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WWE Day of Reckoning 2
Enhanced play mechanics, a deeper story mode, updated graphics and more wrestlers. Hands-on impressions, plus first screenshots and movies.
by Matt Casamassina
March 31, 2005 - Last year, publishing giant THQ made some changes. The company moved the WWE WrestleMania franchise, which had for years remained exclusive to Nintendo's console, to Microsoft's Xbox. GameCube owners barely had a chance to react before news hit that a fresh take on the entertainment of wrestling would debut on Nintendo's system in the other's place. WWE Day of Reckoning was born. The title, developed by Japanese studio Yuke's, responsible for all of GameCube's WrestleMania efforts, explored the medium from a new angle. In the title's simple, but enjoyable story mode, players created a wrestler from scratch and started at the very bottom, taking part in throwaway matches against no-talents, and gradually working their way through the ranks in the WWE, into the spotlight, and ultimately to the top of the food chain to become champion.
Day of Reckoning was well received by fans and critics alike, due in large to the title's pick-up-and-play control mechanics, a decent selection of superstars, divas, and venues, a fun story mode, and a deep create-a-wrestler feature. Without doubt, the fundamentals were in place, and they worked. But the title was not without shortcomings. As intuitive as the game's grappling system proved to be, the control configuration lent itself to button mashing, which turned some hardcore wrestling game fans off. Meanwhile, the story mode was positively shallow compared to some other wrestling projects on the market. And sure enough, some critics complained that the title looked less realistic than its counterparts.
The 20-something team at Yuke's and the creative gurus at THQ combed the message boards, compiled a list of what worked and what didn't, and ran with it. The result is WWE Day of Reckoning 2, the aptly named sequel to last year's game. DOR 2, which has been in development ever since the first shipped, is a true sequel in every sense. It doesn't dismiss the mechanics of its predecessor for all new ones, but rather builds on top of them, enabling a bigger, meatier product on all fronts.
If all goes as planned, Day of Reckoning will be, to use associate creative manager Matt Greig's own words, "the definitive GameCube product for WWE." He explains further: "What we mean by that is that it's a superset of everything that came before on GameCube. We're not taking anything out. We're using Day of Reckoning as a starting point and building in features from previous games, and adding new stuff that we prototyped and realized would work well. We're looking at it as a collector's edition. Obviously, GameCube is nearing the end of its lifecycle so we're trying to put something out there that will stand the test of time for several years to come."
Kane shows his teeth. More polygons means that Yuke's can create realistic expressions on the wrestlers in DOR 2
No easy goal, to be sure, but the team at Yuke's believes it has the right priorities in mind and that it knows where to start, which, as it turns out, is exactly where the last game left off. By the time gamers bested the original title, they had advanced from the wrestling slums to superstardom. Day of Reckoning 2 continues from exactly that point. It's in the same universe. And it acknowledges all of the events that transpired in the first title. "It's not a sequel just in name," explains Greig. "It continues on with the story. There are actual ties in content. You're already a champion. You won the storyline in the first game, so you're starting out as a champion. This gives us a lot of opportunities to explore how we can advance the story when players are already starting as a successful WWE character. And this is actually something we haven't done before."
The Full Story
Aiding that goal is the first of what THQ identified as three major priorities when it sat down to develop this sequel: a more ambitious story mode. For the first time ever, the team enlisted the help of Smackdown's writers in order to craft a tale that would not only prove compelling enough to grab players from beginning to end, but also display a fair amount of foresight. "That is not something that previous games have the access to," explains Greig. "But [the Smackdown writers] are getting more and more involved with the authenticity, and also with being current -- not necessarily what's happening now, but what will be happening six months from now." The idea is to present a storyline that will be up-to-date and relevant when the game ships, which is a rare commodity for the wrestling genre.
In contrast to a copy and paste of the usual wrestling theme, which is simply to win the belt, THQ wanted to do something different with the storyline in Day of Reckoning 2, according to Greig. Obviously, belts will play a part in the tale. That's the way these games have always been set up, and it's what fans want. But Yuke's will also present players sub-stories with branching pathways. "There are other themes that we haven't explored. There are the storylines where there are the two superstars, the heel and the face, who are arguing over the diva. There are the storylines where one superstar has betrayed his former friend and one of them has become a heel and the other a face," says Greig. "It's not all about getting the belt. The belt may be in the background. There may be a belt contest throughout the story, but that isn't the focus. Players are actually focusing on interpersonal relationships between the superstars."
There will be certain points where the storyline will offer branching pathways based on the decisions of players. For instance, wrestlers may be asked to turn heel for a number of matches. Branches will be organized based on choices made both in the interface and during gameplay.
Sadly, there will not be a wealth of full-motion video sequences in support of the storyline. Greig confirmed that, "it's just not going to happen because of the size of the GameCube disc." For that reason, all of the story elements will transpire in-game by way of real-time cut-scenes in subtitled text.
Superstars and Legends
The original Day of Reckoning included some 40 wrestlers, a mix of superstars, legends and divas. The sequel will feature approximately 45, most of them returning, with a handful of anticipated additions. Greig was hush on specifics, but we do know from movies and officially released documentation on the game that it will boast such superstars as Booker T, Kane, Triple H, Batista, and Chris Benoit. Some of the new legends in the game include Hulk Hogan, Mankind and yes -- IGNcube readers voted for him and they got him -- The Ultimate Warrior. THQ is still deciding on whether or not to up the count on divas in the game. Here's hoping that it does, as the omission of a few key beauties was a common complaint of last year's effort.
Less Mashing, More Strategizing
Developer Yuke's has not mucked with the control or gameplay mechanics in Day of Reckoning 2. The title more or less plays exactly like its predecessor, right down to the grappling system backbone. But enhancements have been introduced all the same.
The second of THQ's three priorities for the sequel was to address complaints that the first was too heavy on button mashing. The publisher/developer duo came up with the idea to inject both added control and strategy into the areas that lacked it before, and thus lesson or altogether eliminate the element of chance, or luck. "Every situation in the game that had button mashing before has been revamped," notes Greig. "There is no more button mashing in the game. That's not to say there is no need for reflexes anymore because that's certainly not the case. But we tried to add layers of strategy and decision. Count outs, pins -- there are different systems governing all of those interactions now." Grapples and strikes are still handled in the same manner, but new stamina and submission systems complement the action.
Day of Reckoning 2 uses an advanced stamina system that goes hand-in-hand with in-match strategies. As per usual, an on-screen bar measures a wrestler's stamina; when it's full, they are rearing to go and when it's empty, they hunch over and tend to tire after a single offensive move. The difference is that gamers don't have to sit still to recover their stamina. They can fill up their wrestler's bar using a number of different play methods, many of which tie into the submission system.
"We're using it strictly to give players options. Our stamina system is not very restricted," says Greig. "We want players to be thinking throughout matches. 'Do I want to go all out? Do I want to go on the offensive? Unleash a series of strikes and grapples and try to get this guy down quickly? Or do I want to hold back and let him do that, wear him out, and then I can go on the attack? Or is my stamina really low right now? Maybe I should be the one thinking about how to get it back up.' All these types of decisions."
The submission system has perhaps seen the biggest overhaul. In previous games, as soon as players performed a submission, user options were nil. Now, gamers can perform several types of submission holds. There are rest, humiliation and show off holds. Once a hold begins, players with the C-stick have the chance to strategize, which may result in a win, the gain of stamina, or, quite possibly, the depletion of stamina and an opening for the opposing player.
"To use SSX terminology, we're letting players tweak the submissions. So once you have a submission hold, you have options," explains Greig. "If you want to try and end a match right there, you go into a power submission. You hold the C-stick up to do that and that will be your maximum chance to try and end the match. At the same time, you're expending stamina, so you're taking a risk. If you don't end the match at that point, you've depleted a lot of your stamina and that's going to put you at a disadvantage."
Triple H honestly looks dazed and confused. And don't miss the new crowd design in the background.
THQ is still working out the details on the defender's side, but during submissions boxes pop up on the screen, each representing a player; the challenge is to guess what the other player is going to do. A successful guess will break the submission. An unsuccessful guess will keep it held.
"This is all controlled in real-time by the C-stick. It's not a non-interactive sequence. And, although we haven't quite nailed it down yet, the defender will be also be doing something, probably with the C-stick, to respond to what the attacker is doing. We're really excited about. It's something totally different that we haven't done before," says Greig.
Presentation is Everything
THQ's third priority for the DOR 2 was to deliver a new visual style. For this year's game, Yuke's has made some dramatic visual improvements that are sure to please wrestling purists and presentation tarts alike. For starters, load times are speedier than ever before. Nothing takes more than five seconds to load, according to Greig, and that includes transitions from menus to matches. Meanwhile, the developer has actually cut back on an overbearing interface and too many heads up display indicators in an effort to make the wrestling universe look and feel that much more realistic. The menu system is therefore mocked up to look like a wrestling environment.
In-game matches show off a number of immediately noticeable enhancements. The crowds, formerly sprite-based, repetitive, and jarringly out of place in contrast to the otherwise 3D nature of the game, have been upgraded. Now they -- like the wrestlers -- are polygonal, and more smoothly animated. The result is more believable environment that is particularly impressive during wrestler entrances, which have also seen big improvements in cinematic style.
The wrestlers are constructed using thirty percent more polygons, according to Greig. Most of the extra geometry has gone to develop more flexible wrestler faces, which now show off eerily realistic teeth and animate appropriately during matches. For instance, if Kane is about to lay down the pain, he looks menacing, his mouth open in a snarl. Oppositely, if Benoit takes one to the face, his eyes appear to roll back and he actually looks dazed. Really, the game boasts some of the best face models we've seen in any wrestler to date.
Crisper texture work has also enabled Yuke's to deliver a higher level of definition on models, which is clear when they are shown up close without any blurring.
In addition, a more robust particle effects engine allows the studio to implement more realistic sweat and blood splatters, and on top of that, new and improved pyrotechnics with impressive, bloom-like lighting. During play, we could actually see sweat spray off the faces of wrestlers after a hard, head-turning smack. Of course, the models themselves show off real-time lights and cast believable shadows onto the mat.
Finally, Yuke's has reworked the animation pipeline for superior results. "Last year, we had maybe twenty to thirty percent motion capturing and probably seventy percent hand animation," says Greig. "This year, all of the cinematics are motion captured, so there is no going back and forth between hand and motion captured animation." The result is movement that not only looks to have more realistic momentum and weight, but also blends more seamlessly than ever before.
Screens + Videos:
klick
Quelle:
dor2.de.vu
ign.com
WWE Day of Reckoning 2
Enhanced play mechanics, a deeper story mode, updated graphics and more wrestlers. Hands-on impressions, plus first screenshots and movies.
by Matt Casamassina
March 31, 2005 - Last year, publishing giant THQ made some changes. The company moved the WWE WrestleMania franchise, which had for years remained exclusive to Nintendo's console, to Microsoft's Xbox. GameCube owners barely had a chance to react before news hit that a fresh take on the entertainment of wrestling would debut on Nintendo's system in the other's place. WWE Day of Reckoning was born. The title, developed by Japanese studio Yuke's, responsible for all of GameCube's WrestleMania efforts, explored the medium from a new angle. In the title's simple, but enjoyable story mode, players created a wrestler from scratch and started at the very bottom, taking part in throwaway matches against no-talents, and gradually working their way through the ranks in the WWE, into the spotlight, and ultimately to the top of the food chain to become champion.
Day of Reckoning was well received by fans and critics alike, due in large to the title's pick-up-and-play control mechanics, a decent selection of superstars, divas, and venues, a fun story mode, and a deep create-a-wrestler feature. Without doubt, the fundamentals were in place, and they worked. But the title was not without shortcomings. As intuitive as the game's grappling system proved to be, the control configuration lent itself to button mashing, which turned some hardcore wrestling game fans off. Meanwhile, the story mode was positively shallow compared to some other wrestling projects on the market. And sure enough, some critics complained that the title looked less realistic than its counterparts.
The 20-something team at Yuke's and the creative gurus at THQ combed the message boards, compiled a list of what worked and what didn't, and ran with it. The result is WWE Day of Reckoning 2, the aptly named sequel to last year's game. DOR 2, which has been in development ever since the first shipped, is a true sequel in every sense. It doesn't dismiss the mechanics of its predecessor for all new ones, but rather builds on top of them, enabling a bigger, meatier product on all fronts.
If all goes as planned, Day of Reckoning will be, to use associate creative manager Matt Greig's own words, "the definitive GameCube product for WWE." He explains further: "What we mean by that is that it's a superset of everything that came before on GameCube. We're not taking anything out. We're using Day of Reckoning as a starting point and building in features from previous games, and adding new stuff that we prototyped and realized would work well. We're looking at it as a collector's edition. Obviously, GameCube is nearing the end of its lifecycle so we're trying to put something out there that will stand the test of time for several years to come."
Kane shows his teeth. More polygons means that Yuke's can create realistic expressions on the wrestlers in DOR 2
No easy goal, to be sure, but the team at Yuke's believes it has the right priorities in mind and that it knows where to start, which, as it turns out, is exactly where the last game left off. By the time gamers bested the original title, they had advanced from the wrestling slums to superstardom. Day of Reckoning 2 continues from exactly that point. It's in the same universe. And it acknowledges all of the events that transpired in the first title. "It's not a sequel just in name," explains Greig. "It continues on with the story. There are actual ties in content. You're already a champion. You won the storyline in the first game, so you're starting out as a champion. This gives us a lot of opportunities to explore how we can advance the story when players are already starting as a successful WWE character. And this is actually something we haven't done before."
The Full Story
Aiding that goal is the first of what THQ identified as three major priorities when it sat down to develop this sequel: a more ambitious story mode. For the first time ever, the team enlisted the help of Smackdown's writers in order to craft a tale that would not only prove compelling enough to grab players from beginning to end, but also display a fair amount of foresight. "That is not something that previous games have the access to," explains Greig. "But [the Smackdown writers] are getting more and more involved with the authenticity, and also with being current -- not necessarily what's happening now, but what will be happening six months from now." The idea is to present a storyline that will be up-to-date and relevant when the game ships, which is a rare commodity for the wrestling genre.
In contrast to a copy and paste of the usual wrestling theme, which is simply to win the belt, THQ wanted to do something different with the storyline in Day of Reckoning 2, according to Greig. Obviously, belts will play a part in the tale. That's the way these games have always been set up, and it's what fans want. But Yuke's will also present players sub-stories with branching pathways. "There are other themes that we haven't explored. There are the storylines where there are the two superstars, the heel and the face, who are arguing over the diva. There are the storylines where one superstar has betrayed his former friend and one of them has become a heel and the other a face," says Greig. "It's not all about getting the belt. The belt may be in the background. There may be a belt contest throughout the story, but that isn't the focus. Players are actually focusing on interpersonal relationships between the superstars."
There will be certain points where the storyline will offer branching pathways based on the decisions of players. For instance, wrestlers may be asked to turn heel for a number of matches. Branches will be organized based on choices made both in the interface and during gameplay.
Sadly, there will not be a wealth of full-motion video sequences in support of the storyline. Greig confirmed that, "it's just not going to happen because of the size of the GameCube disc." For that reason, all of the story elements will transpire in-game by way of real-time cut-scenes in subtitled text.
Superstars and Legends
The original Day of Reckoning included some 40 wrestlers, a mix of superstars, legends and divas. The sequel will feature approximately 45, most of them returning, with a handful of anticipated additions. Greig was hush on specifics, but we do know from movies and officially released documentation on the game that it will boast such superstars as Booker T, Kane, Triple H, Batista, and Chris Benoit. Some of the new legends in the game include Hulk Hogan, Mankind and yes -- IGNcube readers voted for him and they got him -- The Ultimate Warrior. THQ is still deciding on whether or not to up the count on divas in the game. Here's hoping that it does, as the omission of a few key beauties was a common complaint of last year's effort.
Less Mashing, More Strategizing
Developer Yuke's has not mucked with the control or gameplay mechanics in Day of Reckoning 2. The title more or less plays exactly like its predecessor, right down to the grappling system backbone. But enhancements have been introduced all the same.
The second of THQ's three priorities for the sequel was to address complaints that the first was too heavy on button mashing. The publisher/developer duo came up with the idea to inject both added control and strategy into the areas that lacked it before, and thus lesson or altogether eliminate the element of chance, or luck. "Every situation in the game that had button mashing before has been revamped," notes Greig. "There is no more button mashing in the game. That's not to say there is no need for reflexes anymore because that's certainly not the case. But we tried to add layers of strategy and decision. Count outs, pins -- there are different systems governing all of those interactions now." Grapples and strikes are still handled in the same manner, but new stamina and submission systems complement the action.
Day of Reckoning 2 uses an advanced stamina system that goes hand-in-hand with in-match strategies. As per usual, an on-screen bar measures a wrestler's stamina; when it's full, they are rearing to go and when it's empty, they hunch over and tend to tire after a single offensive move. The difference is that gamers don't have to sit still to recover their stamina. They can fill up their wrestler's bar using a number of different play methods, many of which tie into the submission system.
"We're using it strictly to give players options. Our stamina system is not very restricted," says Greig. "We want players to be thinking throughout matches. 'Do I want to go all out? Do I want to go on the offensive? Unleash a series of strikes and grapples and try to get this guy down quickly? Or do I want to hold back and let him do that, wear him out, and then I can go on the attack? Or is my stamina really low right now? Maybe I should be the one thinking about how to get it back up.' All these types of decisions."
The submission system has perhaps seen the biggest overhaul. In previous games, as soon as players performed a submission, user options were nil. Now, gamers can perform several types of submission holds. There are rest, humiliation and show off holds. Once a hold begins, players with the C-stick have the chance to strategize, which may result in a win, the gain of stamina, or, quite possibly, the depletion of stamina and an opening for the opposing player.
"To use SSX terminology, we're letting players tweak the submissions. So once you have a submission hold, you have options," explains Greig. "If you want to try and end a match right there, you go into a power submission. You hold the C-stick up to do that and that will be your maximum chance to try and end the match. At the same time, you're expending stamina, so you're taking a risk. If you don't end the match at that point, you've depleted a lot of your stamina and that's going to put you at a disadvantage."
Triple H honestly looks dazed and confused. And don't miss the new crowd design in the background.
THQ is still working out the details on the defender's side, but during submissions boxes pop up on the screen, each representing a player; the challenge is to guess what the other player is going to do. A successful guess will break the submission. An unsuccessful guess will keep it held.
"This is all controlled in real-time by the C-stick. It's not a non-interactive sequence. And, although we haven't quite nailed it down yet, the defender will be also be doing something, probably with the C-stick, to respond to what the attacker is doing. We're really excited about. It's something totally different that we haven't done before," says Greig.
Presentation is Everything
THQ's third priority for the DOR 2 was to deliver a new visual style. For this year's game, Yuke's has made some dramatic visual improvements that are sure to please wrestling purists and presentation tarts alike. For starters, load times are speedier than ever before. Nothing takes more than five seconds to load, according to Greig, and that includes transitions from menus to matches. Meanwhile, the developer has actually cut back on an overbearing interface and too many heads up display indicators in an effort to make the wrestling universe look and feel that much more realistic. The menu system is therefore mocked up to look like a wrestling environment.
In-game matches show off a number of immediately noticeable enhancements. The crowds, formerly sprite-based, repetitive, and jarringly out of place in contrast to the otherwise 3D nature of the game, have been upgraded. Now they -- like the wrestlers -- are polygonal, and more smoothly animated. The result is more believable environment that is particularly impressive during wrestler entrances, which have also seen big improvements in cinematic style.
The wrestlers are constructed using thirty percent more polygons, according to Greig. Most of the extra geometry has gone to develop more flexible wrestler faces, which now show off eerily realistic teeth and animate appropriately during matches. For instance, if Kane is about to lay down the pain, he looks menacing, his mouth open in a snarl. Oppositely, if Benoit takes one to the face, his eyes appear to roll back and he actually looks dazed. Really, the game boasts some of the best face models we've seen in any wrestler to date.
Crisper texture work has also enabled Yuke's to deliver a higher level of definition on models, which is clear when they are shown up close without any blurring.
In addition, a more robust particle effects engine allows the studio to implement more realistic sweat and blood splatters, and on top of that, new and improved pyrotechnics with impressive, bloom-like lighting. During play, we could actually see sweat spray off the faces of wrestlers after a hard, head-turning smack. Of course, the models themselves show off real-time lights and cast believable shadows onto the mat.
Finally, Yuke's has reworked the animation pipeline for superior results. "Last year, we had maybe twenty to thirty percent motion capturing and probably seventy percent hand animation," says Greig. "This year, all of the cinematics are motion captured, so there is no going back and forth between hand and motion captured animation." The result is movement that not only looks to have more realistic momentum and weight, but also blends more seamlessly than ever before.
Screens + Videos:
klick
Quelle:
dor2.de.vu
ign.com
)
. Der Story Mode klingt interessant und das mit den Submissions ist auch mal was neues. Hulk Hogan als Legende das wäre geil. 
