I wasn't planning to make another wrestling game this year and you certainly weren't expecting to play one, but the encouraging developments of Reach have re-written the script for both of us! Everything from the polished visuals to the refined gameplay has been crying out to fulfil its potential in a different kind of ring, and it would be foolhardy to ignore the call of my most enduring creation. It comes at a testing time though. Aside from making the headlines for all the wrong reasons, wrestling is once again suffering from a dip in form - and the demand for it is the lowest it's been since I've been contributing to the genre. However, that's my cue to turn a negative into a positive by offering THE contribution that turns it all around...

New Year's Revolution
Sometimes the hardest thing about making a project is giving the damn thing a decent identity! Having remade the same concept several times now, my wrestling games have been burdened with an increasingly odd succession of titles in a bid to stand out - from the bastardized Federation Booker to the now meaningless Wrestling Encore (which turned out to be neither an "encore" nor a "masterpiece"!). In order to stamp out this genetic curse, I've finally decided to do what all sporting franchises do and simply identify each entry in the series by its date. So allow me to introduce Wrestling MPire 2008 (as opposed to Encore's 2006 and the original's 2004). An additional change is that this identity will remain for both the "wrestling" and "booking" versions of the concept - with each to be subtitled Career Edition and Management Edition respectively. First up we have the no-nonsense Career Edition, so without further ado let's start having fun in the ring...

New World Order
The first thing to note about this new instalment is that the Wrestling MPire has evolved into a slightly different place. I wasn't expecting to tinker with the promotions much, but practically every single one has had their logo modified or redrawn to comply with the high standards of 2008. In the case of the Canadian outfit, Maple Leaf Grappling, the promotion's entire philosophy has changed - with the old "shoot fighting" organization now giving way to a proud stable of technical wrestlers. That in turn has meant that a lot of the tough brawlers have migrated out of it and many of the Canadian mat wrestlers have flocked in, and the remaining rosters have been shaken up accordingly. There's also a smattering of new characters to look out for - not least at Wrestling School, where the half-baked fan creations have given way to carefully crafted prospects for the future. And another major development since the last wrestling game is that these universes are handled as delicately as they were in Reach - with entire folders dedicated to each saved game. That means the messiness of each career no longer has to spread to the others - and especially not the default world that you rely on for exhibitions. And yet the option is there to "inherit" an existing universe if you'd like to see it evolve further in a new career...

Freedom Of Choice
The way the many characters are presented has also been updated in the wake of Reach's ranking system. Those comparative lists are once again on hand to give you a more informed choice, but fans of the original display needn't fear because you can switch from one to the other at the touch of the TAB key! As in Reach, this more versatile system also allows you to access every single character in the game on one screen - so it's finally possible to have your own inter-promotional match-ups in exhibitions. Whichever method you choose, you'll also notice more information in the character boxes themselves. Not only do they benefit from the game's improved graphics and fonts, but they also follow Reach's example of including a tiny portrait to help you identify characters by appearance as well as name. At the risk of overdoing it, they even include a health meter running along the bottom and indicate all kinds of other things - not least helpful "P1" identifiers when lining up characters for a match...

Tale Of The Tape
Although they remain relatively unchanged, the stat profiles have also benefited from adopting the new presentation. As you can see, the only casualty is that the "Finisher" line has been replaced by Reach's breakdown of their physical structure - which is of much more importance in this game. Other than that, it's the same old story of percentage points in 8 key areas. The effect those ratings have is considerably different this time though. As in Reach, the effects are pronounced so that you feel every ounce of "Strength" in an attack and see every shred of "Agility" affecting your movements. Meanwhile, your "Stamina" links into a great exhaustion system which gradually drains those attributes to reflect your ever-decreasing health. Some of the stats have entirely new uses too. In addition to affecting a character's ability to execute moves without incident, "Skill" now determines how quick their hand movements are - whether that's an attack or a grapple attempt. Likewise, "Agility" governs the speed at which kicks and jumping attacks are executed - so you observe the same attacks being used quite differently by characters of mismatched talent...

Meet Your Maker
It's now easier than ever to construct characters of your own as well thanks to the vastly modified editor. It builds on what we saw in Reach - with a main menu that gives you direct access to any page of interest instead of having to wade through them all. The options have practically doubled for this wrestling game though! In addition to profiles, costumes, and attacks, you now have a couple of pages of moves to specify. My ambitions of allowing you to preview them never panned out, because it was simply too impractical to load in that many animations. However, as in Reach, it is once again possible to preview any attack or taunt - which makes what you're doing just that little bit easier to relate to. There's also a handful of modifications that make relationships easier to establish than before. For a start, there's space to assign a dedicated tag team partner alongside the manager (which also means the two roles needn't be the same anymore) - and it's even possible to enter a preferred team name alongside your solo name! You can even specify whether the character is meant to be a wrestler, a manager, or a referee - which not only ensures they get the right picture taken, but also means the career mode knows how to use them. Meanwhile, the way you establish relationships has become a feature unto itself now that each character has a unique relationship with every other. Instead of specifying one preset friend and one preset enemy, you now take a detour to the character selection screen and click on as many people as you like to highlight them as friends or foes...

Dressed To Kill
The real revelation in editing is that your creations look better than ever too. The vaunted new character model from Reach, and the more detailed high resolution textures that complement it, return to give this game a similar visual appeal. In fact, the texturing has progressed yet further to accommodate the weird and wonderful costumes of wrestling! Everything from the boots and pads through to the trunks and tights has been carefully crafted to look as good as possible this time. And any qualities they have are now nicely preserved due to the fact that they're all specially made rather than being designed to be soaked in different colours. Although that vastly reduces the colour possibilities, it's worth it to see each outfit looking the way it was intended. Meanwhile, the racial shading from Hard Time is something new to wrestling - so it's good to have EVERY costume available for each of the 3 skin tones! Meanwhile, the fashion possibilities are stretched even further by the addition of shorts as a separate external entity. Not only does that mean the designated shorts tend to look more natural, but it also means you can mix any short material with any leg texture to create your own unique combinations...

In The Spotlight
The improved characters would be irrelevant if they were condemned to the same ugly arenas, so it's a good job that Reach has given us some equally impressive locations to play in! The range has quite literally doubled since the last wrestling game - but it's the quality that stands out here. High resolution textures adorn the walls, and real 2D crowd sprites occupy every square inch of the carefully crafted seating areas. A whole other backstage area is available too (a lounge to the south as opposed to the locker room in the north), and you see it a lot more often in the free-roaming madness of a wrestling match. More importantly, the way you interact with this expansive venue has also changed. It's now possible to climb up onto the balcony of the entrance way and edges of the seating areas as if they were railings - not to mention the sofas and rows of lockers that sit backstage - and you can even move around within the confines of such platforms now! The rings at the centre of the action have also had to raise their game accordingly. Although we return to the 3 ropes and buckles of wrestling, the high resolution texturing of Reach remains to ensure the aprons and canvases look better than ever. They're more appropriate too - with national flags and promotional slogans complementing the company logos; ensuring that each has its own unmistakable identity. The most noticeable change, however, is that the aprons are now available in any of 3 different colours - so you now get to see nice blue or white variations instead of the same old sinister black...

The Camera Never Lies
Back inside the ring, one of the biggest gameplay shifts - perhaps the biggest of them all - is that your movements are now 100% faithful to the orientation of the camera. That was true of Reach, but it wasn't so noticeable when you were constantly locking horns with one opponent at close quarters. Here you're profoundly aware of it at all times, but it's no bad thing once you get used to it. It seems odd saying that given that it's entirely logical (you move exactly where you point) - but after being brainwashed by stiff control systems for the past 8 years, anything this different feels wrong! Your reward, should you come to terms with it, is that it suddenly makes ANY camera angle 100% playable. Before, anything that veered to the sides screwed up your orientation - but here the game always uses the camera itself as an anchor and translates your input from there. And it's a good job too, because the camera angles really are a lot more exotic this time! For a start, the standard ones are constantly reacting to the action instead of staying still. As in Reach, they slowly adjust themselves to capture the action from either side instead lurking in an unhelpful position. It's not without its problems, and will occasionally struggle to follow the madness of a wrestling match (especially a BIG wrestling match), but it's worth it to see some great TV-style views of the action...

Fancy Footwork
In addition to honouring your movement commands faithfully, the game also animates them properly too. The old wrestling games had one preset movement routine, which may or may not have been relevant - but here the dedicated forwards, backwards, and sideways steps of Reach return to ensure the wrestlers move more naturally. There's even a dedicated new technical wrestling stance for this game, and the ability to dart in any given direction is a welcome alternative to constantly running. However, one of the biggest changes in this instalment is that your movements on the ground are just as important. The various grounded states remain from the boxing game, but the hustle and bustle of a wrestling game puts you down there 10 times as often! Instead of lying flat on your back or front, you can now find yourself crawling on all fours or reduced to one knee - which adds great variety to the both the way you're knocked down and the way you get back up. For a start, there are up to a dozen different falling animations instead of the same old two! That also ensures that victims respond in the most appropriate manner - with rear attacks sending them diving forwards, whereas flights backwards are reserved for head-on collisions...

Deep Impact
The simple business of trading blows has also been suitably modified for this latest instalment. The added complexity of kicks and diving attacks has demanded that the collision detection evolve even further beyond what Reach gave us with its inch-perfect punches. Now twice as much code is on hand to analyze the status of an attack - ensuring that it connects at just the right place and time, given the stage at which the animation is at and the size of the character launching it. Another welcome modification here is that the numerous responses to an attack remain from Reach, which is a far cry from the two preset upper and lower responses from the earlier wrestling games. Now there are half a dozen slightly different ways of reacting to a blow anywhere on the body - not least the melodramatic ones that send you into a spin! They've never been so at home as in this wrestling game. Although it's far less important here, the blocking system from Reach has also remained to give you a chance to take the sting out of incoming attacks. That helps to make the hand-to-hand action a little more sophisticated - especially in shoot matches where all you can do is trade blows. Above all else, the CPU is more proficient than ever in making use of all of the above - and makes for the most formidable opponent yet. The quick wits of the boxing game return here to teach the CPU's which attack will be most effective and at what time - plus they're adept at evading your attacks with sidesteps and blocks...

I Believe I Can Fly
The flying attacks from the top turnbuckle have benefited similarly. Not only are they equally precise upon impact, but the physics that keep them in the air have also been noticeably improved. Such attacks now rise and fall smoothly, and do so according to where your intended target is. The old game launched you at full power no matter, and then rather belatedly attempted to reel you in when you were in danger of overreaching. Now, however, those calculations are made in advance - so even the most agile wrestler needn't overreach. The difference between an agile athlete and a clumsy lump is still noticeable though - in both the vertical spring and horizontal limits of their efforts. Not every flight through the air is intentional though, and even the accidental falls benefit from these improved physics. For a start, there are now two dedicated animations for falling from a height (rather than the bastardized ones that were recycled in the old game). Plus there are dedicated animations elsewhere - such as when tumbling from the ring apron. It's even possible to be dragged down from there (and other heights) via a grapple!

All The Right Moves
Of course, the most important aspect of a wrestling game is the grappling system - and just as many revelations are on hand to make that better than ever in this game. Firstly, the grappling animation itself has changed substantially - from a symmetrical one (where both wrestlers mirrored the exact same animation) to a mismatched one where the aggressor is noticeably looming over the victim. The precision of Reach's hugging is also on hand to keep those grapples firmly locked on between characters of ANY height. That even goes for ground grapples at the head or legs, and ensures that height differences are only ever a good thing! Suffice to say, the move animations themselves aren't too shabby either. My newfound perfectionism made it a nightmare to churn them out - leaving us with a selection that's even smaller than what we had before - but it's definitely a case of "quality over quantity" as each one is a beautifully animated little work of art. Perhaps more importantly, the way they work has also evolved - with many moves now ending as they naturally would instead of being forced flat on the ground or back to their feet. The new grounded states mean it's now possible to end on all fours or on one knee, and several moves even take advantage of that to keep the victim in a spontaneous pinning position! However, if you want to talk about truly "new" features, the fact that it's now possible to perform double-team moves should suffice. Whenever two compatible wrestlers grab the same victim at the same time, they now launch any one of 5 different double-team animations depending on where the assistant is positioned...

Don't Try This At Home
Aside from the odd improved texture, the range of items has remained untouched - but the way they're interacted with has at least evolved for this game. For a start, the moves mentioned above benefit from a more foolproof way of smashing through them. As with the precise attacks, the position of a character's body is now constantly compared to that of the furniture to ensure that impacts occur at the right place and time. As you can see, there are 2 ways of carrying items now as well. Narrower items such as trashcans and TV monitors are now grasped tightly at the sides, so it's only broad items like tables that find themselves being dragged. A small development with big consequences is that the way items are placed throughout the arena has also gotten more sophisticated. Mercifully, the option to place them anywhere other than the "Standard" locations no longer applies to EVERY item on the scene - and is now best described as "Mostly In The Ring", etc. No matter what you choose, at least half of the items are where you'd expect them to be - so the arena always has the look of being furnished. Plus the game is smarter about laying down items in general, and will now analyse their size and shape to ensure a table or trashcan is always tucked away against a wall or in a corner...

Choose Your Weapon
The handheld weapons have evolved in more exciting ways than the stuffy old furniture! In fact, the two finally complement each other in this game. Instead of constantly aiming for the canvas or the concrete floor, the weapons can now identify anything to be the "ground" - including any nearby furniture. That means you'll often find things resting on tables (which is handy for belts or trophies to be awarded), and it also means you have the added realism of being able to drop them on there yourself. As in Hard Time, there's even a raised picking up motion for snatching weapons that are closer to your chest than your feet - which includes stealing things from the hands of your opponents! That has been a welcome addition to my games since World War Alpha, but it's easy to forget that the wrestling games never got a chance to enjoy it. Neither did they get to benefit from the extended methods of using weapons once you have them. Once you had a weapon in hand, you simply had to convince yourself that "punching" with it was making use of it - but now there are dedicated swinging motions for things like knives and baseball bats. In the case of belts, it's even possible to WEAR items now! This game uses the detailed new belts from Reach, but goes one step further by allowing you to toss them over your shoulder or wrap them around your waist with a simply hit of the "Taunt" command. As if that doesn't give you enough to think about, the range of different weapons has practically doubled in light of recent games - as many of the weapons from World War Alpha and tools from Hard Time resurface in this wrestling environment...

Special Effects
Whether you're throwing punches or swinging weapons, the impact of those attacks is also better than ever thanks to the advanced new particle effects. As in Reach, tiny spittles of blood and sweat now accompany the main fiery cloud to make things a little more satisfying. In the case of blood, the use of dark texturing instead of light transparency ensures that there's no mistaking what you're looking at! Dollops of crimson gore accompany any attack you score on a bloody part of the body, and pools of blood are even formed on the ground at the exact spot where the drops landed. Likewise, the explosions benefit from the inclusion of thick black smoke in addition to the billowing shades of red and yellow. Similar effects on a smaller scale, such as the green spit or the dust to the eyes shown above, also benefit from a "dustier" appearance - as tiny speckles accompany the main cloud. The biggest particle effect of them all, however, is that every limb in a character's body is now shadowed on the floor with the smoothest effect yet. I haven't been able to enjoy it much myself, because my graphics card has an aversion to particle effects, but those who can get away with it will be able to see their actions reflected on the canvas...

Risky Business
With the graphical bar raised so high, a lot of techniques from previous series were simply no longer acceptable and had to be updated for 2008. A good case in point is that the "textured" barbed wire of Wrestling Encore has been replaced by REAL strands of metal wrapped around the ropes! Not only does that mean the effect is more convincing and fun to use, but it also means you can use it on your choice of normal ropes. Even the "electrified" and "inferno" variations keep it on to give the gimmicks a more metallic and wiry feel. Meanwhile, the steel cages have enjoyed a similar facelift. Instead of having solid metal posts in each corner, the structure now uses a whole other set of transparent girders - which are carefully textured to fit perfectly. It's much more in keeping with what we see at real wrestling shows. So too is the vastly improved shaking system, which uses a complex cocktail of physics to bend and shake each wall independently - relative to what caused it to shake in the first place. The technique was so successful that I even rolled it out on a larger scale for the ring itself - the various elements of which now shake convincingly whenever somebody is slammed onto the canvas! It's a classic case of a small change making a big impact, as it makes the impressive new move animations even more satisfying...

Don't Cross The Boss
Keeping order amongst this potential chaos is the most powerful refereeing yet. Many of the judicial gestures from Reach have stayed on for this instalment, and give the referee a sweeter role than ever as he visibly calls for breaks and then signals for the action to resume. Most significantly, the 10-count system from that boxing game returns here to give us a count-out system! Leaving the ring is now punishable by a 10-count (which can be optionally fast or slow), and finally dispels the belief that you're meant to be out there in normal matches. Some complex AI is on hand to help the referee enforce it fairly too. He's aware of one wrestler being bullied into a cheap loss by another on a lesser count, and will stop counting (or even intervene physically) until enough space has been given to the potential loser. He even has more options once a wrestler is disqualified for such things. Instead of bringing the whole match to a close, a DQ will now simply eliminate (or otherwise punish) that particular wrestler and allow the others to carry on. So "Triple Threat" matches are reduced to a one-on-one match, whereas things like tag matches are turned into a handicap situation. A similarly high standard of AI is evident elsewhere in the game too, as your fellow characters do the best they can to make sense of the weird and wonderful rules of wrestling. In particular, they're better at finding their way around the arena (although still not perfect) and will often make use of the same shortcuts you would as a thinking human...

War Of Words
My ambitions of making the referee stop the action for some impromptu conversation never panned out because it was deemed to be too intrusive, but the promo system has evolved in subtler ways. For a start, the whole thing pans out smoother than ever thanks to the foolproof new camerawork. Instead of jerking around stiffly, the camera's gaze now moves gently from one character to another. It even aims for the orator's face at all times, instead of sticking to a set angle which may or may not be appropriate. Meanwhile, a key development for me is that the lines of text are "squeezed" onto the bottom of the screen instead of using the same sized font every time. That means lines of any size can be fed into the game, and they'll always fit within the confines of the screen and appear to be of equal length. It's so helpful that it appears in every other scene that uses subtitles, and a similar technique is even used to squeeze text into the confines of an option box! As for the lines themselves, you'll find they're almost identical to what we had in previous games - albeit with dozens of new ones piled on top, and some re-mastered to work in a new way. I had ambitions of re-writing them all for 2008, but I just found myself typing the same thing all over again - rearranging the odd word or sentence for the sake of it. At the end of the day, there are only so many ways you can argue about the same old things that happen in a wrestling ring - so of all the things that can expect to be revolutionized in each new instalment, I'm afraid that simply isn't one...

Perception Is Everything
Although there was a limit to how far promos could evolve, plenty of progress has been made in other areas of the presentation. One of the developments I'm most proud of is an informative new "rolling commentary" system. The name lines that accompany entrances and match endings now appear and disappear smoothly with a nice "unfolding" effect that stems from the corner logo. It's such a happy little addition to the game that I went on to use it for practically everything else - from match intros ("World Title On The Line!") to in-game announcements ("One Minute Remaining!"). More importantly, it also replaces the marquee text that ran across the top of the screen - reporting a fall or elimination in much more digestible fashion. Meanwhile, the in-game health meters have tidied up their act as well. Not only do they boast a more concise format that sits the name overhead (in a pleasant new "scrawl" font) and a cropped version of their portrait to the side, but the game also knows how to arrange them better now. Instead of showing the meters of every character that is (or ever was) in the match, the game now deletes characters from the screen as and when they're eliminated from the match itself. It then updates its layout according to how many meters it has to display, so everything is kept relevant AND tidy...

This Is Your Life
As you'd expect, the presentation for the career mode has been similarly updated. The tidy 4-week blocks from Reach are used again in these schedules - albeit with a whole host of new icons for TV tapings and special events. More importantly, the calendar's more informative nature has also survived intact. It's once again possible to highlight any date in the schedule and view details of a past result or forthcoming booking - from the opponent right down to the match conditions. The way those bookings end up on your schedule has also changed significantly for this instalment. Not only is it possible to be booked in advance (as reported to you in the news), but it's even possible to arrange your own ideal bouts if your character has enough clout! It's practically a direct import of what we saw in Reach - with the talk of "rounds" now replaced by the chance to specify a gimmick to go with the match type - but the battle of wills remains the same. However matches end up on your schedule, another nice touch is that your involvement in them is a little less predictable. The game does a more confident job of casting characters for the match and inserting you amongst them, so you're not always "P1" coming out last, etc. It's not even guaranteed that you'll be the "legal man" at the start of tag matches, so there's a realistic feeling that you're one of many and the world doesn't revolve around you...

Best Of The Best
One of the most exciting additions to your wrestling schedule - and indeed the game itself - is the possibility of proper tournaments! Thanks to the steps taken by Reach, the backbone of a system was already in place and this wrestling instalment does a good job of fleshing it out. For a start, there are 2 distinctive types of tournament now - with small one-night events providing an alternative to those that are spread out over a matter of weeks. They also have more significance in a wrestling game, and can be used to crown new champions or number one contenders. The major difference here, however, is that it's also possible to have TEAM tournaments now - with each bracket representing a duo rather than an individual! Other than that, it's the same old process of one bracket trying to defeat the other and seal their place in the next round. I had assumed that wrestling tournaments would shake up the rules a little more, but it turns out you'd only want fairly sensible matches in this environment anyway. Any gimmicks would become tiresome by the 2nd round, so the tournament structure itself is trusted to be the star of the show here. However, one nice touch for this game is that the competition is now acknowledged in promos. One such promo sees the referee introduce each participant in the tie, and then goes on to explain who they stand to face in the next round. It's a small gesture that makes the whole thing seem very real...

Good Press
Whatever contest you find yourself in, you can once again expect to see the results explained to you in a post-match magazine article. It's the same old story of each character's status being affected either positively or negatively based on what happened - but there are more such explanations this time, and they're also implemented more precisely. Look out for the little details too, because the reports also do a better job of describing the event itself. The timing and circumstances of the result are now acknowledged, so you see "XXX made XXX tap out after 2 minutes" instead of simply "XXX defeated XXX". It makes the feature just that little bit more convincing. Meanwhile, the weekly newspaper reports are also on hand to tell you what's going on in the rest of the world. The possibilities have really exploded here since Wrestling Encore - with literally twice as many things to look out for. So many, in fact, that I can't even begin to describe them! It all boils down to a larger database of information to work from. As in Reach, your fellow wrestlers now have real matches and opponents of their own - who are then name-checked wherever applicable ("XXX lost the title to XXX", "XXX was injured by XXX"), which makes what you're reading just that little bit more convincing. Meanwhile, an ungodly amount of data is recorded for each character's career (rather than yours alone) - from their employment history to their title history. These are even available to study in the modified new "Database" feature, which features twice as many categories now. You can even see the title histories of the promotions themselves (which was only true of Booking Encore last time) - and I do mean the histories of every single title this time rather than that of the World title! You can even see the succession of bookers...

No Pain, No Gain
Although each character's stats fluctuate naturally with each passing week, you can also hone them specifically in the gym. The interactive button-bashing system from Reach has returned to make the process more involving, but you can always opt for the "Automated" system if you want to keep things as hands-off as the original. Either way, the process is much more significant this time - as you genuinely feel that you're investing your energy in a better body. The breathless schedule of wrestling has made training more productive than it was in the leisurely boxing game though, because you'll seldom have time for more than a session or two. Fortunately, there are elements of self-improvement that are exclusive to the ring this time - so you'll often improve your prospects with experience itself. Once you've created your star character, all the remaining moves, attacks, taunts, and costumes become locked to you - and it's only by encountering them in the career mode that you can work them into your own act. That may be frustrating for those that want full control at all times, but it's worth it to have a realistic sense of learning things about the business...

The Bottom Line
Once you've moulded yourself into a talented wrestler and made a name for yourself, you can expect to shake off the dust of wrestling school and pursue a career at a major promotion. It's the same old cocktail of a payment agreed over a certain number of weeks, garnished with a variety of contract clauses. However, the mathematics of the whole thing is even more advanced this time. For a start, your perceived worth is filtered through all kinds of new factors - such as your experience and the generosity of the booker you're talking to. Then once you have a number on your head, your chances of getting it down in writing are made even more interesting thanks to a versatile system that allows you to negotiate some as a lump sum rather than a weekly salary - and it's then possible to buy or sell goodwill by tinkering with the contract clauses that you're initially entitled to. Speaking of which, one major change in this game is that "Image Rights" has involved into "Creative Control" - so your identity is just one tiny aspect of that now. The clause now seeps into every aspect of your career and determines whether or not you have the right to refuse your booker's suggestions. From working overtime to turning heel, clinging to a name or costume is the last thing you'll be worrying about if you sell your soul this time...

A Word In Your Ear
In addition to contract negotiations, there are once again plenty of other things to discuss backstage. There are plenty of places to do it too, because this game stands you in any given corner of any given scene to produce dozens of alternatives rather than the same old two! Other than that, it'll all be very familiar to fans of the existing games. As with the in-ring promos, there are only so many ways you can have the same old conversations. All I can do is offer more of them, and ensure that they all pan out as smoothly as possible. Speaking of which, the chances of such encounters have doubled now that you're able to initiate them yourself! In the same way you would try to arrange a match, you can now recruit a tag team partner or hire a manager at the touch of a button. Or at least you can TRY to! There's a complex network of issues that determine how a character will respond to being asked to side with you, so you can expect to be turned down by all but the keenest of allies. And that brings us to one of this game's biggest revelations. As in Hard Time, you now have a unique relationship with every single character in the game - so your transgressions are seldom forgotten, and you have more friends to call on, as you make your way through the political minefield that is professional wrestling...

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