I remember playing this game for the first time as a kid after being done with SvR 11, and there was a lot to like, but also a good amount to dislike. The main menu feels empty. Just some of the most basic edgy music playing and nothing else. No practice arena when you first start the game like in SvR 11 and just no character. That being said, the real good part comes when you start playing the modes. Road to Wrestlemania is a bit different as instead of multiple stories you can pick to play, you get three that you have to play in order. I absolutely loved all three stories, it was the right amount of wacky wrestling and I couldn't get enough of it. Matches themselves played like SvR 11, albeit a bit less smooth than before. What really shines is the universe mode. You can control more of what happens, changing what titles are on different brands, and seemingly every match has some kind of cutscene that happens before, during, or after. The draft was extremely cool and I wish they would incorporate it into modern universe modes. All in all, something that looks very dull when you open it but as you play it there is more and more to like about it

For personal reference more than anything else.

Played this for a couple of hours over the last couple of days. Did play it when I was younger but don't really have any memories of it outside of getting it.

So, I have missed three games and while I may get to them in the future, if there's something about this game that was not in 2007 or 2008 that I want to talk about, then I'll still bring it up even if I know it did not originate in this game. Not that I think there's much to discuss here.

This game is kind of boring. It feels unpleasant to play, just slow and kind of awkward which 2008 also had but it feels so much worse here. Some improvements seem to have been made, the tap any button thing is only for submissions now and that's fine, I prefer it over the submission minigame in 2008. There's also a new minigame for pins which is to hold a button until it reaches a small shaded in part of a bar and then release the button in that bar, I kind of like it.

Some scattered thoughts:

• The lack of a HUD is something I really don't like, while there may be other types of games that I'm fine if they don't have a HUD, a wrestling game isn't one of them. The only thing is the bar that shows the player how close they are to getting a signature move.

• I started Road To Wrestlemania which actually seemed pretty interesting and kind of out there which was quite fun but the gameplay not being good made it so that I didn't want to put time into this mode to see it through a lot further than a few matches.

• Create a superstar is good and something that is pretty neat that I don't think was a thing in 2007 & 2008 is a lack of restrictions when it comes to customising wrestlers, in that anything present in this mode can be used by either Superstars or Divas.

• Difficulty seems fine but due to the gameplay, the game felt like a slog no matter what difficulty it was on.

• Character select screen is exactly what I think this series should have, having all the pictures at once and not having to cycle through them one by one.

Its a fine game I think, but compared to some of the other WWE games there's just no reason for me to come back to it, the one thing would have been the story mode but I could just watch the cutscenes on YouTube and probably have a better time. I don't really see me picking this up again.