[h1]OP-ED: Why Videogames Can Never Fully Capture the Wonderful World of Pro Wrestling[/h1][h4]The objectives of pro wrestlers and videogame players are at odds with one another.[/h4]
By
Chris Pereira, 07/26/2012
Professional wrestling is fake. This we all (I hope) know, although the existence of Internet ads teasing an answer to the question of 'Are WWE fights staged?' makes me hesitant to assume anything. I bring this fact up not to spark a debate about how some aspects of wrestling truly are real (there's a reason WWE doesn't let guys hit each other in the head with chairs anymore), but as the reason for why wrestling simulation videogames can never hope to fully recreate wrestling. How can a scripted sporting event be acted out without all of its participants being in on the ruse?
I tend to be fairly good at wrestling games, at least when it comes to squaring off against the AI. Over time I learn what works and what doesn't, and pretty quickly I find myself with ability to take down a computer opponent without him getting much offense in, if any at all. In professional wrestling such a match would be called a squash. Squashes do have their purpose, as they can be used to establish an individual as being dominant and help him or her to stand out in some way. But this is thankfully not the formula followed by your average match, or else wrestling would get boring in a big hurry.
Those who don't follow wrestling closely and think little goes into the planning of a match would be mistaken -- there is a lot more going on than opponents exchanging punches and suplexes in the middle of the ring. Psychology plays a significant role, with wrestlers seeking to elicit reactions from the crowd at certain times. Your typical match will see the good guy (the "face") take an extended beating from the bad guy (the "heel") at some point before making a comeback. A tag team match will invariably see this sequence play out where one member of the face team get beaten up before finally tagging in his partner (a "hot tag") who then runs wild and takes out both opponents. Submissions are worked in to give the wrestlers a breather, and various high spots (say, a big move off the top rope) are thrown in from time to time to keep things exciting.
With the benefit of knowing what the finish of a match will be, the participants know what direction to work in and can tease things accordingly. This might mean one guy jumps off the top rope and tweaks a knee that ends up costing him the match or is used as deception to throw off the opposition, or it could mean the referee takes a hit and is not there to do his job at a critical moment. The overriding point is that cooperation by everyone involved is key. None of this would be possible if the wrestlers in the match were actually acting as if they were really in a fight.
In an unscripted videogame, anything can happen. For any other sport this would not be an issue -- nobody knows how things will go and there is nothing in particular that needs to be accomplished, as is the case in a wrestling match -- and in fact that unpredictability is one of the strengths of sports and sports videogames. However, this doesn't work quite so well when trying to simulate a pro wrestling match because there is a disconnect between what wrestlers and players want. Wrestlers want to put on as good a show as possible, something which hinges on all of the participants "selling," or making their opponent's moves look effective. Players, on the other hand, want to win at all costs. So unless players are willing to follow a script instead of relentlessly beating up their opponent, the end result may look more like a boring squash match than your classic Wrestlemania main event.
WWE likes to avoid classifying itself as wrestling -- CM Punk, who is positioned as the guy who speaks his mind and is the "voice of the voiceless," makes it a point of using the term 'professional wrestling' liberally -- instead preferring to use terms like 'sports entertainment' and 'superstars.' But it
is pro wrestling, regardless of how much that rubs its monarch, Vince McMahon, the wrong way, and that means its line of THQ-published videogames faces these problems just as
WCW/NWO Revenge,
No Mercy, and
Raw all did before it. Except now, with the game inching closer and closer toward looking and sounding like the real-life thing (save for the "oh my God!" chant seen in the latest
WWE '13 trailer -- never have I heard a crowd opt to chant that in lieu of the classic "ho-ly ****!"), this is more of an issue than ever before.
When I've invariably run into the scenario I laid out above, where I find myself defeating AI opponents without getting a scratch myself, turning up the difficulty seems like the obvious solution. (Simply playing against other humans is not always an option, as few of my friends continue to care for wrestling and the online support in the Smackdown vs. Raw/WWE franchise is notoriously bad. It's also not an option for the single-player story content.) Jacking up the difficulty tends to result in a frustrating experience where the AI can counter nearly every move of yours. An alternative approach I've tried is to drag out the length of matches; sometimes in the context of the story it makes sense for a beating to last for a long time. What this does is provide the AI with the opportunity to get the upper hand and get some offense in without me deliberately allowing it to do so. Where this goes wrong is when I've spent the better part of 25 minutes kicking the crap out of my opponent who is able to do
just enough damage and pin me, which means I need to repeat the entire match if it's one the story requires me to win.
The entire notion of telling a story in a wrestling game is problematic in the first place due to the need for a certain outcome to be reached. This requires players to either continually repeat a match over and over until they win, or it means doing what we've seen in years past, which is having a cutscene take control and push things in the right direction. The latter, while effective, has always felt unfair and out of place inside of a videogame that otherwise provides complete freedom, even if it is a videogame based on a fake sport. According to what we've already
heard about WWE '13, THQ appears to be trying to work around this by implementing an objective system, which is perhaps an acknowledgement on their part that it's just not possible to provide players with the freedom to wrestle a match as they see fit and still arrive at a single destination (at least not without a very extensive branching storyline, something that currently isn't in the cards).
One new feature in WWE '13 that may mitigate the problem with the wrestling itself is the Match Experience option. This allows players (or the developers in the story mode) to select from different options that affect the pacing of the match. In theory, by selecting options conducive to a longer bout, there would be more opportunity for you and the computer to get in your respective offenses without running into a situation like the one I found myself in where you can easily lose even after unleashing an all-time ***-whipping. Whether it actually works out like that or ends up shortening or extending the length of your squash matches remains to be seen.
I'm looking forward to seeing WWE '13 as a finished product and whether it manages to tackle any of these problems effectively; at the very least, it could make the journey through storylines smoother than in years past. As for the wrestling itself, the best approach could be to look at the games more like beat-em-ups starring WWE wrestlers than a simulation of the real deal. For a proper pro wrestling experience, it might be better to follow the advice of the company's PSAs and
not try this at home.
Whoever is in the game from attitude era rumored to be like 32,attitude era arenas, created attitude arenas,caws etc. its going to be sick
Booker tried to cover up being stumped
