Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
When I found out I was getting the opportunity to review Total Extreme Wrestling 2007, the latest professional wrestling simulator by Adam Ryland, I was ecstatic. The Extreme Warfare Series (now the Total Extreme Wrestling series) has been a mainstay on my computer since Extreme Warfare 9000. Needlessly to see my expectations going into this were high, but, if anyone could meet them it would be Ryland and his team at Grey Dog Software.
Total Extreme Wrestling 2007 puts you in the booker chair of one of 29 wrestling promotions from around the world. The world may be fictitious but it is absolutely huge with so many details you begin to feel like its real. Every company has a back story with title histories and a preexisting roster of workers. Many of these companies resemble those in the real world and it doesn’t take much to see the striking similarities. For those of you who don’t want to play a game with fake workers and companies, Grey Dog included a file editor so you can create your own database of companies and workers. The file editor comes with a conversion tool to convert custom rosters from the last edition of TEW. The strong community that supports this game make third party creations of the real world readily available so you won’t have any time heading up TNA, ROH, WWE, or even CZW (among many others).
When entering into the game for the first time you need to create your personality in the game world. First you give your character a name, their age, nationality, where they work out of, set their wrestling style, their style, status, and even abilities. Your character is totally customizable, so you could design an active wrestler who is the top of the pack or go with a retired worker who never even made it but has a mind for the business. This degree of depth is representative of this game as a whole, you can customize pretty much anything you want and make the game be the way you want it.
There are two specific game modes (it should be noted I only played the single player portion of the game but the game does allow for up to 4 players) available; Straight Edge and Free Style. Under Straight Edge rules you become the booker for the company you select and are assigned goals by the respective owner. Later in this version of the game you can open your own company and have total control over every aspect of it. But when you start out you have limited control over the direction and style of the company. Over time you can begin to shift how the promotion works and up the levels of violence and styles that are promoted (Hardcore, Puroresu, Lucha Libre, and MMA to name a few).
In my first experience I chose a Canadian (Maritimes) based company called “North of the Border Pro Wrestling†(NOTBPW). NOTBPW reminded me a lot of Stampede Wrestling in that it was owned by a family of workers all of whom are an integral part of the promotion. In order to understand the promotion I went to the roster and began to see what each worker’s skills were like. The skills are rated in a letter grade format as opposed to the number system the series has employed in the past. Understanding what style each worker is best suited for is an important part of the game as some companies are based on the interactions in the ring and the best way to score high results is mixing the styles properly. Everyone has ratings in pretty much every category you could imagine from rumbling, to microphone work, and even their personal booking skill, so you get a pretty good idea of what each worker is about. Also it is stunning to see that every character has a specifically designed image corresponding to them and a back story. This small detail adds levels to the immersion of the game.
The interface of the game is simple but effective. I never felt lost when I was learning the menus as every icon has a written description displayed when it is hovered over. After a small learning curve I was bouncing between menus and managing my company in no time. I must give credit to Grey Dog Software as making an aesthetically pleasing simulator is no easy challenge but they rose to the occasion here.
Now let’s get to the meet and bones, the actual booking of storylines and events. Like previous editions of the series the growth of your company is based on the success of storylines you book for your wrestlers. The type of storyline you choose is imperative to your success as some storylines are driven by angles rather than matches and some companies’ fans only want to see wrestling. So in my case I found booking unchained storylines were the best choice as the crowd loved the matches my workers put on and it developed the storyline and built momentum for the workers. If you choose to use a non unchained storyline then you will be given a list of things you must accomplish in a certain order to advance the storyline. Things must be booked precisely or else you won’t advance the story. This is actually one of my biggest gripes. Sometimes you have to book a specific worker in the 1 slot and another in the 2. Even if you specify the right worker to go over, if you put them in the wrong slot the story will not advance. This is very annoying for a multitude of reasons and one that I hope gets addressed soon.
Once you get the hang of how to book a good feud (matching similarly styled workers etc) the game becomes a bit easier. The better the stories the better your company will do. Without good storylines you will not be able to drive long run growth of your fan base. Over time these things become second nature and the game speeds up. Though while on the topic of speed, I tested this game on a computer with 1 gig of ram clocked at over 600 MHz with a Pentium D (Dual Core) clocked at 3.6 GHZ and had some problems with loading times. While moving from day to day you should expect at least 5 to 10 seconds of loading time. This can add up as over the course of a month (in game) it takes on 5 minutes and that is with a top of the line machine. You can reduce loading times but it is at the cost of turning off some of the database options that make the game great (i.e. having companies in
When it comes to booking matches there are many different types available from a one on one Japanese Barbed Wire Rope match all the way to a mud wrestling type match. If you can think of it, odds are it is in this game. It is important to make note of what the crowd reacts well to because some audiences can not handle super intensive matches and only want classic wrestling. It may be fun to book death matches for the entire show but you will suffer as the crowd may not like it and your workers may get seriously injured. It is best to save that big gimmick bout as a pay off for a feud. Using the advanced booking option you can save the hassle of having to input each worker and just have them both added via the click of a button. You also can tell the road agent in charge of the match how you want it to go, whether it be an opener, an all out match, a way to bury a worker and ruin their heat, or even protect a weaker worker so the crowd doesn’t pick up on the flaws. This addition really adds to the realism of the overall game world.
One other gripe I found rather annoying would be the glaring omission of the option to save a filter search type. Often I search for a specific type of worker and would like to be able to search for that type every time without having to manually put in the data each time. It is not much to ask for the ability to save filter types and I would expect them to be added in a future patch or at least by next year’s version. However this is not a major problem as you begin to set up the filter pretty quick each time but still it would be better with that option.
As I got deeper into the game things became easier and I expect this will happen for most users. This is not a friendly game early on as it is easy to make mistakes that can drastically harm the bottom line of your company. But after dedicating yourself you will soon find a thoroughly satisfying game. For all of you arm chair bookers who think they can be Vince McMahon or Vince Russo, I can whole heartedly say this game will ask you to put your money where your mouth is and provide pretty entertaining results.
Final Scores
Presentation – 8.0
- Simple interface, easy to navigate
- Nice to see images included
- It is a simulator though so it is naturally limited
Depth – 10.0
- The shear magnitude of game here is unparalleled
- With 29 unique promotions you have endless days of gaming
- The file editing system allows for databases of real workers to be included expanding depth
Gameplay – 9.0
- There are plenty of things to do here
- High number of gimmicks, match types, storylines
- This game immerses you very well by providing levels of detail I would not have expected
Learning Curve – Relatively Steep
- This game is not for the light hearted
- It can be difficult learning what moves are right and what won’t hurt the company
- Your first time through won’t be easy but will make future installments much better
- There is a lot to manage here and being able to do it well will take time
- So in the end the more you play the better the game gets
Final Say
If you have played any of the previous Extreme Warfare/TEW games before and enjoyed them then this game probably is right for you. I am a huge fan of Adam Ryland’s work and effort put into this series. I have been lucky enough to watch the evolution of this series since the days it was written in Pascal and I was handling in e-feds during the glory days of EWN. This game is a step up in difficulty but the rewards from playing and becoming better are very high.
For those of you who have never played this franchise before I recommend downloading the trial of this game (or last years) at http://www.greydogsoftware.com/ and seeing how you like it. If you are a wrestling fan and enjoy games like Baseball Mogul, Championship Manager, Eastside Hockey Manager or any other sports simulator you will like this game.
While there are some minor options missing and occasional slow downs, I would expect these kinks to get worked out over the next few months as the copy I reviewed was a late beta version sent to us by Grey Dog Software. Additions like saving filters would only improve the game but the lack of these options do not by any means ruin the game.
No matter who you are it takes some time (probably at least 10 to 20 hours) to really get a good feel for this game and be able to book faster and experience this in its full potential. Ryland and Grey Dog Software nailed this game but it will take time to truly feel it. Unless you are already experienced in these games you will struggle but with effort comes a great game and easily the best commercially available Sports Simulator (not just wrestling) I have ever played and can easily see myself playing this game for the next 3 years just like I did with my copy (and still do) of Extreme Warfare Revenge and that is a very high compliment.
Overall – 9.0 (Not an Average of Scores)
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
