For years, fans of the “WWE Smackdown” series have found several reasons to rant. Despite their attempts at appealing to the public, THQ and Yukes have struggled to gain the standing ovation they may or may not have deserved. It seemed as if buggy game modes (WWE ’12′s Universe mode), lacking features (alternate attires, create a custom title, match options, etc.), lackluster DLC, and even the poor internet servers that haunted WWE ’12, would haunt them forever. But, let us not discourage you, because in WWE ’13 the revolution is upon us. Let’s jump right into the awesome.
THIS GAME HAS ATTITUDE
The overplayed and drawn out idea of the Road to Wrestlemania has been scrapped from the series due to popular demand. In it’s place? A similar game-style known as the Attitude Era Mode where fans will get to rehash and relive the real revolution in professional wrestling – the Attitude Era. Whether it’s the wars of Austin vs. McMahon, the origin of Degeneration X, or the debut of the Undertaker’s demonic and destructive brother, Kane, the Attitude Era mode will relive all of these great moments. To top it off, players will get to unlock several alternate attires, characters, actual video footage of the attitude era events, and more by completing special challenges and tasks. This mode has been covered a lot so far, and therefore we won’t spend too much time discussing it. The basic awesomeness here is reliving the revolutionary time period of pro wrestling – er, sports entertainment. Attitude Era mode is just the start of what this game has to offer.
NEW AND IMPROVED MATCHES
The game has already been filled with several great match choices in the past, but some were removed to be overhauled – and have been greatly missed by the fans. Two of the biggest new/returning matches are the Special Guest Referee match – where you can pick a superstar or diva to referee the match, and the I Quit match – where the objective is to make your opponent say “I Quit!”
SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: In this match, you get to pick a superstar or diva to referee the match. While this match type was in past iterations of the Smackdown vs. Raw series, it was removed years back and has been gone for some time. Now that it returns, it holds a new feature to maintain fairness to the match. As the guest referee, you’ll have a fairness meter that will either increase or decrease depending on how you call the match. If you play fair, you’re meter will build, giving you the options to attack someone with your finisher or to screw them over, Montreal screw-job style. If you don’t play fair, you’ll end up getting thrown out of the match and replaced with a regular official. The feature adds a bit more realism to the match and is not really a nuisance unless you’re trying to be unrealistic to begin with.
I Quit Match – the I Quit Match is basically a hardcore falls count anywhere war between two competitors where the referee (or at times in the match, one of the superstars) will hover over a downed opponent and ask them if they quit – which, in the game, brings up a special meter, similar to the pinning meter that has been in recent iterations, but slightly more advanced. A stored finisher can help make the game more difficult or make it easier if on the speaking end of the microphone!
On top of these new matches, more new and improved matches will be seen, though press won’t reflect on them much due to much bigger things being revealed. The steel cage match, Hell in a Cell, and Inferno match have all seen some improvements and adjustments, among others.
CREATION SUITE
One of the most enhanced and detailed features in the WWE game series is the diverse creation suite. While the creation suite features obvious things such as the improved Create-a-Superstar (and other creation modes that compliment this one, such as Create-an-Entrance and Create-a-Moveset) the mode also features Create-a-Finisher, Create-an-Entrance Video, and Superstar Threads – a mode where you can edit the colors of in-game superstars. If you want John Cena to wear pink wristbands for Breast-Cancer awareness month as he’s been doing on television lately, you can make that happen with Superstar threads. While minor details to threads have been set into motion, the ability to edit entrance attire is still not available. Hopefully, this is something we can look forward to seeing implemented in the next installment of the series.
Along with the already great creation suite, players can now edit the in-game championships, strap colors and more. This will help add to the game for those who don’t find the 30 in-game (and 10 DLC) titles to be enough or fitting to their needs -or simply want the in-game titles to have a new, fresh look and feel to them. More details to come about this mode soon!
On top of all of this, Story Designer has been enhanced and now features over 300 new cutscenes! All of the scenes you see in Universe can now be used in Story Designer as well.
Create-A-Superstar has also seen some improvements, with a new Super-Heavyweight Skeleton that’ll make your monstrously big superstars look and feel more realistic. Along with this, the mode sees new patterns and other adjustments that help the creation process be even more enjoyable. Top that off with the fact that the color selection wheel has returned, and fans can rejoice in knowing that customization will be more manageable and intense than ever! Plus, Playstation 3 owners will be happy to know that they finally get the same amount of creation layers as the Xbox 360 players! One last note about this we’d like to mention is that the blank background used in the past games has been done away with, and your created superstar or diva now appears inside of a ring. There are a few other notable improvements, such as some new parts and such, but we’ll let you check those out when you get your hand on the game!
Create an Arena has been improved as well, as we now have the ability to edit the stage and to use several different templates (custom and actual templates included, such as the old Smackdown Fist arena – 20 templates total). Editing the stage gives us the ability to place images (custom or in-game) just about anywhere realistic we can think of, remove titan-trons from the stage, and more! We are also given the ability to change the arena lighting – so if you want an entire PPV arena to feature blood-red lighting similar to the lighting of Kane’s entrance, you can do it! Overall, players are given the ability to edit arena size, type of audience (Attitude Era or current), and arena style (indoor or outdoor). On top of that, the arenas can be uploaded for others to download as they could last year – but now, can also be used in online matches. If you see one but see something off about it, you can also download it, fix it, and then upload the fixed or edited product to the server. This can also be done with all other created content.
The Largest Roster the Series Has Ever Seen
85 Superstars and Divas are pieced together in what is already a widely sufficient in-game roster. Top it off with 21 DLC Superstars and divas added to the mix, and you’re left with 105 total roster slots (given, some of these ARE duplicates, such as the 3 faces of Foley and three versions of Triple H – but even with the duplicates, the roster is more than sufficient).
The in-game roster (before DLC) includes the following:
CURRENT
Alberto Del Rio, Big Show, Booker T, Brock Lesnar, Brodus Clay, Chris Jericho, Christian, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, David Otunga, Dolph Ziggler, Edge, Epico, The Great Khali, Heath Slater, Hunico, Jack Swagger, JBL, Jinder Mahal, John Cena, John Cena ’04, John Laurinaitis, Justin Gabriel, Kane, Kevin Nash, Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, The Miz, Primo, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, The Rock, R-Truth, Santino Marella, Sheamus, Sin Cara, Ted DiBiase, Triple H, Undertaker, Wade Barrett, Zack Ryder, Alicia Fox, Beth Phoenix, Brie Bella, Eve, Kelly Kelly, Kharma, Lita, Nikki Bella
ATTITUDE ERA
Animal, Big Boss Man, Billy Gunn, Bradshaw, Bret Hart, British Bulldog, Cactus Jack, Chris Jericho, Christian, Dude Love, Eddie Guerrero, Edge, Faarooq, Godfather, Hawk, Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, Kane, Ken Shamrock, Mankind, Mark Henry, Mr. McMahon, Paul Wight, Road Dogg, The Rock, Shane McMahon, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold, Triple H, Undertaker, Vader, X-Pac, Lita, Stephanie McMahon, Trish Stratus
DLC (Downloadable Content)
Along with the great roster above, the DLC plans include several superstars as well (21 to be exact), as well as a revolutionary MOVES pack, a Championship titles pack, plus alternate attires, and more! Moves like the Kimura lock, The El Generico turnbuckle brainbuster, and others will be included in the moves pack, and titles like the AWA Heavyweight title and John Cena’s US Spinner title will be among others in the championship title pack. As for the superstars and divas…
Current Era: AJ Lee, Antonio Cesaro, Damien Sandow, Drew McIntyre, Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, Layla, Natalya, Ryback, Tensai, Yoshi Tatsu.
Attitude Era: Brian Pillman, Chainsaw Charlie (Terry Funk), Gangrel, Mike Tyson (Pre-Order DLC), Rikishi, Too Cool (Scotty 2 Hotty & Grandmaster Sexay), Val Venis.
PLUS, Fan Axxess exclusives: Diamond Dallas Page, Goldust
For pricing details and to see what the moves and championships pack consist of, scroll to the bottom of this article.
UNIVERSE 3.0
The roster and DLC aren’t everything with these games. When it all comes down to it, we need some guaranteed replay value. That’s where Universe mode comes in. Last year, WWE ’12 gave us the ability to edit and customize our Universe, whether it be changing out the shows (limited to only changing the PPVs, or changing Monday Night Raw or Friday night Smackdown to something else – custom arenas were permitted and so on, but weekdays could not be changed).
This year, Universe may just be the answer to our prayers for a less buggy, more customized experience. Let’s take a look at all of the new features!
The Ability to Vacate Titles - this is something that was highly requested for the past several installments, and it is now something that we can do once again. Even better, we can create matches in Universe that are for the vacated title. So, if you’re one of the players who don’t really acknowledge the divas or the tag division, you can make one of your shows consist of neither championship.
Choose your stories - Don’t like tag team splitting storylines? Well, now you can turn off the storylines you don’t like, and they won’t happen in your Universe anymore!
To Be Injured, or not to be injured? - Injuries were a cool addition to Universe last year, but haunted some players by happening too frequently. Now, players get the ability to turn on or off injuries.
Statistics - Now you can observe your in-game statistics in regards to superstars, Pay-Per-Views, titles, and more! The statistics are enhanced and in-depth, and allow you to follow the history of your universe.
Full customization - Configure your own unique storylines, arenas, pay-per-views, and schedule – entirely. Want shows every day of the week? You can do that. Plus, map out storylines and make decisions in-game that will branch out the storylines even further. From now on, instead of turning on a partner, you’ll get an option to decide if that’s what you want to do or not.Last year, the ability to play through an entire card in one sitting was difficult without exiting to the menu if you were the type to want to customize your match card further. Now, you can edit the match cards to fit your liking before playing through. Want another brand, and not just RAW and Smackdown? With WWE ’13, you can make it happen! Now, players get the joy of having more matches per show as well. But with the ability to edit rankings, full cards, the entire weekly/monthly/yearly schedule, storylines, and pretty much anything else you can think of, players should be able to find a way to accommodate for this. We should also mention that these custom storyline ideas were not just THQ’s thinking – but the creating of legendary Wrestling mastermind, Paul Heyman.
Create/Edit a Show/Pay-Per-View - Now you’ll be able to select any day of the week and place a show on it. You’ll also be able to create/edit your own Pay-Per-View events. When creating these, like last year you’ll get to choose your own arena (or an in-game arena), logo for the show, rename the show anything you’d like, and, in the case of Create A Pay-Per-View, you’ll be able to select a Pay-Per-View theme such as “Extreme Rules”, “Fatal 4-Way”, or “TLC”, among others – which will make the overall idea of the PPV event be based on the real life events. Choose a TLC theme, and your main events will be TLC matches. It’s a feature that allows the player to have their personal pay-per-views have the right feel that they want them to have. If it’s a hardcore show, set the Extreme Rules setting for the theme and it’ll feel the way it’s supposed to. For those PPVs you create that do NOT have a necessary theme to them, you can select Default. You’ll also choose a host show so that, for example, if you want a RAW exclusive PPV that does not feature any Smackdown talent, you can make that happen. You can, of course, use custom shows as default shows as well.
ONLINE GAMEPLAY
For some players, online gaming and features is everything. This year, you’ll be happy to know that there have been several enhancements to the online gaming system of WWE ’13. While we’ve already highlighted these features in other parts of our article, one thing we haven’t mentioned is the new “Fair Fight” option in online battling, where players can choose to use default settings and superstars to do their fighting, rather than risking a match against a maxed out opponent.
Just when you thought we had already told you everything with the first 2 pages of this article, we’ve had a lifted embargo granting us the ability to present you with more information! I’ll spit this out really quick: the classic blue steel cage has been implemented, and the inferno match grants the ability to drag a downed opponent into the fire as well as the standing opponent, and the 500 degree winning system has been completely changed/removed. The on-fire animations have seen some love as well.
Now that I got that out of my system, it’s time to jump even further into the Creation Suite!
Creation Suite:
Superstar Threads
The Superstar Threads feature has always been a great one, but has had a lot of room for improvement. Unfortunately, this is one area we don’t see very much change in. Players can still edit and save attires for any in-game superstar, but unfortunately cannot edit the entrance attires as has been highly requested for the past 2 installments now. We hope that this is one area that will see a LOT more attention next year.
Oh, and to answer the long-awaited question of how many slots: The answer is still 3.
Create A Superstar
For some players, nothing feels more amazing than creating their own superstar from scratch. For years, this series has dominated all other games with such an expansive creation suite, with create a superstar wearing the crown. This year however, it comes back better than it’s been in a long time. Let’s take a look.First off, you’ll be glad to know that along with the color wheel we already talked to you about for the skin tones, the transparency feature has returned. Along with transparency and the color wheel, we also have a new History panel, which we’ll see in this mode as well as in Create-an-Arena. The history panel remembers the previous 10 colors that we had chosen and allows us to select them instantly, so that setting things to a specific color time and time again won’t be necessary.
On top of this, some new parts have been put into the mode, and a good bit of them seem to have less of a glitchy nature than previous years. A few more details could still be announced, but this is all that we’re able to tell you right now.
Create An Arena
Create an Arena has so many great features this year. First of all, we’ve already mentioned the ability to edit the stage. This feature offers 20 different templates for doing so. You also get the option of arena size, which can be selected as Independent, Regular, Large, Tribute to the Troops (outdoor arena), and WrestleMania 19 (outdoor arena). The available 20 stage designs are last year’s custom arena stage, a second custom stage design, Royal Rumble 97, Royal Rumble 98, Survivor Series 97, Survivor Series 98, The Smackdown Oval Arena, One Night Only, Over the Edge 98, King of the Ring, Summerslam 98, Summerslam 2004, Judgement Day 98, Judgement Day 2004, Raw 2002, Rock Bottom 98,, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre 99, WrestleMania 15, Raw 2006, and Smackdown 2006. Let’s dig a little deeper.
Stage Designer: Your stage, ring apron/mat, and additional ringside areas all get 15 layers each, giving you 45 layers of creative freedom. As for the Stage itself, you can apply logos (custom or pre-existing) to specific parts of the stage, change stage elements such as lighting fixtures, titantrons, and the scaffolds with preset options, and turn on or off titantrons and/or minitrons. You’ll spend hours making arenas you’ve always dreamed of. Each template has presets you’ll be able to work with and around.Along with this, you can edit the lighting in the arena, helping to make your show feel even more original.
Championship Editor
Championship Editor is a new feature this year. While it doesn’t grant players the ability to create entirely original titles of their own, it does allow for plenty of originality. A basic “superstar threads” for titles, this allows us to change the strap and plate colors of any in-game titles. Once you choose your colors, you can string together call names as well, which includes a great selection of options and grants the ability to make them feel more original. You’ll get to choose whether the belt is for Superstars or Divas, or if it’s Tag Team. Along with the ability to choose from any title in the game and to edit the colors to your liking, you’ll get to string up to 6 different words together to create a call name for your championship. It’s even possible to create the IMPACT Heavyweight Championship, or for example, the RING OF HONOR TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP. It’s an awesome feature, but is hidden away in the MY WWE menu and has not received much hype due to THQ not wanting fans to confuse it for a straight-up Create-A-Championship feature, which it is not.
So there you have it. Want a make the WWE Championship pink with purple plates and name it the National Mens Total Super Heavyweight Championship? Have at it.
STORY DESIGNER
Legendary tales come from a combination of many things, including heroes, villains, drama, creativity and full-fledged cinematic moments. While Universe is an awesome feature in the games, some players just can’t find themselves at ease keeping their creativity and amazing moments or ideas to themselves – and for those players, we have the Story Designer. This mode has been in multiple installments of the game now, but last year went completely untouched as far as improvements go. That’s not the case this year, as Story Designer sees over 300 new scenes, several new opportunities to create branching storylines, and even includes the entrances (so no more clipping together other scenes to form a generic entrance). Story designer this year sees more of an opportunity for realism and customization than ever before.
On top of all of this, sharing your stories has been improved as well, because now, you’ll be able to find other users creations (such as arenas or superstars) and place them into your stories – and still be able to upload them to the servers! Seeing the lift of limitations like this will expand the ability for everyone to have a fair chance at creating a great, all-inclusive story.
Now, let’s talk Universe.
UNIVERSE 3.0 – FULL DETAILS
Full customization of Universe was not some form of truth that we were stretching.
To better break it down, we’ll highlight all of the improvements piece by piece for you.
(Oh, a side note feature we’ve noticed has been added is that the game informs you of the roster sizes so you can be better prepared with what you place into your PPV event.)
Create/Edit the Schedule As You See Fit- Don’t want RAW or SMACKDOWN anymore? Delete them, and make your own main shows on whatever night you desire. Want to move Smackdown back to Thursdays, and have an XFL show on Friday (yes, the XFL logo is in the game, as is the Wrestlemania 29 logo), then you can. You can add in shows on ANY day of the week, Monday-Saturday, and set that show as a major or minor show. The difference here is that major shows will have titles assigned to them, while minor shows will not. When you add in your shows, you can then set whichever of your custom-assigned/arranged brands, whether it be Raw, Smackdown, Legends, or even a custom brand you created yourself (as well as any other brand or logo the game features that you may wish to choose from).- THIS INCLUDES THE NEW ABILITY TO ADD OR REMOVE PAY PER VIEW EVENTS. - We already covered this for the most part, but wanted to go a little more in-depth just to help answer your questions. When creating or editing a PPV event, you of course get to choose the arena, match-up-screen and logo for the event, but now you’ll have the ability to select a theme – which is basically a match style such as Hardcore or Endurance, which will focus on theme-specific main events. The themes include Hardcore, Endurance, Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Wrestlemania, Extreme Rules, Over the Limit, Capitol Punishment, Money in the Bank, Summerslam, and more!
Restrict Storylines As You Wish - You can now adjust your storylines in Universe, such as turning on/off storylines in the following categories:
Tag Team Forming/Disbanding stories, Crowd-reaction changing stories (no more having someone turn heel out of nowhere if you don’t want them to be), Non-PPV stories, Injury stories, or ALL stories – so if you just wan’t to play through without anything actually happening, you can. On top of this, you can edit the card in it’s entirety and save it for later, setting everything from the attire for the match to how many finishers a superstar starts the match with (from 0-infinite).
Statistics – The game now keeps track of your win/loss record, as well as how you win or lose matches and the amount of weapons destroyed, among other great stats you’ll enjoy keeping track of.
Rankings - The game not only tracks statistics, but allows you to adjust and edit rankings to your liking. Tired of CM Punk being the #1 contender for both of your top titles on Raw? Well, this year, change it to your liking.
HP Ratio modification – you can now adjust the hit point ratios for superstars, making it easier or harder to wear down individual body parts such as head, arms, legs, or torso.
Start all over again, if you want – If you ever grow bored of your current Universe and feel the desire to rid it of it’s entirety and start with a brand new Universe, you have that ability now. The ability to reset Universe, a highly requested feature for the past 2 years, has now been implemented.
The Off-Scripts
While Attitude Era has plenty of gametime available through it’s main storylines, there were some moments in the Attitude Era that didn’t quite fit into those stories. And for those moments, we’ll experience “The Off-Script” section. Ever wish you could relive the debut of Chris Jericho? That’s just one of the great segments you’ll get to experience with the off-scripts.
GAMEPLAY
This is something we’ve had some questions about, and we wanted to inform everyone that while basic gameplay stays the same, the opponents now stay down a little longer and table physics have changed. Many other weapon physics however stay the same. Other than this, mid-air finishers have been implemented, and other features have seen slight improvements. Despite minor adjustments, the general feel of the gameplay has stayed the same, but with the creation suite seeing so many improvements, the biggest roster to ever hit the franchise, and the replay value that Universe and Story Designer both offer (not to mention little things we didn’t mention, like exhibition’s King of the Ring tournament), plus the new/improved matches we mentioned in our previous article, you can only begin to imagine the potential this game has.
