WWE '13 Hands On Preview

September 22, 2012

Earlier this week the nice folks at THQ UK invited me down to their main office in Woking to get hands-on with WWE ’13.

The version of the game I got to play wasn’t complete, but I’ll be heading back down in a few weeks for the pre-launch event where I can try out the full version.

So, kicking off the hands-on I was introduced to the Attitude Era campaign which replaces last year’s Road to WrestleMania story mode. Last year’s RTWM mode received criticism for breaking up the matches with scripted moments that took the power away from the player due to the set outcomes, a problem which THQ have addressed this year buy giving players the ability to progress through the story mode with the simple objective of winning the match. For gamers that want more from the mode, there are also additional objectives to complete within each match, such as performing your finishing move, winning within a certain timelimit, and so on, with secret objectives also included which call for you to complete the “WWE Moment”. All of the objectives are able to be displayed on screen during the match by pressing the “Back” button, which lists each objective on screen without the need to pause the match and then ticks them off as you complete them.

The WWE Moment is match specific and is triggered at certain points of the match, which see’s one of the four face buttons highlighted at the bottom left corner of the screen. If your quick and you press the corresponding button quick enough, the moment will play out. For example, I played a match between Stone Cold and Dude Love, which seen the moment involve the referee being knocked out, which then leads you to another objective of taking out Vince McMahon with a chair in a set time limit.

In the other matches I played as Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Road Dogg, who had Billy Gunn accompanying him to ringside. As a means of showing how THQ have tried to keep things as authentic as possible the match started with Stone Cold Stone Cold at the top of the ramp, ready to run down to ringside and stunner Billy Gunn, completing the first objective. From that point I was left to them defeat Road Dogg within 2 minutes, something I managed with around 4-5 seconds left on the clock, leading to the cutscene of DX attacking Stone Cold and tying him up in the ropes.

Tyson! Tyson! Tyson!</center>

The other match I played was the WrestleMania 14 main event, which seen me playing as Stone Cold against Shawn Michaels, who’s entrance looks fantastic and is complete with his old school in-ring pyro. The objectives in this match also seen me complete the WWE Moment which involved the referee being knocked out, leading to Mike Tyson, who had been pacing around the ring throughout the match, sliding in and making the fast count, before laying out Michaels in the center of the ring.

Aside from the matches themselves the mode is rich with video packages that give a great insight into the feuds and what was happening at the time, with ratings popping up between matches to show how WWE fared against WCW at the time and also highlighting what was happening in WCW with pop ups appearing on the timeline, such as “WCW forms the nWo”.

One other nice addition was that the Attitude Era mode allows you to choose sections of the story’s to play once you’ve completed them, meaning you can always jump back to specific matches to retry objectives at a later date instead of having to play through the entire story from the beginning.

Special Referee returns this year and allows you to screw players over!</center>

Upon completing the Attitude Era mode I had the option of playing a Singles, Special Referee, Extreme Rules or Hell in a Cell match, of which I dived straight into the returning Special Guest Referee match.

Upon loading the match up you’ll have a meter on the screen below your character which is the same as the one you fill up to acquire a finishing move in a regular match and it works in the same way. Once your meter is filled up you’ll get a finishing move to use on any of the participants, however doing so will cause your fairness meter to drop, meaning you’ll then have to refill your meter by calling the match straight down the middle. If you don’t call the match down the middle and you refuse to count pinfalls, check on Submissions or even get physical with participants by pushing them around (an animation that replaces your moveset), you’ll soon hear the familiar drawn out voice of John Laurinaitis on the mic, which then see’s him appear on the ramp to eject you from the match and replace you with the regular referee.

If on the other hand you play fair and fill up your meter, not only will you be able to hit your finishing move, but you’ll also be able to call for the bell before your opponent taps out of a breaking point submission or perform a fast count which is controlled by how fast you press the A button.

You’ll also notice in the mode that your taunts have been replaced by taunts that see the referee pointing and shouting at participants, which when you perform them see’s your meter fill up faster.

Overall the mode is well balanced in terms of allowing you to screw someone over, as well as giving the person being screwed over a chance by having the referee ejected if they refuse to award the win.

"Good God almighty! Good God almighty! They've killed him! As God is my witness, he is broken in half!"</center>

Aside from the returning Special Guest Referee mode I also spent some time playing both the Extreme Rules and Hell in a Cell match types, with the Hell in a Cell match not really changing much from last year aside from the breaking out of the cell now being an OMG! Moment.

Moving onto Extreme Rules and the weapons were still the same as last year that I encountered, both in the current and Attitude Era arenas, however the match did benefit from the new “homing system”, which seen a Codebreaker off the ladder aimed straight on top of the trash can, flattening it in the process.

Also in the confides of Extreme Rules and with infinite finishers enabled I was able to abuse my opponent with various Spectacular Moments, which would usually require you to store up a certain amount of finishers, but with infinite finishers enabled they are at your beckon call. One of the first moments I tested out was the suplex to the outside, which on it’s own is pretty devastating, but with the added bonus of extreme rules and a few tables it becomes even more so and seen Jericho superplex Punk to the outside through two tables.

Speaking of tables and another new addition this year is the ability to perform announce table finishers, which can be individually set in Create-A-Moveset and take your available finishers to a total of three this year, as you can set a different announce table finisher to that of your regular finishing moves. Fans will also be glad to hear that you can also perform regular moves on top of the announce table which will break it, but wont deal as much damage as a finishing move. Additionally, after climbing on to the table using the left bumper you can walk around or perform diving moves off the top of it.

As for the gameplay itself, the Predator Technology 2.0 has been fine tuned this year, with the new contextual animations meaning that I didn’t have any problems with strikes not connecting and the same went for high flying moves, both from the turnbuckle, springboards and outside dives, all of which I found to now connect and play out the landing animation, instead of some of the awkward moments in WWE ’12 which seen high flying moves either miss or briefly catch your opponent, taking out both men.

The Yes! chants are included in Daniel Bryan's entrance!</center>

The updated audio in WWE ’13 which is being dubbed “WWE Live” really does make a huge impact to the game, whether it’s the crowd screaming “YES! YES! YES!” as Daniel Bryan makes his way to the ring or one of the many new crowd chants that break out during matches, it really does add that extra level to the feel of the match and it’s something that you should notice right away when playing the game.

Aside from the crowd audio, the wrestler’s own audio is much more noticeable this year, with the screams of John Cena sounding like sweet music to my ears as I destroyed him in an Extreme Rules with Brock Lesnar.

The new audio also see’s the return of the legendary Jim Ross within the confides of the Attitude Mode, with the commentary alongside The King bringing back the nostalgia of the Attitude Era as JR screams "Stunner! Stunner! Stunner!"

Don't like the Smackdown stage? Edit it in Create an Arena!</center>

Aside from the Attitude Era and the exhibition matches, this year’s Create-an-Arena mode was also available, complete with the option to customise the stage.

When you first load up Create-An-Arena mode and choose to create a new arena you have 3 choices to make, with the first being to choose a preset stage as a base. In total there were 20 preset stages to choose from, all of which were stages from past events, with PPV stages like WrestleMania XIV, Judgement Day and Summerslam, alongside the likes of old TV stages such as the oval and fist Smackdown stages, RAW from 2003 and so on.

Next comes the choice of arena sizes, which in this version only had 2 available, the regular arena size and a smaller independent style arena. Finally, you’ll also have the option to choose your crowd type, with the option of a Current or Attitude Era crowd.

Once you’ve decided on the above options you’ll be able to then begin customising your arena, with the ringside arena appearing to remain the same as last year, but now with additional patterns and logos available, as well as a new “History” option that remembers any custom colours you use and stores them for you to select when editing the colour of other items, which means you can jump straight to the colour you previously chose instead of having to remember the colour co-ordinates and find them on the colour grid. Although I only got to see this option in Create-An-Arena it looks like we’ll see it transition to Create-A-Superstar, which should save creators a lot of time.

Moving on to the new stage section and you’ll see the preset stage you chose at the beginning, with options to switch on or off certain elements. As an example, if you choose the Smackdown Fist arena there’s options to turn off the fist, titantrons, minitron and lighting rigs around the stage, or customise them to your liking by switching through different elements, such as frames, patterns and custom colours. There are also additional options to customise the ramp, lower sides of the stage and the stage floor, with the option to add in the various preset logos, shapes, flags or custom paint tool data.

From playing about with the staging options I was able to create a smaller arena with the Smackdown backdrop, Titantrons and Minitrons all removed, leaving just the small tron that bared the Smackdown logo left on the stage, of which you’ll be able to customise to show various show trons, patterns or custom logos, of which I went with an ECW logo to give an Indy show feel.

At this point the arena had that smaller Indy feel, with just the lower crowd at ringside and behind them appearing black, however upon changing the ringside lighting, which gives you various colours to work with, so you can have ring light like that of Sin Cara’s matches, I came across a lighting choice that lit the back of the crowd up, revealing the area behind them which showed some empty space where various equipment was housed, which really changed the look of the arena and put across that small independent feel.

Finishing up the arena and choosing a nameplate revealed that the custom nameplates from last year return, with some new custom designs and nameplates for the in-game arenas, so you can choose a real world nameplate such as SummerSlam instead of being forced to use a custom nameplate.

As for the layer count, there’s 15 layers available for the ring apron & mat, 15 available for the additional sections at ringside and 15 also available for the stage, giving 45 layers in total.

The King of the Ring tournament makes it's return in WWE '13!</center>

Conclusion

Even though the version I played was not the finished product and only had a few modes available there’s so much available for fans to get excited about, whether they are die hard fans that are looking forward to the new gameplay updates, match types and modes, or they are older fans that are returning to the franchise for the first time in years, having been lured back due to the appeal of the Attitude Era content, everything is shaping up great and there’s still so much that we have yet to see with the likes of Universe 3.0 and the full creation suite.

Source: Smacktalks.org

September 22, 2012

In the hell in a cell match, was you able to go through the cell door.

September 22, 2012

Very nice preview bro! I like the sound if being able to adjust the ramp height maybe that means wcw nitro circa 2000-2001 is possible! (Minus the nitro stage of course lol)

September 22, 2012

@Crater - I tried the cell door but it wouldn't let me out of it.

September 22, 2012

@Crater - I tried the cell door but it wouldn't let me out of it.

Yeah heard a very similar story that the door is just there for decoration lol

September 23, 2012

So there was no Championship Editor in the bulid that you played then?

And a question about ramp options in Create-a-Arena. How low & high can you make the sides of the stage and the stage floor go?

September 23, 2012

Smacktalks said that it was a work in progress so not all the creation suite things are aviliable eg: championship editor/universe 3.0

September 23, 2012

Hopefully the cage door not opening will be fixed in the offficial release.

September 23, 2012

Any tourtament modes? Or Online KOTR? That would be awesome.

September 23, 2012

i'm very excited about king of the ring,i can't wait to buy and play the game!!

Edited September 23, 2012 by WWEJohnCena

September 23, 2012

Nice preview,

planned to wait a while to purchase this, but it's all sounding so good, feeling impatient!

September 23, 2012

Maybe the only reason the cell door is there is so that Kane can tear it off when he makes his Debut in the Undertaker / HBK match in Attitude era mode. You heard it here first people ;P

Edited September 23, 2012 by seanironmaiden

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