Wrestling Spirit 2 (PC) Review

Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 07.25.2006

The best text-based fighting game ever!

Game: Wrestling Spirit 2
Price: $24.95
System: PC
Purchased at: www.greydogsoftware.com


Wrestling Spirit 2 is a text-based wrestling game created by Adam Ryland. It is a career simulator, in which you design a character or pick form an existing one and try to take him to the top of the wrestling world. On to the review!



Graphics

This is a text game and graphics are going to be minimal. The menus and buttons are very well done. The fictional pictures for the Cornellverse characters where done using a program called Poser 6 and they are quite cool and fun to look at. Other pictures, like the ones in the mods, where done by cutting pictures from the internet and using a variety of programs like The Gimp and Photoshop to make them. All of them are good in their own right, but the quality varies depending on the abilities of the maker. The same goes for move pictures, the defaults are made in Poser 6, the rest are done by the mod makers. I am a huge fan of text based games and I have to say that this is one of the best ones to look at.

Sound


I refuse to rate sound, since outside of some music at the main screen and the clicks of the buttons, there is not much to listen to and it is not needed.


The two biggest legends in the Cornellverse square off!


Gameplay

Wrestling Spirit 2 brings to you 5 different game modes. Exhibition matches, which can be one on one, two on two, three on three, one on two or two on three matches. The other modes need a longer explanation and they are: Rookie to Legend, Superstar Challenge, World League and Professional League.



Rookie to Legend is the meat and potatoes of the game. You create a wrestler, decide his stats, make a move set and enter the world of pro wrestling. You are a virtual unknown, so you will need to start working for local and small promotions and slowly build your “overness”(recognition) in one or more areas, hopefully catching the eyes of bigger promotions along the way. Like in real life, this is a slow process. I have put 5 years into my character’s career and I am barely working for cult level promotions now. Promotions come from varying sizes, from small to Global, and each one has different requirements for you to be able to enter them. Not only size matters when hiring you, but also the differences and similarities between your character’s style and the promotion’s style. If you have high charisma and microphone skills, sports entertainment promotions will be more interested in you. Strong Style and Traditional promotions will take a closer look at your psychology and wrestling skills. Lucha promotions will take a look at your speed and lucha skills and so on. The object is to be as successful as you can before it is time to hang the boots. The money you make from matches can be saved for the future, used to buy improvements to your skills and/or used to buy investments, that can later make you more money. Depending on your age and skills, your character will set goals for himself, like having a certain amount saved in the bank or work for a promotion of a certain level and it is your mission to accomplish this goals.


Superstar Challenge is basically the same game as Rookie to Legend, but you pick one of the game’s existing stars. Which means that you can begin with more money, recognition, skill and friends than in Rookie to Legend. But it is also very interesting to take your favorite wrestler and try to redo his career or rework it any way you see fit. For gameplay purposes, you cannot control a wrestler who is owner or part owner of a promotion, or has any other type of pull, like being part of the booking team.


Hogan vs Andre using the Death of the Territories Database

World League and Professional League are inspired by the World Cup of Soccer or the World Baseball Classic. In it, you select a wrestler from one nation(United States, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Japan or Europe) and compete in a league to determine the best wrestler in the World. The differences are that in World League, more wrestlers are available since areas have more than one division(Some have 4, others have 3) and the idea is that you compete in a season, trying to make the top of your division and being allowed to move up to the next group. In Professional League, each country has only one division with the best and most over wrestlers from that nation and that’s it. You compete for the World Cup.




Matches themselves are text based. This is clearly a strategy game and not a game for action minded players, thinking to blaze trough the game. When a match starts, you need to scout your opponent and yourself. Which moves have a chance to work against this particular opponent. Skills like strength and technical, and other factors like size and even if he is samoan(samoans have a hard head and are unaffected by certain attacks) will come into play. If he is bigger than you, he can easily overpower you and break some of your moves and some of your moves that involve lifting will likely be unavailable to you. If he is smaller, he can quickly slip out of certain attacks. If he is a samoan, smashing his head against the turnbuckle will not work. Usually you need to work a lot of wear down holds and simple attacks until his momentum and stamina are low enough for bigger attacks. Try a big move too soon and you may give him the opening he needs to counter and make a comeback.

Like I said, this is text based and you will basically click trough moves and watch pictures of them being executed. It sounds boring and it can be if you are one of those “trigger finger” guys, but it can be a hell lot of fun for people with a brain.

But this game is not without fault. Like I said, you can make friends trough your career, but the system implemented to make them and the potential benefits of having friends are underdeveloped. First, to try and make contact, you need to play blackjack. Yes, bet money, which gets higher the more popular the wrestler is, and by winning matches, you can establish an initial friendship and work from there, trough more blackjack. It feels like this is more like a “chance” thing and not that you have any skills or anything that might attract friends. Then the benefits: according to some people online and based on what Adam has said himself, having friends in bigger promotions will increase your possibilities of being hired by them. Some players claim that you even receive small stat gains if your friends are better than you in certain skills, sort of like learning from them. But this gains are so minimal, in the 0.1% range, that it is almost unnoticeable.

Another thing is that this game is not licensed and features characters and federations based on the Cornellverse, a fictitious world created by Adam Ryland. The gameworld is very enjoyable and well done, I am an avid fan of it, but for some people this is a turnoff. However, the game is very modable and with good mods out there, like D.Boon’s Ghost Death of the Territories and Panix’s Real World Data, you can play as any of your favorite stars, past or present. Hey, even I have gotten into it by working in a Montreal Screwjob mod!


Lasting Appeal


Let’s see. The original data ships with over 1,500 wrestlers. Mods out there have 3,000 plus. That is a lot of workers to play as! Plus, you can create your own wrestlers, with different styles and set different goals for your career. There is a ton to do in this game! However, it might get boring with time. That happens with every game, specially if you play it for hours on end. But this is one of those casual games. You can play a couple of weeks at a time in your career, do something else, and then play again. I usually play it in between sections of other games, or while I rest after I come from work. I might play 5 hours one day and five minutes the next. But the constant is that every single day, this game gets loaded and played. That is how addictive it truly is. I have over 30 games in my PC and this is the only one who has a shortcut in my desktop. That should tell you something…

The 411


Fans of wrestling, text based games and better, text based wrestling games will have a blast with this game. Those who also want some challenge and the use of their brain in a fighting game will also have a blast designing strategies and tactics to use against certain wrestlers. No two matches are always the same! Wrestling Spirit 2 is a must have! And it costs half of what you would pay for a regular, usually crappy, game for your console.


Andre drops a mean elbowdrop!

Graphics	7.0	Well designed menus and portraits. Great looking as far as text games go!
Gameplay	8.0	Easy to pick up, yet hard to master.
Sound	0.0	Outside of mouse clicks and a music track in the main screen, it is non-existant.
Lasting Appeal	9.0	Thousands of character choices and several different game modes make for a long lasting game.
Fun Factor	8.0	If you like a cerebral challenge and a little bit of role play, this game will be FUN!
Overall	8.0   [ Very Good ]