In light of the lukewarm response to the lead game in the series, Wrestling MPire 2008 isn't technically popular enough to warrant a sequel - least of all an even less popular one that focuses on a niche aspect of wrestling. However, managerial versions of the concept have followed the arcade ones as surely as night follows day - and the foundations were always in place to step backstage one last time. For the lucky few that get it, the opportunity to play wrestling as "performance" rather than "competition" is actually the deepest and most satisfying of the two concepts. So, without further ado, let's see how it applies to the most polished version of the game engine yet...

Let Me Entertain You
As we all know by now, the key difference between this managerial instalment and the Career Edition we already have is that it's all about "entertainment" this time. As in real life, it's accepted that pro wrestling is a performance art and the only reason you step into the ring is to give the fans the thrilling cocktail of stunts and storytelling that they came to see. There's a very different engine lurking underneath the chassis this time though. One of the hidden advances in the arcade game was that your health consisted of THOUSANDS of points rather than the usual hundreds, and that allowed every percent of a wrestler's strength or stamina to become evident. Here, the entertainment score has received the same treatment to ensure that every percent of popularity counts and every action you take is correctly accounted for. The score now runs into the thousands rather than the hundreds, and with that the whole system has been gutted and re-implemented from scratch. It was a lot of hard work - none of which you can physically "see" - but hopefully it reveals itself in your most accurately assessed matches yet. Another little change here is that your score is safe once the final bell rings, so you no longer have to race for that ESC key the second a match finishes! The only downside is that post-match scuffles are no longer of any consequence, but it's worth it for a more relaxed playing experience...

Night To Remember
Clocking up entertainment points is far from just a way of amusing yourself - it's what your promotion lives and dies by. As in Career Edition, the result of every match has a significant effect on the participants depending on who won and how. The only difference this time is that you carefully choreograph the results to push, protect, or bury your stars as you see fit. All in a bid to create a meaningful network of performers that can turn good matches into great SHOWS. At the end of each night, the sum total of the entertainment offered is used to calculate an overall score that the viewing public judges your promotion by. If you surpassed expectations your profile climbs, if you disappointed it falls, and if you coasted then you stay afloat and nothing more. One welcome new development in that respect is that the game now "reviews" your show to put it into context. As surely as matches are described as "good" or "disappointing" in this game, so too are the shows described as a "step forward" or "setback". Meanwhile, the rundown of the matches themselves has evolved a little. As you can see, it now lists them vertically rather than bunching them into pairs - which is not only clearer but also allows a notch more room to describe WHO the winner defeated and in what circumstances. Every extra scrap of info helps to remind you that the matches actually happened and weren't a waste of time...

Pages Of History
One of the biggest advances since the last booking game is that a lot more information is at hand - not least about the past. By right-clicking over a specific week in history, you can bring up the full list of matches and results from that show! Plus the central text itself offers more information about where the event was held and how many people attended, etc. All pretty useless stuff in the grand scheme of things, but it's a nice touch if you're a stickler for detail...

Lead By Example
Your base of operations has obviously changed for this managerial instalment. Instead of tinkering with your star character and heading into a preset match, you now have to tinker with the WHOLE roster and book a whole series of matches. The options have evolved since the last booking game too. Instead of being a dedicated night, the "Tournament" system is always available to you as if it was a match type. You can create any competition you want and then revisit it as little or as often as you like to play out the matches stored in there. That means you can get little tournaments over and done with in one night or have them stretched out over a series of weeks. If wrestlers happen to leave your company during that period, they're simply replaced by someone else in the roster and the show goes on. As in Career Edition exhibitions, you can even specify it as a means of winning a certain title and make it really mean something...

Number One
Another key difference is this game is that your ambitions have changed. Winning titles means nothing to the owner of a promotion; their only goal is to make their show the hottest thing on TV! That's exactly what your "Popularity" points are translated to in this game, as you vie to outdo your fellow wrestling shows (and all manner of other TV programmes) in the ratings. It's a fun start to each week, as you see how the chart has changed since last time - complete with rising, falling, and "New Entry!" symbols for the top 10. The game's improved text presentation helps to make it more palatable too...

People Power
In addition to pleasing TV executives, being popular also ensures bigger audiences - and more money pumping through the company. As in the last series, seeing how many people have turned up for your show is given a little intrigue by a short cut-scene that scans the arena and reveals the magic number. It's practically the same thing with a better venue to look at, and once again a more presentable font. This attendance is then reflected in your matches (especially in larger venues), as you perform to a visibly larger or smaller crowd than last time. If there's any doubt, it's broken down in great detail at your end-of-night financial report. On the surface, it's the same old story of your revenue at the gate being set against your wages bill and production costs. However, there are one or two differences this time. For a start, ALL shows now sell tickets at $20 a shot rather just for pay-per-views. I know pay-per-views are more valuable than TV tapings in reality, but combined with the larger audiences it sent things onto another planet in this game. By keeping the price the same and just changing the audience figures, we've got a steadier income that sees TV shows earn a notch more and PPV's earn a notch less. Meanwhile, there's a new "Venue Hire" expense which (as in real life) makes bigger shows more of a risk because you have to pay more to have the venue in the first place. It's all good game balancing that ensures you no longer struggle from week to week and then suddenly become richer than Vince McMahon at the end of the month!

In The Pipeline
The production system has also returned to give you the responsibility of constructing your own unique business. It has always been an awkward part of the game, because it involves "locking" things that you're used to seeing as standard - which gives everything a half-baked feel. The selection has actually gotten smaller rather than bigger too. Although I had plenty of ideas for "new" productions, they were mostly meaningless gimmicks and had to be cut - not least because the game's larger presentation couldn't display more than 12 on screen! Things like "Merchandising" have been cut (although it's still part of your revenue as standard) because I thought it was odd that you would "pay" for the honour of earning yet more money. It was a no-brainer. I also had ambitions of making the production system a little more interactive, with 3D cut-scenes taking place in a factory with a production crew. Call me lazy but I got to thinking that was a lot of fuss over nothing, and ended up settling for the same old grid of icons that you either work on and build or don't. Witnessing the results is then left to the game itself and the way your business pans out...

Group Therapy
There's a limit to how interactive the process of modifying wrestlers can be in this game too. Even the biggest fan of Reach's interactive training system would have to think twice about doing it for EVERY wrestler every week! Instead, what we have is wholesale return to the Booking Encore system of specifying a course of study that is worked on automatically with each passing week. Wrestling MPire 2008's superior exercise animations and gym setting help to make it feel better than ever though...

Tale Of The Tape
The "ranked" character selection is more at home than ever in this instalment, so you can analyze your roster's strengths and weaknesses at the touch of a button. The match count and win rates (which are largely irrelevant in this game) have been replaced by contract and salary data, so you can easily see how valuable employees are and how close their contract is to being reviewed, etc. Ranking by health also helps you to filter out all the wrestlers that are too tired to be of any use...

Status Symbols
Speaking of details, statistic junkies will be pleased to know that the match records have remained for this game - only they're specific to how many matches they've had under YOUR supervision this time, so it's a good indicator of who you're using the most and how you're using them. Each character's availability is also more plain to see this time, as a status line sits atop the right-hand segment of info where the bank balance would normally be. Casting your eye over that means you can instantly see who's available, who's worked, who's training, and who's out of commission due to absence or injury. These factors are also hinted at in the character boxes themselves, which turn a shade of green for absences, red for injuries, and blue for trainees. The only downside to the new presentation is that relationships are harder to include. Each character has a unique relationship with every other this time (instead of having one preset friend and one preset enemy), so they can't be displayed without highlighting a number of other boxes on the screen. This is of course possible, but it's left to your discretion at a touch of the 'R' key rather than being forced on you...

The Bottom Line
Study the statuses closely and you'll notice that this instalment still uses the contract clauses that were once exclusive to the career game! In negotiations, that means you can tie each of your employees down to a unique contract that determines whether or not they get paid when you don't use them or they're injured. Rather more interestingly, it also keeps the issue of "creative control" alive as you grant it to certain wrestlers and then lose the ability to play God with them! It also gives you more payment options, as you throw in luxuries to keep the main price down. Speaking of which, the contract negotiations themselves are more sophisticated than ever here. Too sophisticated to go into, but let's just say there are twice as many responses to the contracts you put on the table - so thrashing out a deal is twice as interesting. The nice little details from Career Edition remain too, whereby the game remembers if they've worked for you before and turns the talk to "coming back", etc...

Suggestion Box
The meetings also have a different flavour to them this time, with the "creative control" gimmick putting a fork in the road of practically every single discussion. Every little suggestion your wrestlers have must now be taken on board if their contract dictates, so there's much more to it than just trying to keep them happy! Say no to somebody that wants to change their act (and has the right to) and they'll go ahead and change it anyway. It throws up some interesting dilemmas that you wouldn't have previously had to put up with. The way your promises are honoured has also changed in this game. In the same way that your editing privileges locked up for a month in Career Edition if you agreed to change your allegiance or costume, etc, this game clocks your promises to every single employee - so whatever you agree to change remains out of bounds for a while. It also opens up some other interesting possibilities, such as recording that you promised a title run and then having them get upset if a month passes by without you delivering...

Don't Cross The Boss
You may be the boss in the locker room, but you've got authority figures of your own to deal with in this game. Instead of answering to a booker, you as a booker must now answer to a TV executive who has the power to hire you or fire you. He's the one that sets goals for you to achieve this time, and they're of a different nature to what you had to deal with as a wrestler. There's no wrestling school to be sent back to either, so you have to jump through his hoops or risk game over! One interesting twist is that it's now possible to switch promotions during the course of your career. The TV executive has the power to place any booker at any promotion, and will mix things up if he feels you deserve a new post. You've also got to answer to a judge on the odd occasion when business gets personal. Court cases make a welcome return from the last booking game, and they're largely the same except that they look and work better than ever thanks to the advances of Hard Time...

The Usual Suspects
The managerial instalment always requires a few extra characters here and there to play the role of TV executive and judge, etc. As ever, I also took the opportunity to throw in a dozen Hollywood celebrities too! They have no place in the career game, but as in real life a booker will often turn to readymade stars to boost the profile of his show. If you're willing to break the bank and deal with their diva tantrums, you can get hold of some of the most marketable names in the world - such as Eminem and David Beckham - and have them disgrace themselves in a wrestling ring. Inversely, it's also where you can find supremely popular wrestlers that have retired from active competition. Coming several months later, the game also benefits from some slightly modified character data that distributes the new moves amongst the wrestlers as standard...

Blood Transfusion
If you enjoy customizing my wrestling games, you'll be pleased to know that transferring files between Career Edition and this game just got a hell of a lot easier too! Despite their apparent similarities, the arcade versions and booking versions have always had different sets of data that they handle in their own way. That's still the case with this new series, but I've put together a special program to bridge the gap. The "Data Converter" (which ships with Management Edition as standard and is available for download at this site) uses the programming you wouldn't normally have access to to load up data from one game and save it for use with the other. You can then take those converted files away and toss them into your installation of the other game, which means any character changes you've made can be transferred properly...

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