I'm so angry at this game I barely want to review it. But I must suffer so my fellow coop gamers don't have to.
The thing is, the core game is good. It's better than 2009. $60 better? No. But it's a pretty solid wrestling game and if you are a fan of the WWE there is plenty to like. From the incredible graphics, to the official theme music, to the very impressive array of individual details provided to each wrestler... it's quite a solid package. Unless you bought it for the coop, you poor fool.
I went over this in my notes in the second post. But let me just reiterate what needs to be said.
The 2009 version started what looked to be a promising trend. There was an actual coop storyline in the "Road to Wrestlemania", which is more or less the equivalent of a "story mode". It's pretty bare bones as far as story, but the point is that it gives you a sense of progression and achievement. It was pretty fun playing with a friend.
When it would let you. The "coop" mode was littered with single player matches, free for alls, and basically lots that wasn't coop at all.
The 2010 version is even
worse. I actually wrote down the match types as we played through it. There are around 20 matches and only around 4 of them are tag team matches with your "coop" partner. There are a few more instances where you can both play at the same time, but they are adversarial (Battle Royal, Triple Threat, etc). The point is, the "coop" only has you playing cooperatively about 20% of the time. The majority of the time, one of you will be sitting on your hands doing two things: Watching your partner get gangbanged and cursing the game for not letting you join in and help.
You can still play exhibition games with a great deal of customization (tag, tornado, elimination, etc). But of course it just isn't the same as a progressive story.
Another thing I mentioned in the second post - you can't have coed teams. If you play an exhibition tag-team match and one person choses a female ("Diva"), all of the sudden all males ("Superstars") are greyed out for the other player. You can't even mix custom created m/f wrestlers.
On the single-player scale I give the game a 7.75. There are minor improvements to the core game that make it worth a look for 2009 owners. On the coop scale I also give it a 7.75. I really want to penalize them for messing up coop mode so bad, but there's still the exhibition mode and it can still be pretty fun to play with a friend that way.
I hate to say it, but honestly I wish they would just scrap the coop mode if they are going to make it this depressingly flawed.
PS> On a side note, the Santino "air trumpet" taunt is possibly the best thing I've seen in a game all year.
