Action Arcade Wrestling 2 Review (XBLA)

[RaychelSnr]

Like a wrestler trying to learn moonsaults before he can even sell a simple punch, Action Arcade Wrestling 2 makes the mistake of attempting a grandiose feature set before it has built up the core mechanics that make a wrestling video game fun to play.

The third title from Action937, which is now a three-person development team, could have benefited from taking a John Cena-like approach to game design, simply choosing four or five ideas to focus on, then doing those four or five ideas exceptionally well.

Instead, Action Arcade Wrestling 2 has spent tremendous developmental effort packing on an arsenal of modes and features that outweighs the majority of no-budget, my-first-video-games on the Xbox Live Indie channel by a good 200 pounds.

Based on its bulky feature list alone, Action Arcade Wrestling 2 looks to be an instant champion, but as soon as the bell sounds, it reveals itself to be the video game equivalent of Mass Transit –- an amateur wrestler barely able to take care of itself in the ring, ending up a bloody, injured mess.

Read More - Action Arcade Wrestling 2 Review (XBLA)

[willh313]

Wow man that's pretty harsh considering it's a two man team that made it. I mean I have the game, and it's crashed on me once. I've seen the bugs and glitches you are talking about, but at three bucks I don't know, 4.5 is kind of overkill. It's definitely a more competent grappling game then the XBLA Fire Pro game, sans online play. Hey it's your opinion, I would have given it a 7.5 or 8 at least, especially given that it was made by such a small indie team.

[DaveDQ]

The point about the game incorporating too much is a very good one. Sometimes You have to look at all the things that could be done and decide to focus on what should be done.

I like that the creators had good vision, but they took on a lot and the game ends up being less polished than it could have been.

[action937]

Well OK then...

[snc237]

You don't rate a game better because it was made by 3 people, rate it as a game like any other. The game looked promising but I suppose the just needs to focus on gameplay instead of 80 game modes and types.

[DaveDQ]

Quote: Originally Posted by snc237

You don't rate a game better because it was made by 3 people, rate it as a game like any other.

I agree. I also think it's silly how many are comparing it to WWE13. That's outrageous. I understand many are let down by the WWE games but to look at AAw as some kind of alternative is silly.

[action937]

Just a couple of comments/clarifications.
AAW is more of an alternative to a wrestlefest type game, not a sim game
It is not an XBLA game. It's an XBLIG game
You can hit the tag team partner with a variety bonus (spelling corrected in the upcoming patch)
Climbing the top turnbuckle only is a nod to the 16-bit area - SNES and Genesis.
Pressing RT focuses you towards the closest wrestler. I originally had the collision/focus as you described, but changed it as it wasn't fun with so many people in the ring
Loading times are 30 seconds or less
The matches are meant to last 5 - 10 minutes. A 30 minute match is appropriate for a sim game, not an arcade game IMO
Your opponents got up quickly because they were using a variety bonus to do so.

Thanks for the review. I'll definitely take your suggestions into future versions of the game.

[jyoung]

Quote: Originally Posted by willh313

Wow man that's pretty harsh considering it's a two man team that made it. I mean I have the game, and it's crashed on me once. I've seen the bugs and glitches you are talking about, but at three bucks I don't know, 4.5 is kind of overkill. It's definitely a more competent grappling game then the XBLA Fire Pro game, sans online play. Hey it's your opinion, I would have given it a 7.5 or 8 at least, especially given that it was made by such a small indie team.

I agree that Action Arcade Wrestling 2 is more fun than the Fire Pro Avatar game that's on XBLA. I believe Glenn did the review for that one and gave it a 4/10.

For all its gameplay faults, Fire Pro XBLA at least offers online play and is a stable, bug-free product, which is why these two games ended up scoring so similarly overall.

If everything in AAW2 worked bug-free, the score would probably get bumped up into the 5 or 6 range.

Keep in mind that we rate all reviews on the same scale, regardless of how many people contributed to the making of a game. So in the review system, WWE 13 is held to the same standards as AAW2.

That said, there still have been Xbox Indie Games over the years that have scored high, such as Avatar Football (7/10), Blockey (7/10) and Fitba (7/10).

The main differences between those games and AAW2 is that they all have awesome gameplay. They also benefited from releasing without any major bugs, and in two of the three games, offering online play.