Dignews.com reviews TEW 2008!

[CraigInTwinCities]

[url]http://www.dignews.com/review.php?story_id=31990[/url]

[FlameSnoopy]

Really, I didn't read it more than the start, because it was ****. PURE, ****.Then I checked the score and the + & -. 8.4? And WHAT? SVR shouldn't even be in the same sentence with TEW. ._. that was pure crap :>, no offense who writted it.. but.. really.

[sabataged]

Horrible review..... [quote]For example, the current SWF champ with the game starts is Jack Bruce, who’s slightly like Jeff Hardy. He’s a main event face, so I quickly involved him in a “challenger steals championship belt” storyline against Remo – who turned out, upon further inspection, to be more like MVP than Batista. So even though he’s a main eventer, he wasn’t a top one and my first couple shows and first PPV did poorly.[/quote] [quote] FLAWS.... - All-fictional universe with 50-60-man rosters per promotion makes it hard to keep track of who's who. - No idiot-proof features. - No way to modify storylines once they begin, to account for injuries, suspensions and the like. - No in-game tutorial or strategy guide. - No auto-booking feature. - Proper story segments can be hard to find to move stories forward. [/quote] No auto booker...haha

[Vladamire Dracos]

[QUOTE]What were the problems with previous versions? Well, for one thing, the series seemed dead-set on including a graphical wrestling match simulator that simply never worked very well at all. The graphics were barely up to eight-bit standards and the keyboard commands were simplistic, frustrating, and largely undocumented. Even walking down to the ring was a chore too ugly to contemplate, let alone do regularly. (Or am I thinking of Wrestling Spirit, Adam's other wrestling title? I think both had that ugly match simulator at one point...) [/QUOTE] I think M.Dickie's games are what you were thinking of here, Craig. As far as I'm aware, neither TEW nor EWR had anything like this (Wrestling Spirit, while being a match simulator, is completely textual like TEW).

[sabataged]

This guy is a complete joke.

[Adam Ryland]

The reviewer seems to be mixing up games from other companies; there's never been a "graphical match simulator" in any of my products, he seems to be thinking of Matt Dickie's games.

[Adam Ryland]

[QUOTE=sabataged;476635]This guy is a complete joke.[/QUOTE] Sabataged, unless you have something more constructive to say, please don't post. That goes for everyone else too; we don't need 50 ultra-defensive posts everytime someone is critical of the game.

[Michael Wayne]

haha. And his relation of C-verse guys to WWE characters was silly. Jack Bruce like Jeff Hardy? Jack Bruce is more like Ricky Steamboat with Sting-like charisma and mic skills.

[1PWfan]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;476638]Sabataged, unless you have something more constructive to say, please don't post. That goes for everyone else too; we don't need 50 ultra-defensive posts everytime someone is critical of the game.[/QUOTE] I agree.... we'll burn his house down when Adam's not looking :D

[Michael Wayne]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;476638]Sabataged, unless you have something more constructive to say, please don't post. That goes for everyone else too; we don't need 50 ultra-defensive posts everytime someone is critical of the game.[/QUOTE] it's one thing to be critical, and it's another to review a game when you have no clue what you're talking about. In the case of the reviewer. If he had actually PLAYED your previous games, his reference points might have actually been accurate.

[Comradebot]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;476638]Sabataged, unless you have something more constructive to say, please don't post. That goes for everyone else too; we don't need 50 ultra-defensive posts everytime someone is critical of the game.[/QUOTE] C'mon Adam, he's just doing out of his unbridled love for you! Wish you'd give ME some of that love... as long as we could cuddle afterwards. And I'll agree, it wasn't a very strong review. In fact, I don't think he's played ANY TEW game until now, based on his claims of the "graphical match simulator". And some of that stuff is just common sense. If you have to edit a storyline, write a new one. If you've having issues putting story elements together... then write your own! And my favorite... it isn't "idiot proof"? Its a wrestling simulator, not SvR. If it was idiot proof then there wouldn't be much challenge in the game, would there? I enjoy running the lowly EWA, and I've recently enjoyed starting an Australian company (well, technically New Zealand... I'll invade Australia soon enough) in the 1997 C-Verse. The last thing I want would be an easy button to insure I go to Global without any injuries, money problems, or random bad chemistry notes. Also, this button would (in theory) give Boris Kiriyakin and Big Daddy Horne A*s across the board. Also, they could team together (in both games), and upon delivering a new highest match rating (I call it A* Omega: Threat Level Midnight) in tag competition, I would be presented with Boris Kiriyakin and Big Daddy Horne action figures from Adam Ryland himself, a flashing message of "Your Are Winner" on my monitor, and a young, beautiful, disease free Thai hooker. Unfortunately, TEW08 isn't idiot proof, and I'll never have the opportunity to tell the Thai hooker to get the hell out of my room while I play with my new Boris Kiriyakin and Big Daddy Horne action figures, complete with me doing bad voice work for em.

[Sons of Kohral]

[QUOTE=Comradebot;476646] I enjoy running the lowly EWA, and I've recently enjoyed starting an Australian company (well, technically New Zealand... I'll invade Australia soon enough) in the 1997 C-Verse. The last thing I want would be an easy button to insure I go to Global without any injuries, money problems, or random bad chemistry notes. Also, this button would (in theory) give Boris Kiriyakin and Big Daddy Horne A*s across the board. Also, they could team together (in both games), and upon delivering a new highest match rating (I call it [B]A* Omega: Threat Level Midnight[/B]) in tag competition, I would be presented with Boris Kiriyakin and Big Daddy Horne action figures from Adam Ryland himself, a flashing message of "Your Are Winner" on my monitor, and a young, beautiful, disease free Thai hooker.[/QUOTE] That's awesome

[Vladamire Dracos]

What I'd suggest to the reviewer is trying one of the smaller promotions available, as well as at least one promotion whose style varies greatly from SWF (ROF perhaps). Do some research on the Extreme Warfare series as well as the Total Extreme Wrestling series, and do a total rewrite. While I agree with some of his views, I feel he's missing the bigger picture offered by the game.

[James Casey]

In fairness, it does take time to get hooked into the CV. While he does seem to have based his review on two or three shows as SWF, TEW is not the sort of game that a person can pick up and instantly master. I remember my first experiences playing as SWF in 04 and 05 - I had no clue what I was doing. It was only through playing real world mods in 05 that I got a hold of the basics of the game. Even then, I wouldn't say it was until 07 that I really learned how to succeed. Most reviewers might only get a couple of days with the game. While I'd like to think that the reviewer was a wrestling fan prepared to put time into the game (the first one seems correct, the other... well, maybe) it really isn't possible to explore the game in that short a period of time. That said, 8.4 is a strong score. I'd imagine that would get people interested in this sort of game to check the game out - and with a little time spent on it, they may come to appreciate the game for what it is. Anyway, I appreciated the nod to TEW's superiority over the GM mode in SvR :)

[sabataged]

[QUOTE=Adam Ryland;476638]Sabataged, unless you have something more constructive to say, please don't post. That goes for everyone else too; we don't need 50 ultra-defensive posts everytime someone is critical of the game.[/QUOTE] I guess next time i will go into more detial, but i wasnt being ultra defensive. The guy simply has no idea what he is talking about. He mixed up several games, and sort of ripped it for stuff he didn't understand. Very poor reviewer, you can tell he obviously didn't do any research what so ever.

[scorpion]

I agree that the Cornellverse can take a little time to get into, but I think placing the fictional universe as a negative is not really fair to the game. You wouldn't knock Final Fantasy XII because it uses a different fictional world than Final Fantasy X, so why would you hold this game to that standard. The writer probably doesn't know much about licensing either because their is no possible way you could license this game to have real world. One, there's no way WWE would allow it, and two, even if they did, you would have to get every company and every wrestler to sign off on it, and I'm not willing to pay [B]that[/B] much for this game. The other comment I don't get is that this is "the first playable version." Huh? EW9000 was playable. I never did buy TEW2007, because it wouldn't play on my computer (I was running 256mb ram), and so I got a good 2 and half years out of TEW2005. I can see little where he's coming from on the faq-tutorial as I think those of us that have been playing the game take a lot of stuff for granted. But, I've never felt the need for those things as we have a 24 hour faq right here. I'm pleased with the overall score, but disappointed with a couple of the comments.

[CraigInTwinCities]

A few bullet points: 1) Thanks to the people who were civil in their reactions; constructive feedback is always more helpful than ripping. 2) Yup, I have deadlines to meet. I would have loved to spend more time with the game before I wrote, but you should see the pile of reviewables I have sitting next to me. (Movies, too, not just games.) 3) Mixing up Adam's games with Matt's was a huge blunder. I posted a correction to the review as soon as I was made aware of it, and included an apology for the blunder. 4) I hope a good chunk of my feedback on how the game could be improved will be looked at as just that - feedback, ideas, constructively offered. 5) While I can understand that the fact that I haven't been playing this game for years (yet... I'm kinda hooked, now...) puts me at a disadvantage to understanding the roster and the Cornell-verse... I hope that one thing that can be gleaned from my review is that it has more of a "this is how someone new to the game might react to it" sort of slant to it. 6) Yes, I've only played demos of Adam's games until this version, and yes, I mixed up my memories of those games with memories of Matt's games, as I said above. Didn't mean to, and have made corrections. Finally having a full version of Adam's game had given me a new level of appreciation for the game; I remember previous versions also being complex, and in a demo, it's hard to get deep enough to get past that. And the steep learning curve, frankly, was the main reason I never moved from a demo to a purchase in the past. 7) Somehow, lost in the mix here, except for a couple folks, is the fact that I gave the game a very strong score, and actually would have given it an even stronger score had it not been for the steep learning curve, which I still think can be intimidating to newcomers to this franchise. 8) I still put across that the game is a very powerful tool and once one finds their way around it, it could be the source of a lot of enjoyment. 9) I like the game a lot. Really. I don't give out scores over 8.0 willy-nilly the way some reviewers do. And I'm a wrestling fan; WWE ever since just before WrestleMania II, and before that, I lived in Verne Gagne's AWA territory up here in Minnesota. Nick Bockwinkle was a solid heel champ, and a model for many who do it today... I can say with confidence that when Chris Jericho was the Undisputed Champion of WWE a few years back, he seemed to be modeling certain aspects of his title reign on Bockwinkle. :) At least, that's MY opinion... 10) OPINION: Champagne Lover is one of the HOTTEST free-agents around, about 2-3 weeks into the game. B's across the board; I signed him REALLY cheap and inserted him as a Main Eventer right away and while he's unfamilair to SWF so far, he's already rated as a show-stopper.... Top recommendation for anyone in just about any Fed... I am hoping he'll give SWF the lift I'm looking for, eventually, as I learn the game better, and the Cornell-verse better...

[BloodyKnuckles]

I always considered Jack Bruce to be the Chris Jericho of the cornelleverse, I don't really need to explain why. I agree that the CornellVerse takes some time to get into, when I first bought TEW07 I didn't even bother with it, but I never found a real world mod I could get into so I decided to give it a try and haven't really looked for a real world mod since, even though I'm definitely looking forward to all the mods being worked on right now.

[Self]

I thought it was a pretty solid review. A lot of the points I agree with, especially when I was just starting out.

[Rathen4]

Yeah for new players to the game that review is just about dead on. It is difficult to figure out what to do in the large feds (I have never enjoyed SWF or TCW because of the sheer size of them) and where to go. It can be overwhelming. A lot of his suggestions in there are very constructive and would make a lot of sense for the next installment of the game. So yeah, a fair review IMO. He didn't exactly **** all over it, guys.

[Hive]

I'm a new player myself, and agree with most of the review. It's a shame that fanboys often react this way to a review that dares to critisize and not just appease, but I suppose it's what to expect.

[aikmitt822]

Definately feel free to come back and post Craig..I'm new and don't post a lot here but everyone is really helpful. I think everyone just has so much passion for the game, that it can kind of be like saying something negative about their family if things like "auto-booking" are brought up. My opinion on that is if that feature was available, it would bring a certain laziness to the game. As you play with SWF, say you don't have a storyline in the works for Brandan James at the moment, and you get in the habit of auto-booking him into matches and a few game months in you realized you haven't defined a character for him and one of your better prospects has just been wrestling pointless matches. That forces you to think how you can get the North American Belt off Rich Money so James could feud with a face for the belt, or if you want him to get involved with Groucho Bling or Elmo Benson for "having too much fun" while they wrestle, or something along those lines. It makes you think about what you want to do for everybody, even with the roster being overwhelming at first, you will even look at a guy like Andre Jones and start thinking to yourself...ya know, it would be really cool if....and run it with. I'm new to the game as well, and I can echo your suggestion for a tutorial to start the game besides reading the Help File, but it has it's negatives as well. While the game has endless options and angles to play from, if you could do it all on your own, you could either burn out or get bored with it rather quickly. The way it is now, these forums are a must. It provides interaction with the game that you would be lacking otherwise. There is nothing better than complaining about how much you hate Big Scott Smack, or about how stupid Randy and Zimmy's last name is, or ways you could actually make a guy that dresses up in a lobster suit a World Champion in the biggest promotion in the world, and then actually have people with ideas who can help you. Without this community, I don't know if the game would be as strong as it is today. Like I said, I am new so others might be able to help you more than me, but some pointers I have besides looking at the Official Tip Thread is 6 minute angles are your friend. They have to be that long to actually affect the overall rating of your show. Make sure to use your booker notes when booking a match, "Go All Out" for the last two matches of the evening are what I normally use and it works well to lift the performance above the rest of the card. And even though it seems somewhat unimportant at first, adding the notes "pinfall finish", "submission finish", etc. also help as they have the end in sight for the match. For the SWF, just like the WWE, your popularity and momentum are more important than your wrestling abilities, like look at Runaway Train. The guy is useless in the ring and is on the downswing of his career, but he has been the major heel in the company the past few years. Why? You can run nice Menace angles with him and his popularity has always been high, and is still good to work with a younger worker in the Upper Midcard you want to push that have good in ring psychology and mic skills. But yeah, always poke your head in and ask questions, everybody here is nice and it's good to see that other people besides me struggle with the game. :). Enjoy the addicition.

[Rathen4]

[QUOTE=Hive;476695]I'm a new player myself, and agree with most of the review. It's a shame that fanboys often react this way to a review that dares to critisize and not just appease, but I suppose it's what to expect.[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's really stupid. OH NO YOU INSULTING DIS GAME I KILL U. No, you spastics, stop jumping on anyone that's even remotely negative. Good on Adam for bringing this up too.

[lazorbeak]

It's really not as bad a review are people are making it out to be, once you get past the really obvious blunders. A few smaller notes though: * Jack Bruce is a charismatic all-rounder with a "rock-star" gimmick and goofy clothes. How you got "Jeff Hardy" out of that is beyond me. * One of your listed negatives is "50-60" man rosters per promotion- in your review, you made it clear the biggest promotion in the game had under 60, and if you book a promotion like MAW or PSW, you're looking more at 15-30 workers, which is way easier to manage. * no auto-booking feature- it's a booking game. Yeah, it would be nice if somebody did all the legwork for you, but you really wouldn't be booking anything. * no way to modify storylines- this was actually true a year ago, but now there's a button that says "evolve storyline," which lets you... evolve a storyline to include different workers. There are a couple of good points- I think the storyline mode still needs re-working, as after two years, I still hate the restrictions of pre-set storylines, and remain intimidated by creating my own storylines. Fortunately, unchained storylines are awesome and easy. I think it should be re-imagined into something that can be created quickly and easily with a few steps and a few possible branches, without having to separate a catalyst from a subject and etc. I also agree that the game really isn't idiot-proof at all. While it's true you could have used the game's powerful search filters to find an ideal opponent for Jack Bruce- off the top of my head, I would search: "alignment=heel, push=main event," and then maybe filter by US popularity to find my three most over heels. But how would you know that without trial and error? And by the way, Remo is one of the three top heels in the company, so again, comparisons to MVP are pretty ridiculous. But yeah, the game doesn't really tell you how to figure all that out off the bat. I guess my other question is: how exactly is it better than TEW 2007? I mean, I could tell you why I think it's better (although frankly, there's certain things I prefer from 2007), but you didn't list a single feature that wasn't available with the previous version, while simultaneously calling this game the first "playable" version. The biggest change, the locker-room environment and backstage incidents, isn't even noted.

[Ironmike]

I think SvR should be in the same sentence as TEW because without SvR's crappy GM mode in 07 I would never have found TEW or knew that booking could be so much fun. On a side note I recently purchased SvR 2008 and the new GM mode is just terrible, you seriously cant choose ECW as they only have one belt compared to the 4 on the other brands and rosters consist of about 15 "Superstars" each and after the first 2 rounds of picks its questionable that thiers any talent left to draft and near impossible to draft tag teams let alone have different workers fued. I think the best part of TEW is the sheer number of unique workers and promotions with deep charecter not like WWE's few remaining stars from 10 years ago. I found myself having to unlock the legends to even find guys i'd like to use.... I guess what im trying to say is if you seriously like the mental challenge of creating a successful wrestling promotion TEW is the best thing ever, sure you won't get it right the first few times, but like most games you learn from your mistakes and once you figure out SWF move onto a completely different product, i'm still trying to get into the groove of Japans touring schedules but its fun and challenging not a game you are finished with after 2 weeks.