I was starting to wonder last night... why am I not feeling very hyped up or looking forward to this game?
It might very well be a good game, but there's just a feeling... actually several that just lead me from being able to actually get excited.
First one is that, I know what happens when THQ tries to start another installment or separate series outside of SvR. In fact... just about any new wrestling game from any company now, that isn't of SvR's caliber... They tend to be lackluster at best, and severely broken at worst.
Sure, SvR had the luxury of being an evolved product over a long, long stretch of time, to where it's got all everything it has going for it now, and that gives it an inherent advantage over any Year One product. But advantage or not, the fact is that any new wrestling game, is going to need years of sequels and iterations to even come close to it.
WWE Legends Of Wrestlemania was an attempt at an off shoot and it was pretty bad, I think. Hated the control scheme, barely any replay value, an incredibly sad number of matches and modes. And it wasn't even remotely worth the $60 it cost.
TNA Impact was an absolutely broken game. And that AAA Luche Libre: Heroes Del Ring, was a similar failure. Although people have said that, maybe given 4 years of sequels and tweaks, they might have been good. But they still wouldn't have been as good as the #1 game already out there.
But of course, there's already a SvR, so none of these games are ever going to achieve the sales NEEDED for 4 years of sequels, plus, Wrestling Game fans just aren't going to be willing to wait that long for another game to get good.
And sadly, with so many strikes already against it, for being a year one effort, I can't imagine that All-Stars is going to bring anything worth to the table that SvR11 doesn't already have.
I think the other things that leads me to not be very excited in this game.. it's ugly. I don't know why they seem to be trying to go for this "caricature" look. In my estimation (and apparently many others from what i've read on forums), it just makes the wrestlers look either ridiculous and stupid, or grotesque and repugnant.
And other than the face value of a Legend Team facing off against a Modern Team, I just have to give a big "Eh, so what?" reaction to it. Again, CAW mode, SvR11. I can kind of already do this, if I want. Especially when there's community creations and CAW makers like Dre41 out there, who makes it his mission to be the best of the best out there and give people fully designed, almost identically accurate legends on a daily basis. Who cares about All-Stars?
It's major selling points seem to be visual, or conceptual. Visuals that are a goofy turn off, and concepts that aren't anything you can't equivocate in the evolved, refined product that's already out.
I will probably check out All Stars, for curiosity's sake. But thats it's problem. I think that's all anyone's going to do. No one really seems to be looking forward to it. Just kinda ready to give it a chance when it does.
I will, but after Legends Of Wrestlemania, which was a huge botch to what people were honestly expecting and turned out to be a gigantic letdown, my hopes aren't high. And in the end, I just can't make myself care, because I know SvR11 is going to be in my 360, almost year round anyway.
WWE All-Stars. It could be a good game. It could play well. But there's nothing about it that specifically screams out at me, giving me a reason to give a shit.
Maybe if they pull a miracle series of rabbits out of their hat, when they finally get around to revealing some of it's details and listing features and showing what the big deal is, they'll manage to surprise me. But so far, I had this distinct feeling that I should care, but I don't.
And I think this is why: SvR11 is well more than enough. Hopefully they can prove me wrong and charm $60 more out of me for All Stars. But we'll see.