When I was a kid, WWF as it was known back then, was something my friends and I very much looked forward to each and every weekend. Before the time when wrestling was on Raw Smackdown and Pay Per View events, we would cheer on our favorite wrestlers and whenever Saturday Night Main Event was one (which was very rare) it was a pretty big deal. When I learned of WWE All stars and saw the incredible roster of wrestling greats some of whom have left us for the big ring in the sky – I was pretty jacked up. The graphics looks great with their stylized characatures and arcadey gameplay I was sure it would be a great game.

Was I ever wrong.

WWE All Stars features a great cast sure but the execution of the game is pure garbage. The player can either create their own superstar or take control of the existing greats. From there you have 3 options – Go after Randy Orton and take the belt, create a tag team and go after the belt or go after The Undertaker and beat a legend. Each path gives you only 10 matches with some poorly executed dialoge from the respective Champs as they taunt you.

The overall game experience is completely broken due to the overly aggressive AI that consistently and perfectly reverses a majority of the moves performed against them. It got more than a little frustrating having a reversal performed on me 7 times in a freaking row no matter how many different options I tried. Further to the above points, THQ needs to invest in some new programmers because this game is a total dog when it comes times to load a new match. I waited for no less than 30+ seconds each time a new match loaded or finished.

For the 2 non tag team paths there were only a small handful of match types – One on One, Triple Threat Elimination, Cage, Extreme Rules and Fatal 4 Way Elimination. They just seemed to take the easy way through this game. I really don’t know why WWE keeps rewarding THQ with this franchise – They’ve done nothing good for the wrestling game genre since Smackdown back on the PS2.

The best part of the game is hearing and seeing so many of the guys I grew up watching and hearing their music while they acted exactly like their real life counterparts did when they wrestled and then pretty much backing out of the game waiting an excrutiatingly long time just to pick new wrestlers and wacth the intros again.

In the end there’s hardly enough to keep even the most hardcore of fans entertained outside of a 20 minute span filled with aggravation, swearing and total hatred directed at THQ and their merry band of idiots who made this abomination. The dearly deceased Wrestlers whop used to grace my TV every Saturday must surely be spinning in their graves right now. Once again THQ has done nothing for Wrestling or the Wrestling Genre unless you think pissing on someone’s grave is ok.

Pros:

  • Old School Wrestlers

Cons:

  • Everything Else

Feed your Console WWE All Stars a 2 out of 10