WWE Survivor Series
Release
2004
Format
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Time to look at the last Game Boy Advance WWE Game.
Background
The Survivor Series is the 2nd longest running WWE pay-per-view event. The very first Survivor Series event took place in November 1987 and every November since then the pay-per-view has taken place. The original concept of the Survivor Series was to have five on five elimination tag team matches.
Despite being the 2nd longest running pay-per-view show, this is the only video game that has had the Survivor Series name. This would also be the very last WWE game to be made for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. It is also a sequel to WWE Road To Wrestlemania X8.
Presentation
Despite this game being released two years after Road To Wrestlemania X8 it seems like very little effort was made in improving the games graphics. They really look exactly the same, and I was full of praise for the graphics in Road To Wrestlemania X8, but when you consider this was released two years later, it just comes across as really lazy. They do not look bad, but after such a long time you would expect there to be some kind of improvement. One thing I will say however is that the roster is very different from the last game, and so at least there are many new character models to look at.
The sound is nothing to write home about about either. There are still the same midi style wrestler entrance themes that sound worse than the wrestling games on the Super Nintendo. Overall the presentation in this game is just so bland. It has the look of a budget title which would have been fine if when it was first released it was not £29.99.
Game Play
I loved Road To Wrestlemania X8 so you would think as they have kept most things the same that I would love this game. Well sadly that is not true. I felt that Natsume the developers did a great job on Road To Wrestlemania X8, and I felt that they went above and beyond to give us a great wrestling game. Here however I get the impression that they thought that if they did not to do anything to the game play, people would just accept it.
The core game play is exactly the same. Which in a way is good. Your wrestlers of which there are a decent selection have a decent amount of moves including there special moves, and there is a great selection of match types for you to chose from.
Natsume did something however that still bugs me to this day. They took out the mode from Road To Wrestlemania X8 where you could make your own pay-per-views and have to try and put on a great show. This was such a great mode and I was genuinely excited for Survivor Series because I thought that there would be a even better pay-per-view mode. Boy was I wrong. If they took it away to add something else then I guess I could understand that, but they didn’t add anything new.
If that was not bad enough they also took away all the unlockables that Road To Wrestlemania X8 had. I know some will argue that the unlockables were just picture, but at least it still gave you something to unlock. There is nothing like that here.
Season mode has been expanded a little. You need to pick whether you want to wrestle on RAW or Smackdown and try and win the titles, and once you have one, a brand titles you move onto the next brand. If I have made this sound boring that is because it is. Since they took away pay-per-view mode and all the unlockables away, they could have at least gave us a very in depth season mode.
Final Thoughts
WWE Survivor Series is a very lazy game. I was full of praise for the developers Natsume when I reviewed Road To Wrestlemania X8, but here it is almost like THQ called them up and asked why they had not made a WWE game for the Game Boy Advance in two years, and they just threw this together using the previous game engine as quickly as possible. It is not a bad game at all, and the core game play is still fun, but you in no way should pick this up over Road To Wrestlemania X8.
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