Now, we get to my favorite part, the Create-A-Wrestler mode. I have to say, I was kind of disappointed this year. Not only are there less items to choose from, a lot of the best features from this area have been taken out of the game. Something as simple as adjusting the length of hair or pants really helped your character stand out in previous games, but it is not the case this year. Yes, you can adjust the hair length, but the difference is so small it doesn't matter. The system this year almost feels broken and incomplete. The voices for the CAW characters are terrible, clothing options are limited, and the move system is bad as well. Basically, if you are a light-heavyweight or up, you cannot do luchadore or martial arts style grapples. Apparently, if you weigh more than 200 pounds, you can't do an STO or a flying head scissors from the grapple position (but you can still do a Shooting Star Press if you are a super-heavyweight.) This really bothered me, not just for that, but once you have your moveset complete, any physical changes to your character revert your grapples back to default. This was put in place so that you couldn't set up moves with a Cruiserweight and then go change into a heavyweight, but it feels broken for the simple fact that if you put a shirt on, the game thinks you have changed your weight and thus must revert all your moves.
One create mode that has been VASTLY improved, however, is the Create-An-Entrance mode. Creating an entrance has never been this easy, or fast. Not only do I not have to no longer bare five minute load times every time I want to preview a walking motion or pyro, but as you make changes, they are shown on the fly in the background. You are now also able to time your camera movements and pyro at anytime during the entrance to coincide with music changes or movements your wrestler does, and it is all done very easily and very well. Kudos to THQ on that aspect.
However, probably the biggest upset for the fans of the series has to come in the form of entrance music. There is no option for custom tracks. Granted, this has never been an option in any of the previous games, but this is next gen, and this is the Xbox 360. If the sub-par wrestling games on the original Xbox could have custom theme songs, why can't this one? It is just a small omission, but it really does take away from the created wrestler mode, when all you have to revert to are the same songs used by the superstars themselves, or a small handful of decent songs by some outstanding artists.
Overall, the game is still very good, despite it's shortcomings. It really is like WWE in it's current state: stale, unimaginative, and afraid of new ideas. But, unlike the real WWE, it is the only option out there for a solid wrestling title. It's gameplay is still fun, especially on Xbox Live with friends. The match types are all still there, and all of them are very fun to play. There are some minor bugs and omissions that need to be corrected either by patches or at least by next years game, but if THQ doesn't start doing something soon about fixing nagging issues that have been a part of the series for at least the last three games, they may soon start losing fans of the series. TNA has a game coming out next year, and I for one, am hoping that it will be good enough to make THQ realize that they need to do something to revive this series. However, if you are a wrestling fan, I still can't help but recommend this game to you, as it is still a blast to play, even if you play as nothing more than an over-rated star in an ongoing and ever changing soap opera
