cvg

There's a term in wrestling circles known as 'X-Pac heat' - the phenomena of a grappler receiving a hostile welcome from the crowd not because they're dastardly or said something vaguely anti-American but because their act is so stale it bores the fans rigid. Well, THQ's WWE series has serious X-Pac heat with us. This is simply the latest in a long line of fussy, infuriating WWE games, with controls that are convoluted yet bereft of tactical depth. That promises you total control over your favourite WWE Superstar, yet yanks it from your grasp when you need it the most.

The problems WWE '13 has are the same ones that have plagued the series since its Smackdown beginnings on PS2. Fundamentally, it's not a series you 'play' in the strictest sense. It's more a performance art with both players taking it turns to go on the offense, the receiver being forced to sit there and absorb it until they successfully time a reversal, achieved by fumbling blindly at the RT button. This continues until someone gains enough momentum to hit a finisher and hopefully claim victory. It is, much like the show it mimics, more about the pageantry than the pugilism.

That's not to say that the developers at Yukes don't mix it up. On the contrary, they're always tinkering with the formula - but always in small, insignificant ways, as if re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Sometimes it has analogue grapples, other times it doesn't. Sometimes you apply pressure on a submission hold by cranking back on the stick, other years you have to mash the buttons. Talk about reinventing the wheel.

WWE 13's control system is a more refined version of that seen in WWE '12. The main difference is that the time windows for reversals are slightly more forgiving, with little indicators telling you if you're tapping the trigger too late or too early. So it's a more sophisticated type of fumbling then, but fumbling is still the verb you're looking for. If only there were some kind of 'tell' in the grappler's body language to indicate when you should attempt a reversal, the whole process would feel a lot more intuitive and a lot less frustrating.

The main difference between WWE '12/13's system and that of its Smackdown vs Raw predecessors is the abolition of the 'strong grapple' button, with the strength of the move performed now dependent on the physical condition of your opponent. This is supposed to help the matches escalate as they do in real life, with bouts naturally segueing from armbars and wristlocks to power moves as the match nears its climax.

The concept is noble, but in our opinion it's a misstep that serves only to drive a further wedge between the player and the action. If your opponent makes a huge error in the opening moments of a match, why make it difficult for the player to capitalise on it and go in for the kill?

WWE '13 does address this to a certain extent by allowing you to play around with the parameters of the game engine in the main menu. A series of sliders allows you to customise the damage values of each type of move to a ridiculous degree, so matches flow however you fancy - from short, sharp squash matches to lengthy technical clinics. It's a useful addition to the series - and curiously, one that does more to give you a sense of control over proceedings than anything that ever happens inside the squared circle.

It's not all doom and gloom. One thing the WWE series has nailed since shedding its Smackdown skin is the pinning mechanic. As in WWE '12, you escape a pin by holding down the A button and releasing when the marker arrives in the green 'escape' area - the size of which is dependent on how beaten up your grappler is.

In certain situations you can now turn the tables by aiming for a second, smaller 'reversal' area, but the pay-off is that these are harder to perform and it's easy to get caught out if you get greedy. It's a brilliant mechanic that captures the WWE's unpredictable flavour to a tee - even if you're getting chewed up like a dog toy, a well-timed small package can catch out a complacent opponent unawares and allow you to pull an unlikely win out of the fire. It's perfect as it is. Let's hope this is one deckchair Yukes decide to leave in place.

The Smackdown games got an easy ride with reviewers and gamers alike on PS2 partly for their novelty value, but also because they boasted the high-end production values to match the real-life product. For all their maddening idiosyncrasies, you couldn't fault them for the authenticity of the WWE experience they delivered.

But since then, time has stood still and the series' visuals have aged worse than Jake Roberts. Character models are rigid, and they feel as stiff to control as they look. Animations are as awkward as a Dexter sex scene and clipping is less a possibility than an inevitability. On PS2 we used to look forward to seeing digitised versions of our favourite wrestler's entrances, but these days everything's dated to the point of being farcical. Brodus Clay's Funkadactyls for instance look like they're melting. In a series where so much of its appeal relies on the spectacle, this is a dispiriting drawback.

WWE '13 looks to the past for salvation and finds it in the form of the aforementioned Attitude Era mode, which revisits that curious time period spanning the late nineties and early noughties where the family-friendly WWF product suddenly found itself laced with violence, swears and lady lumps. Licensing restrictions means WWE '13 sidesteps some of the era's more salacious scenes, but it's still a blast to relive some of the most dramatic and violent moments in wrestling history.

WWE '13 tells the tale of the Attitude Era from six different perspectives - DX, The Rock, Austin, et al - with each chapter broken down into a series of key match-ups from the era. To avoid repetition, it challenges you to fulfil 'historical objectives' during the match, which mirror what happened in the real-world equivalent. It's a clever way to ward off repetition, and there are some tremendous unlockables for completists to chase.

Once again though, the lacklustre presentation holds it back. Video packages appear sporadically to whet the appetite between bouts, but there isn't nearly enough leverage of the WWE's video library on the whole - which is strange, as this is the kind of thing their products usually excel at.

It all feels somewhat rushed and cobbled together. In our opinion the story of the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars is expansive enough to deserve its own game, rather than being awkwardly tagged onto a contemporary wrestling game. Indeed, aside from the barely-improved WWE Universe mode, there's nothing for the current roster to do, and outside of a few Achievements/Trophies, no meaningful way for them to interact with the retro roster.

On the bright side, having all the Attitude Era stars together in one game does at least mean that WWE '13 boasts the strongest roster since Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain. That said, it's incredible how little of the Attitude Era stars feel fresh. The likes of Austin, Rock et al have all appeared under the guise of 'WWE Legends' in tonnes of Smackdown games before. The only one that excited us was the 'Loose Cannon' Brian Pillman, and - sigh - he's been sequestered away in one of three DLC packages.

It's a shame WWE '13 isn't a better game than it is, because over the years the series has accrued a ton of content. The ability to create wrestlers, belts, moves, arenas, championships and even storylines and share them online shows that Yukes still has a deep appreciation for their fanbase and an acute awareness of what they want from a WWE game.

They just need to be given a year off to completely overhaul their engine and bring it in line with modern expectations, or else the X-Pac heat will continue to burn bright. That's why, despite us loving the Attitude Era mode, we're turning full-blown heel on WWE '13 this year. Let's hope our 62%-shaped chairshot steers the series back on the path to redemption.