WWE '13 Review (PS3)

Another year has come and gone and another WWE game has been released.  This year’s iteration focuses very heavily on the groundbreaking Attitude Era of the WWE. Things have been changed as always, but the thing to remember here, is that this is a wrestling game. If you aren’t a fan of wrestling, you will not like this game, and vice versa. WWE ’13 is a solid entry into a great franchise and is continuing in THQ’s focus on making changes for the better.

First off, at the time of this review, there is a major game breaking bug with the Universe Mode of WWE ’13. Using a created arena will cause any changes you make to matches to make the game not load. We are playing on the PS3, so I’m not sure if this is a issue for all platforms, but it is a deal breaker for us on PS3.

The graphics for WWE ’13 are the best that the series has ever presented. The digital representations of the wrestlers are as true to their real life counter parts as they’ve ever been. The Attitude Era stars look and move exactly like they did fifteen years ago. The crowds look and move much more realistically than they ever have, and with correct placement of the WWE logo my wife glanced at the TV and asked if I was watching Raw. Arenas are faithfully recreated completely, and the classic arenas bring back some nostalgia that makes me feel like I’m back in the mid to late ‘90s again. Animations are fairly fluid, with moves flowing easily from one into the next. There are some hitches in the hit detection and some of the weapon physics are questionable at times. There is the occasional moment when out of nowhere a chair that was on the ground will fly across the screen for no reason.

The sound in the game is pretty good. Hits sound like they should, slamming down onto the mat sounds right, the crowd is hit or miss however. THQ used samples from actual live crowds to try and recreate the atmosphere of being at a live WWE event. Wrestler entrance music is pulled straight from reality. The announcers both ring announcer and commentary teams sound great. When using custom entrance music though, the ring announcer will be nearly impossible to hear due to some audio mixing issues. The commentary during the matches is better than previous years, but is still obnoxious at times, and tends to call what is happening just before it finishes happening, but these are minor complaints.

The gameplay has been refined further from WWE ’12 making one of the best simulated wrestling games ever created.  Controls are still easy to learn, but difficult to master, with reversals being mapped to one button again instead of two. The controls are also very tight and responsive. Animations are fluid and moves flow very well. There are environmental finishers and match specific finishers that each superstar can preform. There are numerous match types to play ranging from a simple one on one match to a sixteen man King of the Ring tournament to an inferno match. The big focus this year again is on the Attitude Era. WWE ’13 does away with the standard Road to WrestleMania mode from the past few games and has the players play through decisive moments in the Attitude Era. This mode has quite a few different unlocks providing you get all of the historical bonus objectives in each event. Attitude Era mode provides a great bit of nostalgia for those of us that lived through it, and for younger fans of WWE helps give them some history for one of the most important time periods for the WWE. WWE Universe mode is back for those who want to go through and manage every aspect of the WWE. Rosters, shows, and matches are all available to be changed at the whim of the player. If you want to add a new show with the old Attitude Era stars, you can. Feel like deleting Monday Night Raw from the schedule, do it. Universe mode allows the player to customize the WWE in any way they want to. Several trophies(achievements) are tied into the Universe mode, so you should at least work through it a little bit.

WWE ’13 proves to be another solid entry into the WWE game franchise. There aren’t as many changes as last year, but there have been numerous refinements. Once they get their bugs ironed out, this game will be fantastic. I advise checking this out if you’re a wrestling fan. WWE ’13 beats it’s way to a nice 8/10. As always, See You Online.

Edit: Since publication, a patch has been released to fix the freezing issue, however all of your previous save data is corrupted and unusable including Universe, Create-an-Anything, and from surface appearances the progress made on Attitude Era mode. So....yeah…