WWE 12 ROCKS.
Previous wrestling games, much like their source material, seemed to focus on presentation and flash rather than substance. The Smackdown vs. Raw series never sat well with me from a mechanical perspective. While all the moves, entrances and wrestlers were technically there, playing through matches was a chore compared to the pacing and addictive gameplay offered by WWF No Mercy a decade ago. There was no tension, there was no drama and ultimately, there was no fun. The experience was more like batting around action figures than recreating something that felt like the captivating product that has repeatedly hooked me for over a decade. Wrestling isn't about any one move or moment in time. It's about a story, one that is woven in a ring over 20 minutes, escalating in intensity until a victor is revealed. If a game can't find a way to bring that theatricality to players, it might as well not be made.
WWE '12 finds that pacing. The changes start with the controls, allowing players to grapple and chain into light moves and execute more powerful attacks as opponents get weaker. More dynamic systems for submissions and pins escalate in tension, creating narrow windows of opportunity to escape while visually highlighting that struggle on the screen. The animated transitions between offense and defense are more fluid, eliminating many of the jarring, awkward moments that previous games so repeatedly featured. Occasionally wrestlers revert to a stunned state a bit too easily, and the animation and hit detection for objects like ladders and chairs feels a little off, but the impact of these inconsistencies is minimal.
The game's designers have clearly spent a lot of time making sure matches have a natural progression, one that subtly incorporates all of the above ideas into something that simply feels right. It tells the story of wrestling in a brilliant way while never losing itself in the process. Remarkably, the developers WWE '12 seem to understand wrestling better than the writers creating the television product do. As revered as WWE No Mercy is, that game never managed to naturally tell an in-ring story like this game can.
A wrestling story is only as good as the wrestlers involved, and WWE '12 offers a spectacular roster. The game contains well over 60 superstars, featuring a healthy mix of icons past and present. From The Rock to the Undertaker to Bryan Danielson, the range of talent is impressive, and that's to say nothing of the DLC, which will eventually add legends like Mick Foley.