Okay, For years there have been two franchises that I have bought the yearly incarnations of: WWE & Tony Hawk



The WWE Smackdown series of games, I own a cpy of each of these games since the first one was releases on the original Playstation, to last year's game - Smackdown vs Raw 2007 on the PSP. I had originally played the PS2 version, but I found that the 'revoloutionary' new analogue based control system was absolutely crap. It basically threw out the skills I had honed in the series for years. Every year, when you play the game, you fiddle around the controller and realise - "Hey, This controls just like last year!" and so people who have practised to be as good as possible at the game (like me) are overjoyed that the skills they had are still used. THQ scewed up big time on that one in my opinion, but one thing they did right was ALLOW YOU TO SWITCH THE CONTROL SCHEME! Apart from two buttons being inverted (what x used to do was now down by the square and vice versa) and making Irish whipping different, the controls were generally the same as it's predecessors, and I was happy, but I bought the PSP version anyway, to give me a reason to play the damned thing. And all was right wit the Smackdown vs Raw Series. UNTIL NOW. Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls and Children-of-all-ages I give to you the most pointless, shitty and all together futile control system ever conceived for a fighting game since Rise of the Robots:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PgX_l_b0HE

The Wii Control system. I can understand the gimmick styling of the controls and the whole 'casual' gaming crap, I don't mind the fact that their INCLUDING the control, I would probably even play a match of it once or twice. But I can't even imagine trying to play through seaso... sorry what is it now, 24/7 mode? Some strange bastardization of the old season/story mode. Seriously, what the hell are they doing to this game? But back onto what this blog is about: the controls. I can understand the novelty: "OMFG I'M DOING A POWERBOMB ON JOHN CENA!!! LAWLZORS!!!" etc, etc. But that novelty will wear off very quickly to the point that instead of having to perform an entire body motion to do a move, a simple button press would be a God-send. So, Basically what I am saying is: If they want me to buy the Wii version, they had better put in a classic controller or Gamecube controller option. I'll probably just go for the PSP version anyway, it has exclusive wrestlers.

And now onto my supplemental Rant on Tony Hawk's Proving Ground...



I have played at least one version of all the good Tony Hawk games, from the Pro skaters, to the Undergrounds, to American Watseland and Project 8. Notice I left out the piece of mutated garbage Neversoft threw-out and let 'Toys for Bob' scavenge for in the Neversoft dumpster. I'm sorry, That may be a little harsh towards the dozens of fans of the game 'Downhill Jam'. But That's not what this rant is about, its about the Wii controls. I understand that the wii Controls make Baseball And Football games cool, but thats because a lot of the action in those sports is done with one's hands. Skateboards, in general is not done with you hands, unless you are Rodney Mullen, and even then implemeting good Wii controls onto that is impossible. I have to waggle my Wiimote to push and I physically have to thrust my hands out to do a 'skate-check' (I glorified shove)? Well sir, now you have lost me. We all know skate is handing the Tony Hawk series it ass on a deck so you THINK that Neversoft would have the sense to recoup their losses on the systems that Skate isn't on, like the Wii. But then, the outsource the game to Page 44 Studios. And I have been told that this game doesn;t have any classic or Gamecube Controller support. What a swift kick to the shin of Tony Hawk fans everywhere that own Wiis. They could have at least used the NES 'on-it's-side' controls the game's all-to-kiddie Wii prequel used, But no! They had to be fickle and force a stupid control method onto an otherwise okay game. I hear the DS Version is great, because they aren't forcing stupid ass touch screen controls onto it, and whatever touch screen controls are in it are at least positive. And for next year's game, it has only been 'hinted' that they may use the balance board. And if they do, the game will no doubt be an abomination. I would get it on PSP, because THUG 2 REMIX get tiresome after you've beaten it for the 32nd time and had it for 2 years, but there isn't a PSP version, so I'll probably have to get it on the PS2, because of my lack of Xbox and PS3 (altough, a lack of PS3 means I get to keep my 399 pound). I leave you with this video, from Youtube, which shows the Wii gameplay. Perhaps read some of the comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecGnBwJcu1U

They aren't very postive, are they?

Thanks to IGN and some random guy on Fileshack for the pictures, and to the people who uploaded the videos onto Youtube