WWE Day of Reckoning (Game Cube, 2004)

WWE Day of Reckoning on Gamecube is everything that it's predecessor, Wrestlemania XIX could have been. With that said, does it make Day of Reckoning a great game? No, although to be fair, it Is the best wrestling game so far on the 'Cube. Let's get to the basics...

Create-A-Wrestler - My personal favorite part of wrestling games is the CAW mode. WM XIX had one of the crappiest CAWs that I'd ever seen. Thankfully, DOR makes improvements by leaps and bounds in this department. You get about 10 character models for a male or female and you can change any of their features from make-up, to body type, to their ring attire. You can also customize their ring entrance with pyro, lights and some cool new ring tunes. It's easily the best one on the Gamecube so far. So for that, DOR CAW gets a definite thumbs up from me.

Gameplay - Okay, here's my biggest gripe with DOR: It plays almost exactly the same as it did with Wrestlemania XIX, with few changes. I'm tired of the same old, same old way of wrestling that the Gamecube has been offering for years. I want something fresh and new. While the basic mechanics of the game remain the same, they have expanded upon the location-specific damage that they implemented in WM XIX. They've taken a page out of PS2's book and put a little figure next to each wrestler's health bar that indicates what body part you're attacking and how injured said body part is. Not enough has been changed since it's last installment, so DOR Gameplay gets a thumbs down.

Graphics - Okay, so the Gameplay sucks, well what about the graphics? Thankfully, what the makers of the game neglected in Gameplay, they more that made up for with prettying up the game. I'd sat that they're probably on par or better than those of Here Comes the Pain on PS2. Yep, they're THAT good. Thumbs way up for graphics.

Story Mode - With the utter crappiness of WM XIX's story mode, anything other than a MAJOR overhaul of story mode would have to be viewed as a total failure of DOR. Nobody wants to wrestle security guards in malls and abandoned construction sites. People want to make their way up in the WWE, winning titles and kicking butt along the way. This is what DOR gives us. You start out at the very bottom, having to work your way up from WWE Developmental, to WWE Sunday Night Heat, (Jish Note: It was a SURREAL experience!!!) to the big time of either Raw or Smackdown, depending on which one you choose. The downsides? Well, you can only play through story mode with a created wrestler, and you don't really have any control over what your character does (Unlike in Shut Your Mouth and Here Comes the Pain on PS2) which pisses me off to no end. My character joined Undertaker's New Ministry without it so much as asking me if that's what I wanted to do. The addition of the story mode is a major improvement, but the total linear-ness of it earns a thumbs-in-the-middle for the Jish-meister.

Misc. Stuff:

-Several new moves have been added to the game such as Eddie Guerrero's Three Amigos, to John Cena's Throwback, to Mark Jindrak's Mark of Excellence. Nice attention to detail there.

After you beet the story mode create a few wrestlers and try out all match types it will last you about a year and you will save up for a playstation for smackdown or go back to no mercy on the n64.
The game play may have been appealing to first time owners of a wwe game but otherwise it just doesn't cut it with your only new match option being bra&panties when there is only four divas on the game.

The sound in the game was simply ok it would have been much better if there was voice over, ring announcers or at least a better soundtrack that you could actually toggle with. Some sound when you woo flair.

The graphics of the wrestlers from the roster are done very well in this game but the create a wrestlers just looked very odd and the crowd is still 2d.

The presentation was done well, for the game looked like something you would love to play but looks can be deceiving.

This is just another false advertised rebirth of no mercy.
*The game is an obviously improved from the other games on gamecube because they where just garbage.
*The music is bad and there are no voice over in this game.
*There are not any new match types except for bra&panties which includes like four divas.
*The weapons are tiny for some reason in this game.
*You can't have more than four wrestlers in a match which is just sad.
* The steel cage match is horrible you can't even smash your opponents head into the cage.
*You can only bleed from your head.
* There is no in crowd action and the only stage you can climb on is survivor series ambulance
*The animation is stiff and the speeds of things like punches are just messed up.
*You can't edit a wrestler’s look and the wrestler only has one.
*The caws look so odd compared to the regular roster plus a height meter would help
* The roster is small and has wrestlers
All in all this game from the creatures of no mercy and the smackdown vs. raw game is like they kind of just gave the middle figure to Nintendo and there wrestling game owners.