, they're very different as if you enjoy the arcade feel and speed of Smackdown, RAW may seem VERRRRY slow sometimes. Bigger guys like Rikishi and Big Show basically run at normal walking speed for others and lose stamina after a move or two. If I had a PS2 and XBox I'd grab both of them, but only having an XBox and playing PS2 on my vacations home I'll take RAW. Again, I would bet huge money that future generations of the RAW engine will be the standard for wrestling games. The match types in Smackdown are almost overwhelming and you can go days without playing the same match twice, so as long as you've played the Smackdown engine before and enjoyed it I bet you'll do well with Smackdown 3.

travlr

EB gives Raw a 6th as in I was the sixth person to return it today. This is game is just awful.