Hardly A Review: WWE '13 - Better than just for Banter

This last week I have been playing a lot of WWE ’13 on Xbox. Yep, laugh it up, but this is one of those wonderful surprises in gaming for me where my expectations are low yet a game proves to be immensely enjoyable. Initially bought as a ‘banter purchase,’ (a game I and my regular Live Party all buy on the cheap to play for a bit as a laugh), this has actually turned out to be a great single player experience. A heavy slab of nostalgia plays its part here, sending us back to times we’ve all spent playing previous iterations in our youth. This Nostalgia is aided by the ‘Attitude Era’ storyline, allowing the relieving of some of the major wrestling storylines from when we all actually knew who was who and it was still called WWF. Who doesn’t love a bit of Stone Cold Steve Austin? And that’s the bottom line! For the current day, there is Universe mode, which can be essentially whatever you want. The range of customisation available is brilliant and it is really possible to get the universe to work how you want it and see storylines and feuds develop as they would in real life shows.

The controls are fiddly at first and there is a lot of button mashing, and online services are temperamental but when it all comes together and you nail your best mate with the People’s Elbow this game is as satisfying as they come. At a time when I find a lot of mainstream games have become too serious or gritty, this has been a shot in the arm of unbridled fun, greatly enhanced by how unexpected it was. 

Jimmy

Pushing my buttons

So the other day on Reddit I came across this image simply titled: “The problem I have playing multiple FPS the same day.” Grammar aside the poster makes a very important point I’d like to go into in more depth. Something which has plagued the consoles for a long time and something which is long overdue for change. I'm talking specifically about button mapping, or more clearly the lack of choice when it comes to mapping your buttons the way you’d like.

The Redditor who posted this (KyleGlen) clearly has a problem adapting to the different controller layouts of the different games he plays. It’s understandable, we’re creatures of habit. I've already talked about how difficult I found adapting to a new keyboard layout, and I still trip up if I have to switch between layouts several times. It’s especially difficult if all the games are of a similar genre, and so all the actions you can perform are the same. The obvious solution that spring to mind is simply to allow users to set the controls any way they want. I'm about to explain why more freedom is always better.

Vita Blockers

Late last week, Kotaku posted two news articles, within five hours of each other. The first was titled, “Thousands of Developers Want to Make Games for the Ouya,” and the second was titled, “Sony Was Surprised How Few People Wanted To Make Games For Vita.” Now look at those two titles, look at them again, and tell me your first impression wasn’t the same as mine. What the fuck is going on here‽ How can an untested company without a single released console to it’s name have developers lining up out the door, and a well trusted, big name with such a history as Sony get barely any interest in comparison? Well bear with me, because the answer takes a little bit of explaining.

Sony attributes its failure to the fact that there are “so many options for publishers now that we cannot take [developed games] for granted.” Ouya, on the other hand simply says that “over a thousand [developers] have been in touch with us since our Kickstarter ended.” That’s it from each company, so we’re on our own from here on out, but I have a couple of theories I want to run by you, and let’s see what you make of them.